Dictate in any app · Design
Freeform is an infinite canvas, and canvases fill with shapes that mean nothing later. Hold a key and talk: Typally transcribes and types it into Apple Freeform without you touching the keyboard.
We make Typally, so treat this as a vendor's guide. Where Apple Freeform has a built-in option we say so, including when it is the better choice.None of its own. macOS system dictation reaches its text boxes.
Whiteboarding is fast and visual, which is why the artifacts are useless a month later. The boxes and arrows made sense during the conversation and are uninterpretable afterwards.
In practice people use it for: Text boxes explaining a diagram, meeting whiteboards, planning notes, and the summary of what a board concluded.
Typally runs in the background and types into whatever window has focus, so there is nothing to install inside Apple Freeform:
Install, sign in, and it waits in the tray.
Put the cursor in the field you are about to fill — Apple Freeform decides where the text lands, not Typally.
Push to talk, say your piece, release to transcribe.
Clicking empty canvas can create a new object. Open a text box before dictating.
Typally types into Freeform's text boxes on macOS, so the summary that makes a board readable later gets written before everyone leaves. Open a text box first — clicking bare canvas creates a new object instead.
After a planning session someone adds a spoken summary box to the board. Reopening it six weeks later, the boxes and arrows are interpretable instead of being a puzzle.
Add one text box summarising what the board decided before you close it. Without it, the board is a picture of a conversation nobody can reconstruct.
Clicking empty canvas can create a new object. Open a text box before dictating.
No app-specific feature. macOS dictation reaches its text boxes.
Because the diagram made sense during the conversation and will not afterwards, to you or anyone else.
Through the on-screen keyboard's microphone. Typally itself is a Windows and macOS app.
There is a permanent free tier of 100 minutes a month. Pro costs $7.99/month and raises the limit.
Also dictate in: Miro · Milanote · Apple Notes · Sketch · Framer · see all apps