Wave

Wave is a native macOS dictation app that turns your voice into text—instantly, privately, your choice. Built by a developer who clearly got tired of every "AI" tool requiring an account, a subscription, and your firstborn, Wave runs completely on-device with local Whisper. No cloud. No accounts. No friction. Just press Right Option, speak, release, and your words appear at the cursor. Works offline. Works in any text field. No launcher, no mode switching, no nonsense.

Here's where it gets interesting: Wave doesn't just transcribe. It has an AI Mode that takes your rough intent and turns it into polished text. Say "Write an email to apply for leave tomorrow, doctor appointment in the morning" and Wave outputs "Hi Sarah, I'd like to take tomorrow off for a doctor appointment. I'll wrap up anything urgent before I leave today." It also has Selection Mode—highlight any text, hold the shortcut, say "fix grammar" or "make shorter," and Wave rewrites it in place. In emails, Slack, code comments, everywhere.

The choice is yours: local Whisper for complete privacy or Groq for ultra-fast transcription when speed matters. It's open source, available on GitHub, and it's the kind of tool that makes you realize typing has always been the bottleneck. Wave is for macOS users who want voice-to-text that actually works and doesn't sell their data to do it.