Made in v1.2.7.13

We've been getting a surprising number of users in Europe and Japan (shoutout)! We thought it would be best to get off one huge task from our backlog: improving multi-lingual support for our non-American users.

We've now improved our models to have much better accuracy for lower-resourced languages such as Gujarati, Finnish, Portuguese, Uzbek, Albanian, and more. For users who switch languages constantly, we've improved our model to handle intra-transcription code-switching. This is still in development, so let us know how your experience is!

We've also added two of our most requested language additions: Simplified Chinese + British English.

Made in v1.2.7.5 - v1.2.7.6

Our releases now are targeting one of our most common complaints—limitations with key bindings.

v1.2.7.5 allows users to now choose multiple bindings of hotkeys (up to 4 different pairs, though we don’t think you’ll ever use that much) to activate Willow.

This is especially useful for users who use external keyboards and have different key mappings on them.

v1.2.7.6 allows users to now choose non-modifier keys for bindings, parentheses, and one of our most requested features!

Bug Fixes

Here is a list of small bugs and features that we added

• Added audio logging to hopefully stop issues with crashing

• Stopped issue with sometimes processing specific app information by doing safe unwrapping…

• Added the change log as well as the Slack Community to the Help Center

As always, keep letting us know any bugs/features such as these, and we will build!

Best,

Lawrence Liu (CTO)

Made in v1.2.7 - v1.2.7.4

We've now released one of our most requested features—smart insertions!

Now, when dictating into an existing text box, Willow is cognizant of where you're dictating and automatically adds syntax as appropriate. After a period, Willow capitalizes the first letter of the new sentence. If in a current sentence, Willow is now aware of commas, semicolons, quotes, and other syntax that may affect punctuation.

We’ve had to briefly disable this feature in Electron apps such as Linear, Notion, and others just because there are slight formatting errors that haven't been caught by our current system. But… for the majority of text areas that you have on your computer, Willow can correctly insert text in a very smart manner!

If Willow messes up / your cursor wasn’t in a text box, you are now able to paste your previous transcript from the top menu!

Bug Fixes / QOL Updates

1. Fixed bug when multiple dictionary replacement keys were identical, Willow would crash (should’ve added this safeguard before)

2. Added the ability to submit bug reports in-app

3. Toasts now display the correct error message

4. Fixed visual issue for people with 6+ referrals (you go, overachievers)!

5. Fixed auth-expiration, especially when logging in from multiple locations (very common with team plans)

6. Migrated where transcripts are saved on the community—used to be saved in the Documents directory, but is now in Application Support. There would be a severe edge case, where if iCloud storage was full, the Documents directory would be emptied, causing crashes to the Willow system.

7. Disabled double-tapping after hands-free

8. Fixed the issue where when tapping on the status bar icon, the sidebar and main page would not be synced correctly.

9. Reset Password flow now works correctly (yikes)

10. Fixed issue with audio not working on input devices with more than 2 input channels (downmixing with power)

11. Fixed bug with the “Upgrade Premium” button not routing to the correct page

We added some fun easter eggs too! Click around on the Willow UI… :p

As always, keep dictating, and have a great week!

Lawrence Liu (CTO)

Made in v1.2.7

We just released team plans! This package contains centralized billing, significant discounts, shared dictionaries (beta), and prioritized customer support (though, to be fair, we try to respond to everything). You can access team plans here or on the UI from the dashboard pricing page. We now offer both team and enterprise plans with SOC 2 compliance as well as SSO and dedicated customers.

We think this is a huge step forward for Willow, and we're so glad to see such widespread adoption already!

Pricing is extremely straightforward.

1. $12 / user / month for teams (compared to our default $15)

2. For teams with > 10 seats, we provide further discounts at request (contact us at support@seewillow.com)!

As always, happy dictating :)

Lawrence Liu (CTO)

Made in v1.2.6.x

Post-launch, we had a ton of inbound for affiliates—thus, the release of our Affiliate Program!

If you love Willow and want to share it, we’d love for you to be a part of our program. A quick run-down of how it works:

1. Share your link. We give you a unique referral URL

2. Earn 33% of every subscription. It’s a recurring payout for as long as customers stay.

3. Paid monthly. No minimum thresholds or hidden hoops.

By being an affiliate, you can get paid for sharing Willow rather than credits from the referral program. You can spread the word however suits you: social media, your blog, your site, and more.

We have a brief here on our Notion page that describes it in more detail. And if you’re reading it here, feel free to shoot an email to founders@seewillow.com if you’re interested!

Bug Fixes

Some slight bug fixes that users may have encountered during these versions

• Fixed the signup issue with Google OAuth (misconfigured on our end)

• Fixed the issue of the copy icon not showing up on older Macs. Gosh darn SF Icons.

• Updated the Affiliate Tag + Language to show in-app properly.

• Stopped random request dropping (due to incorrectly configured endpoint warm-up logic).

Happy dictating and have an amazing week!

Lawrence Liu (CTO)

Made in v1.2.1 - v1.2.5.

You can now directly enable replacements in your texts! Two interesting cases that we think this can be pretty great at (both in the screenshot above).

1. Those pesky names Willow occasionally misses.

Anecdotally speaking, when I’m texting or referring to Allan, my cofounder (notice the spelling), Willow ends up spelling it Alan, even when it's in the dictionary. Very interestingly, only if I say “Allllllllan” with an emphasis on the A, Willow seems to pick it up and apply the correction.

As our model improves and self-learns, these cases should decrease drastically, but in the meantime, if our model keeps failing, the text replacement feature is great!

2. Smart text insertions.

For emails, having the “insert calendly link here” replacement has helped me a ton with getting everything done in one go. Verbatim, this is how I usually dictate my emails.

Hey Justin thanks for getting back. Here’s a link for our meeting colon insert calendly link here. Best Lawrence CTO.

Willow does a great job of reformatting properly, and what I end up with is:

Hey Justin,

Thanks for getting back. Here’s a link for our meeting: https://calendly.com/founders-seewillow/how-is-willow

Best,

Lawrence

CTO

Bug Fixes and Whatnot

Here’s a comprehensive list of the bugs we squashed and the smaller features we added.

1. Users with Google OAuth now correctly get a referral code when signing up.

2. Less audio lag/crashes when signing up (removing external mixers).

3. No more unnecessary app refocusing, caused by the focus state on the status bar icon.

4. Updated videos to match our new app.

5. Descriptive timeout/error toasts are now improved.

6. Notch now correctly works on expanded screens (Screen Size Compact / Expanded)

7. Onboarding language fixed.

Happy dictating!

Lawrence Liu (CTO)

Made in v1.2

Welcome all to Willow Voice and our first public launch!

Thank you to everyone who supported us on socials. It was bigger than we ever could have imagined, and we couldn't have done it without any of you :)

What’s New

• Public Launch - Willow Voice is now officially live on Mac (Windows, iOS coming soon)!

• Dictation Anywhere - Dictate directly into any app, any textbox, with absolutely zero friction. Just press the FN key—absolutely no distractions and no menus

• Smart Formatting - Auto punctuation, spacing, and paragraphing as you speak. Willow Voice works great with emails, long-form and short-form writing!

• Customizable Dictionary - Create custom dictionary words for words that are less common or words that Willow may be missing!

• Fully Private - We understand that most users consider privacy to be their top concern. Just know—your privacy is our top priority. We do not in any way collect data on the words you say through Willow. You can read our privacy policy in depth here.

Customer Testimonials

We want to shout out some of our great first customers who took a chance on us before we launched. Thanks for being so patient and so supportive through countless bugs, crashes, and freezes!

"It's been awesome using Willow. I'm super excited about it and just started my subscription. ⁠Thanks for building an awesome product!" - Mark L. (Tech Lead @ Twitter)

"I am a journalist, scriptwriter, and author, and using Willow to turn speech into text has become an integral part of my everyday workflow. It's a major productivity tool that saves me hours. But aside from that, Willow's minimalist interface, speed, and accuracy make it a real pleasure to use. I've tried many AI speech-to-text tools in my quest to find the best. With Willow, I have found it." - Gus Silber (Journalist)

"I am a journalist, scriptwriter, and author, and using Willow to turn speech into text has become an integral part of my everyday workflow. It's a major productivity tool that saves me hours. But aside from that, Willow's minimalist interface, speed, and accuracy make it a real pleasure to use. I've tried many AI speech-to-text tools in my quest to find the best. With Willow, I have found it." - Cole Parsons (Senior PM @ QuinStreet)

… and so many others who we love.

Again, we are immensely so filled with gratitude for everyone who has taken the chance on us and our vision with Willow Voice!

— Allan and Lawrence