Hold Option.
Talk. It types.
Dictation for Mac that runs entirely on your own machine. It learns the names and words you actually say, so the second time is right. Nothing you say is uploaded, ever.
It gets your words right
Ums and false starts gone, punctuation placed, a long unbroken thought given the full stops you meant, and a list made into a list when you count it out.
Say a name it does not know and fix it once: it is remembered, and it is spelled your way from then on. When a name from your contacts lands in a sentence where it does not belong, Chalant listens a second time, on its own, and learns to keep it out. Every other dictation app makes you type that correction into a settings screen, or sends your voice to a subscription to fix it. This one does neither, because it cannot: there is no account, no key, and nothing leaves the Mac. An ordinary English word it simply misheard is a word it will not overrule, on purpose: a machine quietly rewriting real words is the failure this whole design exists to avoid.
And an island, when you want one
The same app keeps a small island at the notch. Talk to it or type at it: calendar, focus, music, windows, files.
Or none of it: choose just dictation the first time Chalant opens and the island never appears, leaving only the strip that shows while you talk. One app, two faces, and the verbs run on this Mac too, keyless and instant.
- cancel my 3pm
- Calendar and reminders: made, moved, cancelled, undone. By voice.
- focus 25
- Pomodoro with streaks and a daily goal in the glance. Noise stays your call.
- left half
- Windows snap where you say. No chrome, no clicking.
- summarize my screen
- The front window, read on this Mac and answered in one breath. Nothing leaves.
- find parcel
- Notes, clips, files, your day: whatever landed on the island can be found on it.
- play some rain
- Any music player in one island, with soundscapes that live beside it.
- text sam: on my way
- Read back first, sent as an iMessage only when you say send.
- curl localhost:4242
- Anything on your Mac can raise a status pill: builds, deploys, agents. Loopback only.
The tour
What it asks of you
Chalant is signed with a Developer ID certificate and notarized by
Apple, so it opens the way any Mac app opens. Homebrew works too:
brew install --cask chetanjon/chalant/chalant.
From then on the island mentions a new version once and one click
installs it in place. The
source is public,
speech recognition uses Apple standard dictation, and the verbs are
answered on this Mac. Chalant reaches the internet for four small things
only: whether a newer version exists, the update itself when you say yes,
album art and favicons for what you play and save, and, while the weather
line is on, your location rounded to about a kilometre. Everything can be
switched off.