Quiet while you talk, and headphones that keep their sound
This release silences other audio while you dictate, and stops VoiceNoodler from turning Bluetooth headphones into a phone call.
New
Silence other audio while dictating
Music or a video kept playing while you talked, so you talked over it.
Turn on Silence other audio while dictating in Settings > Notifications, and every other app goes quiet from the moment you press the hotkey until VoiceNoodler's end sound has played, while its own sounds stay audible. An app that has your microphone open, such as a video call, stays audible, so you can dictate into its chat. macOS asks once for System Audio Recording; it needs macOS 14.2 or later.
Bluetooth headphones keep their quality
With VoiceNoodler running, music on Bluetooth headphones such as AirPods dropped to phone-call quality, even while you weren't dictating.
Now they keep their quality whenever you're not dictating. When your headphones are the Mac's microphone, System default records from your wired or built-in microphone instead, so they keep it while you dictate too, and Settings > Microphone shows which one is used. If you do choose a Bluetooth microphone, the start sound waits until it can hear you.
Improved
- A recording starts sooner on a wired, USB or built-in microphone, and the recording indicator appears before the start sound.
- When the microphone that stands in for your Bluetooth headphones hears nothing, the menu bar menu says so and takes you to Settings > Microphone.