https://bellow.dev/blog/ Notes from building Bellow, a push-to-talk dictation app for Mac that runs entirely on your machine. en https://bellow.dev/blog/no-updater-no-telemetry https://bellow.dev/blog/no-updater-no-telemetry An app that never contacts a server cannot check for updates or measure its own usage. Both are real losses. Why we took them, and what we do instead. Wed, 19 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://bellow.dev/blog/dictating-code-and-technical-terms https://bellow.dev/blog/dictating-code-and-technical-terms Speech models are trained on speech, not source code. What that means in practice for developers, where dictation genuinely helps, and where it wastes your time. Tue, 18 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://bellow.dev/blog/choosing-your-push-to-talk-key-on-macos https://bellow.dev/blog/choosing-your-push-to-talk-key-on-macos Fn, Command, Option: each has a different failure mode as a hold-to-talk trigger. What goes wrong with each, and how to pick one that works on your keyboard. Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://bellow.dev/blog/encrypted-transcript-history https://bellow.dev/blog/encrypted-transcript-history Bellow encrypts your dictation history with AES-GCM and a device-only Keychain key. Here is the threat model that justifies, and the ones it does not. Sun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://bellow.dev/blog/dictate-on-mac-without-the-cloud https://bellow.dev/blog/dictate-on-mac-without-the-cloud A practical guide to fully local dictation on macOS: what the built-in option does, what the trade-offs are, and how to confirm nothing is being transmitted. Sat, 15 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://bellow.dev/blog/mac-dictation-not-working-checklist https://bellow.dev/blog/mac-dictation-not-working-checklist Dictation silently doing nothing on macOS is almost always one of six things. A checklist in the order that finds the cause fastest, with the exact commands to check each one. Fri, 14 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://bellow.dev/blog/first-launch-is-slow-and-thats-the-neural-engine https://bellow.dev/blog/first-launch-is-slow-and-thats-the-neural-engine A one-minute wait on first run, then near-instant forever. What Apple's Neural Engine is compiling during that pause, and why we now show it happening. Thu, 13 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://bellow.dev/blog/what-on-device-actually-means https://bellow.dev/blog/what-on-device-actually-means Plenty of apps say on-device. Some mean it. Here are four ways to verify the claim yourself on macOS, in order of how hard they are to fake. Tue, 11 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://bellow.dev/blog/why-bellow-is-not-on-the-mac-app-store https://bellow.dev/blog/why-bellow-is-not-on-the-mac-app-store Push-to-talk dictation needs a global hotkey, and a global hotkey needs an API the App Store sandbox forbids. The honest explanation, and what we do instead. Sat, 08 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://bellow.dev/blog/we-shipped-a-feature-that-destroyed-transcripts https://bellow.dev/blog/we-shipped-a-feature-that-destroyed-transcripts Bellow's dictionary feature made transcription worse, not better. Here is how we measured it, why the guard we reasoned about was worthless, and what we do differently now. Wed, 05 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000