Using On-Device Dictation

Why On-Device

The system keyboard's mic button — the one Apple shows next to the spacebar — uses standard iOS dictation, which has historically had server-side and learning components. For most people that's fine. For a security-focused vault, it isn't.

UltraLocked's mic button (in the editor's formatting toolbar) routes audio through Apple's Speech framework with requiresOnDeviceRecognition = true. Audio buffers and transcribed text never leave the device. We've verified this with airplane-mode testing and network proxy capture during active sessions.

Using Dictation

1. Open a note (tap any existing note, or create a new one via the Vault tab's floating +).
2. In the formatting toolbar, tap the microphone icon (right side, next to the Aa preferences icon).
3. The first time you use it, iOS prompts for Microphone and Speech Recognition permissions. Both are required.
4. Once permissions are granted, you'll see "I'm listening" and a live preview of your transcribed text as you speak.
5. When you're done, tap Insert Text. The transcription is inserted at the current cursor position in your note, picking up the editor's current font and color.
6. Tap Cancel (the X) to discard without inserting.

When Dictation Is Unavailable

Some locales don't support on-device recognition on every device. When that's the case, the dictation sheet shows "Dictation unavailable" with a clear explanation. It will not silently fall back to cloud-based transcription — that's a deliberate choice to preserve the on-device privacy guarantee.

If your locale isn't supported, you have a few options:

• Switch your iOS region or keyboard language temporarily (tap the globe icon on the keyboard) to one with on-device support.
• Type instead.
• Wait for Apple to expand on-device locale coverage; the architecture supports new locales as Apple ships them.

What's Logged

Nothing about the audio or transcription is logged. We don't write transcribed text to Console.app, sysdiagnose, or any other system log. The state changes (started / stopped / errored) are logged at a coarse level for debugging, but the content is never recorded anywhere.

Audio Buffers

After each transcription ends, audio buffers are zeroed via the secure-memory utility before being released. The audio engine is fully torn down, the audio session is deactivated, and any cached recognizer state is dropped. There's no replay or audit trail.