Speak, and Speakline types it into the app you are already using.

A small bubble floats above whatever is on screen. Tap it, say your sentence, and clean punctuated text lands in the field that already had your cursor — the WhatsApp message you were writing, the email, the search box, the note.

Speakline is not a keyboard. It never appears in the keyboard picker and there is no input method to switch to and back from. Your keyboard stays exactly where it is.

THIRTY LANGUAGES

English, Urdu, Hindi, Arabic, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Turkish, Polish, Bengali, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati, Persian, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Thai, Filipino, Ukrainian, Swedish and Hebrew.

Speakline transcribes — it does not translate. Speak Urdu and Urdu script lands in the field, right to left, with no Urdu keyboard to install. Speak Hindi and you get Hindi.

Auto mode handles speech that switches language mid-sentence, across ten of the thirty: English, Spanish, French, German, Hindi, Russian, Portuguese, Japanese, Italian and Dutch. For any other language, including Urdu, set it and speak.

FOUR TEXT STYLES, CHOSEN BY APP

Styles change how a sentence ends, and nothing else. Default leaves it exactly as dictated, Formal closes every sentence with a full stop, Casual leaves the full stop off, Excited ends on an exclamation mark. A question stays a question in all four. No style rewrites your words.

Which one applies is read off the app you are writing into, so there is nothing to set before you speak: personal chats start Casual, work apps and mail start Formal, anything else is left exactly as dictated. Change them in the Style tab. Mail apps also put the greeting and sign-off on their own lines.

Styles apply to languages written in the Latin alphabet. Urdu, Hindi, Arabic, Bengali, Punjabi, Chinese, Japanese and the other non-Latin scripts punctuate differently, so those come back exactly as dictated whichever style is set.

WHERE IT TYPES

Any Android app with a text field. If a field refuses typed text, the words go to your clipboard instead and Speakline says so — a dictation is never lost.

YOUR HISTORY

Every dictation is kept: the text, the app it went to, how long you spoke. Search it, filter it by day, and delete entries singly or all at once.

PRIVACY

• Audio becomes text and is not stored. There are no recordings to keep.
• What is kept is the text, in your history, where you can see and delete it.
• Analytics never include your transcripts or the apps you dictate into.
• No ads and no advertising SDKs.
• No access to location, contacts, camera, calendar, SMS or media files.
• Your personal information is not sold.
• Your account and everything in it can be deleted inside the app.

PERMISSIONS, AND WHY

• Microphone — so it can hear you.
• Display over other apps — so the bubble floats above any screen.
• Accessibility — for one job only: typing the transcribed text into the field you are already in. Speakline reads nothing else on your screen and sends nothing anywhere. Without it, dictation still runs and the text goes to your clipboard instead.
• Notifications — optional, to switch the bubble off without opening the app. Deny it and everything works.

PRICE

• Seven-day trial: 120 minutes, everything unlocked, no card to start.
• Free after that: 15 minutes every calendar month. Nothing is deleted and nothing is hidden — dictation stops until the month rolls over or you subscribe.
• Pro: unlimited minutes, weekly, monthly or annual through Google Play. Priced in your own currency and shown in full before you agree to anything. Annual costs least per month.

WORTH KNOWING BEFORE YOU INSTALL

• Speakline transcribes in the cloud and needs a connection every time you speak. There is no offline mode.
• Android only. The bubble depends on Android's overlay and accessibility services.