Your iPhone already turns speech into text. Tap the microphone on the keyboard and it works in almost any app, in many languages, with no internet connection. So the question is not whether you can dictate on an iPhone, it is whether the built-in tool is good enough for the writing you actually do on your phone, and what to install when it is not. This is a ranked shortlist for 2026: the free tools first, then four paid keyboards graded on one real reason each.
The short answer: start with built-in iPhone Dictation, which is free, on-device, and fine for texts and quick notes. If you want a free step up, Google's offline Eloquent app removes filler words at no cost. For real work, Aqua Voice is the best speech to text app for iPhone, for accuracy on hard words and editing by voice; Superwhisper is best for fully offline use.
First, the free speech to text your iPhone already has
Apple calls it Dictation, and on a current iPhone it is better than most people remember. According to Apple's iPhone User Guide for iOS 27, Dictation is processed on the phone in many languages and needs no internet connection, the keyboard stays open while you dictate so you can mix typing and talking, and in supported languages it adds commas, periods, and question marks on its own.
To turn it on, open Settings, tap General, then Keyboard, and switch on Enable Dictation. From then on, tap into any text field, tap the microphone on the keyboard, and talk. Tap the microphone again or say "Stop dictation" to finish; it also stops by itself after 30 seconds of silence.
While you dictate, you can:
- Say the name of a punctuation mark ("exclamation point", "open parenthesis") or say "new line" and "new paragraph".
- Spell a word out: "Let's invite Steven S-T-E-P-H-E-N."
- Correct a word: "Change tea to T-E-E."
- Edit by voice with "select", "delete", "insert ... before ...", "undo", and "redo". Apple notes these editing commands work in U.S. English on iPhone 12 and later, except iPhone SE.
- Add an emoji by name: "heart emoji".
Two things are new this year. With Apple Intelligence on iOS 27, Dictation uses an on-device model to improve spelling, punctuation, and capitalization, but Apple limits that to English on iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, iPhone Air, or later. And if your real job is transcribing a recording rather than typing by voice, the Voice Memos app now shows a transcript of what it records (iPhone 12 or later, in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, German, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese), which you can copy out with one tap.
Dictation is the right place to start. If it keeps up with you, you do not need anything below.
The free step up: Google's offline dictation app
Google quietly released Google AI Edge Eloquent for iPhone in April 2026, and it is worth knowing about before you pay for anything. Per Google's App Store listing, it runs entirely on the device using its Gemma on-device models, costs nothing with no usage limits, works offline, automatically cuts the "ums", "uhs", and mid-sentence self-corrections out of your speech, keeps an editable personal dictionary, and supports 15 languages.
The catch is how you use it. At the time of writing it is a standalone app rather than a keyboard (Google's listing says a keyboard is "coming soon"), so you dictate inside Eloquent and then copy the text into Messages, Mail, or wherever it needs to go. That is fine for drafting a long note on a walk and awkward for replying to a text. If free and offline are your only requirements and you do not mind the copy step, this is the honest answer, and it is a sign of where the whole category is heading.
What separates a good iPhone dictation app
Four things decide it on a phone. Pick the app that wins on the one you care about.
- Accuracy on names, jargon, and the words you actually use. Everyday sentences are a solved problem. The gap opens on product names, technical terms, and anything the general model has never heard. A tuned model plus a dictionary you can teach is what closes it.
- Fixing mistakes without the cursor. Selecting and correcting text on a phone is the worst part of phone writing. An app that lets you fix or rewrite what you said by voice removes it.
- Where the audio goes. On-device (offline, private, no connection needed) versus cloud (heavier cleanup, needs a connection) is a real trade. Decide which side you are on before you pick.
- The keyboard question. The best apps install as an iPhone keyboard, so the microphone is right there in any app that allows third-party keyboards. A standalone app means copying and pasting. Note that iOS uses its own keyboard in secure fields such as password boxes no matter what you install.
1. Aqua Voice, best overall
We build Aqua Voice, so read this as informed rather than neutral, and judge the checkable claims for yourself.
Aqua installs as a keyboard. Open any app that allows third-party keyboards (Messages, Mail, Slack, ChatGPT, Notes, your browser), switch to the Aqua keyboard, tap the microphone, and talk. Text starts appearing in under 50 milliseconds, with the final words landing in about 450 milliseconds, and you can speak at up to 230 words per minute.
It runs on our own speech model, Avalon, rather than a general build. At its debut on the OpenASR leaderboard in October 2025, Avalon ranked as the top proprietary model (it now sits sixth overall as newer open models have landed). On the AISpeak benchmark Aqua reports 97.3% accuracy, a self-reported figure, so weigh it as one data point. The outside read is 9to5Mac, which ran the same passage through Apple's dictation and Aqua and counted 17 errors against 1 (that test was run on Macs), and then reviewed the iPhone app in April 2026 under a headline calling Aqua the best dictation app its reviewer had ever used.
The reason it is first on a phone, though, is editing. Select text, tap Edit, and say what should change: "remove the filler words, this is a Slack message", "make this title case", "spell Toni, T-O-N-I", "translate this to Japanese". That one feature removes the cursor-dragging that makes writing on a phone miserable. A custom dictionary learns your names and terms, and it syncs with the Mac and Windows apps, so the setup you build on your laptop follows you to your phone and to your Android phone. Aqua supports 49 languages with an auto-detect option, and it is SOC 2 Type II compliant, with GDPR and HIPAA compliance for teams that need it.
Pricing is free for your first 1,000 words with no card required, then $8/mo billed annually, or $10 month-to-month, on the web (App Store billing may differ). One subscription covers iPhone, Mac, Windows, and Android. The iPhone page walks through the five-step setup, and the guide covers the rest.
The honest limits: Aqua transcribes in the cloud, so it needs a connection, and if your rule is that audio never leaves the phone, Superwhisper below is the better fit. Its 49 languages are fewer than the 100-plus some rivals list, and the free tier is a one-time 1,000 words rather than an allowance that resets, so it is a trial, not a free plan.
2. Superwhisper, best for offline and on-device dictation
Superwhisper is the pick when your voice should never leave your phone. The vendor states that its on-device models work without cell service or Wi-Fi and that your audio stays on the phone, and its App Store listing says recordings and transcripts stay on the device. You hold to record and release to paste, and it formats the result to fit the app you are in, with custom modes you define once (a casual one for messages, a formal one for client email). It lists 100-plus languages with automatic detection and optional translation to English, and a bring-your-own-key option routes any AI formatting through providers you already use.
The trade-offs are the ones that come with local processing: accuracy depends on the model and the phone running it, the record-then-paste flow is a different rhythm from live text, and the iPhone app arrived after the Mac app it is known for. At the time of writing, there is a free tier, and Pro is about $8.49 a month, $84.99 a year, or $249.99 for a lifetime license through the App Store, which is the draw if you would rather pay once. If offline is your line in the sand, start here. Our Aqua vs Superwhisper page covers the head-to-head.
3. Typeless, best for heavy automatic cleanup
Typeless is for people who ramble and want the app to do the editing. Its own description is explicit about the job: it removes filler words and repetition, auto-edits when you change your mind mid-sentence, and auto-formats spoken lists and steps into structured text, in real time, inside an iPhone keyboard. It lists 100-plus languages, including mixing them in one dictation, and runs on Mac, Windows, Linux, iPhone, and Android. On privacy, the vendor says it keeps zero cloud data retention and never trains on your data; those are its statements, so check them against the policy if that matters to you.
The trade is control and price. Heavy automatic rewriting is great when it guesses right and annoying when you wanted your exact words, and at the time of writing Pro is $12 a month billed yearly ($144 a year) or $30 month-to-month. There is a free plan with a recurring weekly word allowance, which is more generous than Aqua's one-time 1,000 words; the number has changed this year, so check the pricing page for the current figure. Our Aqua vs Typeless page has the detailed pricing comparison.
4. Wispr Flow, best polished cloud dictation with a weekly free allowance
Wispr Flow is the most polished mainstream cloud option. It is an iPhone keyboard that works in every app, runs a cleanup pass so the output reads ready to send, keeps a personal dictionary, and lists 100-plus languages. It also runs on Mac, Windows, and Android. Its free plan is a recurring allowance rather than a one-time trial: 1,000 words a week on mobile and 2,000 a week on desktop at the time of writing, which makes it the easy pick for a light user who never wants to pay.
The catch is price past the free tier and the cloud trade. Pro is $12 per user a month billed annually or $15 month-to-month at the time of writing, with no lifetime license, and because it is cloud-based it needs a connection and processes your audio on its servers. Its underlying speech stack is not publicly disclosed, so we describe it by what it does, not what model it uses. One more note before you pay for a year: opinions among long-time users on X are mixed, with a recurring complaint that the product feels great during the trial and worse once locked into an annual plan. Those are user reports rather than something we can measure, and plenty of people are happy with it, but they are a good reason to stay monthly for a while before committing. Our Aqua vs Wispr Flow page covers the comparison.
Which dictation app for iPhone should you pick?
- Texts, quick notes, and replies: built-in Dictation. It is free, on-device, and already on your phone.
- Free, offline, and you do not mind copy and paste: Google AI Edge Eloquent.
- Best all-round, with editing by voice: Aqua Voice.
- Audio must never leave the phone: Superwhisper.
- You ramble and want the app to do the editing: Typeless.
- Light use on a free plan that resets weekly: Wispr Flow.
- Transcribing recordings and meetings: the Voice Memos transcript on iPhone 12 or later, or a meeting tool like Otter.ai. That is a different job from typing by voice.
If you also write on a computer, pick the app that runs there too, so your dictionary and settings move with you. Our cross-platform roundup of the best dictation software and the Mac-specific list of the best AI dictation apps for Mac cover the desktop side, and how to use dictation on a Mac does for Apple's built-in tool the same thing this post does for iPhone.
Frequently asked questions
Does iPhone have built-in speech to text? Yes. Apple calls it Dictation. Turn it on in Settings under General, then Keyboard, then tap the microphone on the keyboard in any text field. On iOS 27 it is processed on the phone in many languages, works without an internet connection, adds punctuation automatically in supported languages, and accepts voice commands for punctuation, formatting, and simple edits.
What is the best speech to text app for iPhone? For most people it is Aqua Voice, because of its accuracy on names and technical terms and the ability to fix or rewrite what you said by voice instead of dragging the cursor. Superwhisper is the best fully offline choice, Typeless does the heaviest automatic cleanup, and Wispr Flow has the most generous recurring free allowance. Try built-in Dictation first; it is free and may be all you need.
Is there a free speech to text app for iPhone? Several. Built-in iPhone Dictation is free and on-device. Google AI Edge Eloquent is a free, offline app with no usage limits, though it is a standalone app rather than a keyboard at the time of writing. Wispr Flow and Typeless offer free plans with a weekly word allowance, and Aqua Voice includes 1,000 free words with no card required.
Why does my iPhone dictation stop on its own? By design, Dictation ends after 30 seconds of silence, per Apple's iPhone User Guide, so a long thinking pause closes the session and you tap the microphone to start again. If Dictation is not working at all, check that Enable Dictation is on in Settings, General, Keyboard, and that the language you are speaking matches your active keyboard.
