Press-to-dictate
Hold Right ⌥. Speak. Release. Words land at the cursor — Slack, ChatGPT, Cursor, anywhere.
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00:42:18
100% 14:23 Notes — Q2 Planning · Today 14:23
Q2 Planning — Onboarding redesign
14 May 2026 · 38 min · Miguel, Sarah, Tomás
Summary
Agreed to cut onboarding from five screens to two. Sarah drafts the new flow; Tomás instruments drop-off in the existing version.
Decisions
- Five screens down to two. Ship by June 1.
- API-key entry moves into Settings.
Action items
- Sarah · onboarding flow draft · Wed 21 May
- Tomás · drop-off instrumentation · Fri 23 May
Recording · ⌃ ⌘ R to stop
Private beta · macOS 13+
Hold a key. Speak. Done.
Press-to-dictate into any Mac app. Capture a meeting. Or drop in audio from your iPhone — and get a structured note in Apple Notes.
Free during private beta · No subscription · No account · macOS 13+ · Apple Silicon recommended
Three modes
Dictate. Capture. Or drop it in.
Meeting capture
Press ⌃⌘R. Record a call. Get a structured note in Apple Notes — decisions, actions, risks.
Drop in audio
Voice Memos, AirDrops, WhatsApp voice notes — any audio file. Drag it onto Alder and get a transcript and summary in Apple Notes, in the language it was spoken.
What lands in Notes
A note you can scan in a minute.
Decisions. Action items with owner and due date. The thing you’ll forget by Friday.
Q2 Planning — Onboarding redesign
Attendees: Miguel, Sarah, Tomás · Duration 38 min · Recorded on MacBook Pro
Summary
Agreed to cut the onboarding from five screens to two. Sarah will draft the new flow; Tomás to instrument drop-off in the existing version so we can measure the impact.
Decisions
- Cut onboarding from five screens to two.
- Move API-key entry into Settings, not onboarding.
- Defer team-plan UI to v1.1; not on the critical path.
Action items
- Sarah · draft new onboarding flow · Wed 21 May
- Tomás · drop-off instrumentation · Fri 23 May
- Miguel · update landing copy · Tue 20 May
Open questions
- Do we still need the welcome video, or does the new flow stand alone?
- How do we surface the global hotkey discoverably without a tour?
Risks
Cutting screens may leave the permissions prompt without context. Mitigation: inline copy next to the system dialog when it appears.
The trust boundary
We don’t see your audio. We don’t see your transcripts. There’s no server to leak.
Stage 1
Recording
On your Mac
Core Audio captures straight to disk. Nothing is streamed anywhere.
Stage 2
Transcription
On your Mac
whisper.cpp with Metal acceleration. Same models, no cloud.
Stage 3
Summary
Optional · your API key
Only the transcript is sent — directly to Anthropic, only if you turn it on.
Features
Small. Native. Local.
Swift and Core Audio. Not Electron.
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Dictate anywhere
Hold a key. Words land at the cursor in any app.
-
Smart cleanup
Optional Haiku pass — punctuation, capitals, no “ums”.
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Vocabulary profiles
Engineering, medical, finance, or your own.
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On-device
whisper.cpp with Metal. Audio never leaves your Mac.
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Apple Notes output
Decisions, action items, risks. Not a wall of bullets.
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iPhone audio, in
Drop Voice Memos, AirDrops, WhatsApp notes — any audio file.
The name
Why Alder.
Alder trees grow on riverbanks. Not the tallest trees, not the ones people photograph — but they quietly hold the soil together so everything else doesn’t collapse downstream. The app does the same with conversations.
Steady. Local. Quiet.
The full storyAny Mac app or web input — Slack, ChatGPT, Cursor, Linear, Gmail, your terminal. Alder types at the cursor as if you typed it. Password fields are skipped.
No. Recording and transcription run locally via whisper.cpp. If you enable summaries or cleanup, only the transcript text goes to Anthropic — using your own API key, never ours.
Yes. Drag any audio file onto Alder — Voice Memos (synced via iCloud), AirDropped recordings, WhatsApp or Telegram voice notes, .m4a, .mp3, .wav, .mp4. Alder auto-detects the language, transcribes locally, and writes a structured summary to Apple Notes.
Free during the private beta. We’ll announce the public-release price before charging anyone — and the beta build stays free for everyone on the launch list.
Dictation cleanup ≈ US$0.0001 per phrase. A 45-min meeting summary ≈ US$0.003–0.01. You pick the model.
Pricing
Free during private beta.
No obligation. Your only ongoing cost is whatever you spend on Claude — if you turn it on.
Alder by MPuig · Beta
Free during private beta
We’ll announce the public-release price before charging anyone.
What you get
- macOS 13+ universal binary
- All beta updates
- Bring your own Anthropic API key
- Apple Notes integration
And what’s not
- · No subscription
- · No account
- · No telemetry
- · No lock-in