Fact one
Your notes never leave your Mac. Not to our server, not to anyone. The notepad in Roar stores to a local database, and there's nowhere on our server for a note to go.
Roar for journalists on a Mac
You are
the desk now.
Dictate to the desk, the way it used to work. Say the lede, and a moment later it's typed where your cursor was, with the names spelled the way you added them.
- Hold a key
- Say the graf
- Let go. It’s filed.
Demonstration: a floating panel shows Roar listening, then a story top is typed into a document window at about 150 words a minute while a counter shows the rate.
In the app you’re in
150wpm
Courthouse renovation, draft
Normal textArial11
The county board voted 4 to 1 Tuesday to delay the courthouse renovation for a second year, citing a bid that came in a third above the engineer's estimate.
29 words in 11 seconds. Typed, the same words take about 35.
File from wherever you are standing
Downloads Roar for Mac. macOS 14 or later, Apple silicon (M1 and newer). No phone version. Five dictations to try, no card.
The deadline
Three stories a day on a staff of four. The lede is already in your head.
Reporters at small papers file more a week than they did a few years ago, and the staff didn't grow. Watch a story top land both ways.
Demonstration: the same fifty-word paragraph is revealed twice, at about 50 words a minute as typing and about 150 words a minute as talking. Talking finishes at twenty seconds, typing at one minute.
Same paragraph, both ways
1:00.0
Typing
Done at 1:00
The county board voted 4 to 1 Tuesday to delay the courthouse renovation for a second year, citing a bid that came in a third above the engineer's estimate. Board chair Ellen Marsh said the county would rebid the project in the spring. Commissioner Dale Kittredge cast the no vote.
Talking
Done at 0:20
The county board voted 4 to 1 Tuesday to delay the courthouse renovation for a second year, citing a bid that came in a third above the engineer's estimate. Board chair Ellen Marsh said the county would rebid the project in the spring. Commissioner Dale Kittredge cast the no vote.
Fifty words. Twenty seconds. A story top before you’ve found your car keys.
The desk is your own laptop, and it never asks you to repeat the name.
File from wherever you are standing
Mac, Apple silicon. Five dictations to try, no card.
Filing
The presser ends.
You are standing in the hall.
Say the three grafs.
Open the doc, put the cursor at the top, hold the key. Say the lede the way you’d say it to the desk. Release. Say the nut graf. Say the quote, reading from the notebook. Three grafs in the doc, punctuated, before the TV crew has packed the tripod.
The write-thru at 4:52 works the same way. Cursor at the top, hold the key, say the new top, release.
The graf is in the doc while the scrum is still going.
Custom vocabulary
The correction you make most is a name.
Sources. Places. Agencies. The commissioner whose surname has a silent letter. You add each name once, spelled the way the source spelled it for you, and it comes back that way.
- Canberra explosionCambrian explosion
- WeegerUyghur
- KeevKyiv
- Ty shi keddyTshisekedi
- fee maFEMA
- Arse ee em peeRCMP
- pointerPoynter
Add Kittredge the day you meet him. It’s Kittredge in every story after.
Not your sources
Roar transcribes you. Not your sources.
Roar hears your voice while you hold a key, and only then. There is no way to give it an audio file, no meeting bot, no interview upload. Your sources’ audio never touches it.
What it’s for is the part of the job that’s your own words. The notes after the interview. The quote read in from the notebook. The lede. The message to the desk.
If you need a transcription service, we’re not it.
For the security desk
Your notes never leave your Mac. Here is what does.
Two facts and a table your IT lead can read.
Fact two
The audio of your own voice, recorded only while you hold the key, goes to Roar's server, is transcribed, and is discarded. It is never stored.
For IT
- What is transmitted
- Audio of your voice, while the trigger key is held. Nothing else, ever.
- What is never transmitted
- Your interview recordings, your files, your screen, your keystrokes.
- What is retained
- No audio. Roar keeps no server copy of the transcribed text.
- What Roar reads on your Mac
- The trigger key, and the name of the window you are in. Never the contents of your screen.
- Where transcription happens
- On Roar's server, not on the machine. If the requirement is that audio never leaves the Mac, tell us before you subscribe and we will say plainly whether Roar fits.
- Deletion
- Delete your account and everything Roar holds about you is gone.
- Copy-only mode
- Use Roar without granting it the Accessibility permission. Text goes to your clipboard and nowhere else.
Never your sources. Never your screen. Never your notes.
Pricing
Download Roar. The first five grafs are on us.
$12 a month, about one round of coffees for the desk, and every first draft takes a third of the time. No card until you subscribe.
File from wherever you are standing
Mac, Apple silicon. Five dictations to try, no card.
Your first 5 dictations are free. No card.
Monthly
$12a month
$12 billed monthly. $144 a year.
Cancel any time from inside the app.
Quarterly
$10a month
$30 billed every three months. $120 a year.
$144You save $24 a year
Best value, 33% off
Annual
$8a month
$96 billed once a year.
$144You save $48 a year
Before you install
Four things to know, so nobody finds out on deadline.
Not a transcription service
It hears your voice while you hold the key. It doesn't take files and it doesn't join calls.
Not on the Mac App Store
The sandbox blocks the mechanism that types into another app. You download it here and grant two permissions. The download page explains both.
Mac only
macOS 14 or later, Apple silicon. No phone version. If you file from a phone in the field, Roar is for the laptop when you get back to it.
Not the Stylebook
It spells what you added the way you added it and punctuates what you said. AP and CP style are still yours and the copy desk's.
Questions
Answered as statements.
Does it work in my CMS
It's verified in Gmail, Google Docs and Slack. Most CMS editors in a browser are plain text boxes, and Roar types into text boxes, but we haven't tested yours. Try it in your first 5 dictations, before deadline, not on it.
Does it transcribe interviews
No. It hears your voice while you hold the key, and nothing else. There is no file import and no meeting bot.
Does it read my screen
No. It reads the key you chose as a trigger and, for formatting, the name of the window you're in. It never reads the contents of your screen.
Is my audio kept
No. It's transcribed and discarded. There is no audio store.
What happens to a quote I read in from the notebook
It's transcribed the way you said it. Use Clean transcription for quotes and check the result against the notebook, as you would with anything you typed.
Is there a phone version
No. macOS 14 or later, Apple silicon, and nothing else.
Can I use it without letting it touch other apps
Yes. Copy-only mode puts the text on your clipboard and touches nothing else. You do not need to grant Accessibility for it.
Can the newsroom buy it for the desk
Each reporter downloads it and each subscribes. Accounts are individual; there's no team plan and nothing for IT to roll out.
One more time
Say the graf.
It is in the doc.
Hold a key, say the lede, release. A moment later it's where your cursor was, names spelled the way you added them. Five dictations to see for yourself, no card.
Demonstration: a floating panel shows Roar listening, then a message to the desk is typed into a chat channel at about 150 words a minute.
Your next sentence
150wpm
metro-desk
Mara Okafor10:42 AM
Filing the courthouse story now. Board voted 4 to 1 to delay, Kittredge the lone no. Quote from Marsh on the rebid is in the second graf.
Message #metro-desk
3x
Talking is three times faster than typing.
5
Your first 5 dictations are free. No card.
0
Notes that leave your Mac. None, ever.
File from wherever you are standing
Mac, Apple silicon. Five dictations to try, no card.
Not a journalist. Roar also has pages for lawyers