Push-to-talk dictation that inserts in place: hold fn, speak, release, and the text appears in the app your cursor is already in. Transcription runs locally with whisper.cpp + Metal, so your audio never leaves the Mac. An optional on-device cleanup pass strips filler words and fixes punctuation. Most dictation apps show you a recording dot or a generic soundwave. This one has hand-animated indicators. $10 once, no subscription. MIT source. macOS 14+, Apple silicon.
Yo,
I write code all day and wanted dictation that could keep up with the words developers actually use.
Hold fn, speak, release. The finished text appears in whatever app your cursor is already in — editor, terminal, Slack, a commit message. Transcription is local whisper.cpp with Metal, so your audio never leaves the Mac.
The part I spent far too long on: every dictation app shows you a recording dot or a soundwave, and you look at that thing several times an hour. So I drew proper animated ones instead. Two ship with the app; three more are $3 each and purely cosmetic — they change nothing but what you look at while you talk.
There's also an optional local cleanup pass: a small on-device LLM that strips filler words and fixes punctuation without changing your meaning. Off by default.
Honest limits — macOS 14+, Apple silicon only, English only, and the first launch downloads a ~1.5GB model.
$10 once, no subscription, 14-day trial with no card. The source is MIT at github.com/WillisLiao/Phantom-Voice, because "your audio stays local" isn't worth much if you have to take my word for it.
Solo developer, first paid app. I'd genuinely like the feedback — including the unflattering kind.
About Phantom Voice on Product Hunt
“Local push-to-talk dictation for Mac”
Phantom Voice launched on Product Hunt on July 30th, 2026 and earned 84 upvotes and 15 comments, placing #21 on the daily leaderboard. Push-to-talk dictation that inserts in place: hold fn, speak, release, and the text appears in the app your cursor is already in. Transcription runs locally with whisper.cpp + Metal, so your audio never leaves the Mac. An optional on-device cleanup pass strips filler words and fixes punctuation. Most dictation apps show you a recording dot or a generic soundwave. This one has hand-animated indicators. $10 once, no subscription. MIT source. macOS 14+, Apple silicon.
On the analytics side, Phantom Voice competes within Mac, Productivity, GitHub and Menu Bar Apps — topics that collectively have 815.1k followers on Product Hunt. The dashboard above tracks how Phantom Voice performed against the three products that launched closest to it on the same day.
Who hunted Phantom Voice?
Phantom Voice was hunted by Willis Liao. A “hunter” on Product Hunt is the community member who submits a product to the platform — uploading the images, the link, and tagging the makers behind it. Hunters typically write the first comment explaining why a product is worth attention, and their followers are notified the moment they post. Around 79% of featured launches on Product Hunt are self-hunted by their makers, but a well-known hunter still acts as a signal of quality to the rest of the community. See the full all-time top hunters leaderboard to discover who is shaping the Product Hunt ecosystem.
For a complete overview of Phantom Voice including community comment highlights and product details, visit the product overview.
Willis Liao