When you dictate for more than a few minutes, network round‑trips start to matter.
TL;DR
- Offline dictation removes upload time and handshake overhead.
- Windowed processing keeps “stop to insert text” latency bounded.
- In practice, consistency beats peak speed on perfect Wi‑Fi.
With Voice Type, audio never leaves your Mac. There’s no large file to upload or download. We transcribe continuously in ~30‑second windows, so when you stop, only the final window needs a fast pass to finish - typically ≈2–3 seconds on an M1 Mac.
Cloud tools can be great for teams, but they often need uncompressed audio for best accuracy. That means bigger payloads and variable latency on hotel or café Wi‑Fi.
Offline dictation keeps your words close to where they’re spoken - fast and consistent.
Try it: /blog/latency-demo · Related: /blog/long-sessions-windowing