Download
Your next sentence, typed by itself.
Open the file, drag Roar into Applications, hold a key, and the sentence you say is typed where your cursor is. Five steps, two of them Apple's.
Roar 0.52.0, 3 MB, notarized by Apple. macOS 14 or later, Apple silicon (M1 and newer). Five dictations to try, no card.
Not on an Apple silicon Mac. Leave an email and we will write once, when that changes. Nothing else.
Not on the Mac App Store. On purpose.
The sandbox blocks the mechanism that types into another app. That's why you're downloading a file, and why the permissions section exists.
First run
Five steps between this page and your first dictation.
Open the DMG and drag Roar to Applications. Open it from there.
Create an account with an email address and a password. That's all it asks for.
Allow the microphone. macOS asks. Roar needs it to hear you while you hold the key.
Allow Accessibility. macOS sends you to System Settings for this one. The next section explains exactly what it does.
Put your cursor in any text field, hold the Option key, say a sentence, release. A moment later it's typed.
Five steps, two of them Apple’s. Then your first sentence.
The permissions
What Accessibility permission actually lets Roar do, and what Roar does with it.
The System Settings pane says an app with this permission can control your computer. That's true of the permission and misleading about Roar.
What the permission is
A single switch that macOS uses for many kinds of assistive software. Screen readers, window managers, keyboard remappers and dictation tools all need it, so Apple describes it in the broadest terms it can.
What Roar uses it for
One thing. Typing the transcribed text into the field your cursor is in. Where an app does not accept direct typing, Roar pastes instead and puts your clipboard back the way it was.
What Roar never does with it
Roar never reads your screen, and never reads your keystrokes beyond the one trigger key you chose. There is no setting that could turn either on.
Accessibility
Allow the applications below to control your computer.
If you would rather not grant it at all, you do not have to. Copy-only mode puts the transcribed text on your clipboard and touches nothing else. You lose the part where the text appears by itself, and you keep everything else.
Grant it for one job. Revoke it in the same pane any time.
Requirements
What it needs.
- macOS 14 Sonoma or later
- Apple silicon (M1 or later). Intel Macs are not supported.
- An internet connection during dictation, because transcription happens on a server, not on your Mac
- A microphone. The built-in one is fine.
The trigger key
Option by default. You can choose one of four keys in Settings. Roar reads only that key.
After your fifth dictation
Roar asks you to subscribe. $12 a month, $30 a quarter or $96 a year, from inside the app, and you cancel from the same place. Until then nothing is charged and no card is asked for.
The file
Roar 0.52.0 for Mac. Your next sentence is one key away.
Trouble installing. Write to support@roarvoice.app. Ameya answers.
Mac, Apple silicon. Five dictations to try, no card.