Textwell vs Offline Dictation
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Textwell
This app provides a distraction-free writing environment for various tasks like jotting notes, messaging, and blogging. It offers customizable actions for text processing and automatically saves content history, syncing across devices via iCloud.
- Distraction-free plain text writing
- Customizable JavaScript actions for text manipulation
- Automatic content saving and history search
- iCloud syncing across Mac, iPhone, and iPad
- Text routing to other apps and services
- Character, word, and line count
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Textwell is a multipurpose textbox which can be used for any writing tasks such as jotting, messaging, blogging, searching, posting, and so on. For the simplicity, Textwell doesn't have features for styling text or managing multiple notes, but it is always ready to start writing instead, and the bunch of customizable actions can process your text in unlimited ways. Actions can be modified and created by yourself with JavaScript. Textwell is like a single sheet of paper, but it automatically saves current content by appropriate timing as history, so that you can search and take it back some time later. Also, current note content, actions, and history items are automatically synced with other devices including Mac, iPhone, and iPad via iCloud. Textwell allows you to - Simply write and read on a plain text field without any functional complexity or visual clutter. - Route your text to other apps or services such as Email, Messages, Maps, Reminders, Google Search, and more, by choosing one from the action list. Actions are customizable with JavaScript. - Modify your text by using actions such as searching/replacing words, inserting specific characters, reordering paragraphs/lines, time-stamping, location-stamping, changing cases, adding bullets, URL-encoding/decoding, escaping/unescaping HTML, and more. - Preview HTML or markdown by also using actions. - Search and restore previous content from the automatic history. - Share current note, actions, and history items with other devices including Mac, iPhone, and iPad automatically via iCloud. - Check numbers of characters, words, and lines. - Use "Textwell" Widget. - Use "Open" and "Open as Blank" Lock Screen Widgets (iPhone). - Use "Textwell" share extension. - Use "Add to Textwell" action extension. - Use "Textwell" iMessage app. - Change font size, line space, and some behaviors is Settings app. Follow @textwell on Twitter to keep in touch.
Offline Dictation
Transcribe speech to text securely and privately, even without an internet connection. This app processes all dictation locally on your device, ensuring no data is sent to the cloud. It supports numerous languages and offers convenient features like automatic scrolling and clipboard copying.
- Offline transcription
- Secure and private processing
- Supports multiple languages
- Automatic scrolling
- Copy to clipboard
- Timestamp display
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You can transcribe safely and securely even in places where radio waves do not reach or in meetings with important content! A network is essential for general transcription apps because it is linked with cloud services, This application does not require a network because the processing is completed within the iPhone. Therefore, you can comfortably transcribe without any transcription failure or delay due to network connection failure. In addition, you can use it safely at work without being involved in information leakage on the cloud service side. (If you are worried, you can use it by blocking communication by switching to airplane mode etc.) Also, the function to save data is not added. (There is only a copy function to the clipboard) *Usage* - Tap the red circle button to start dictation. - To stop dictation tap the red square button. - Turn on "Date", Timestamp of dictation is displayed - Turn on "scroll", scroll automatically - Tap "Copy" button, the result of dictation is copied to clipboard *Support Language* - English - Chinese - Spanish - Italian - Brazilian - Portuguese - Japanese - Korean - German - French - Arabic - Hindi - Indonesian - Russian - Vietnamese - Turkish - Thai - Ukrainian This app contains artifacts distributed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 license. [Apache License, Version 2.0] http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Offline Dictation at Free against Textwell's $2.99. Offline Dictation also leads on update cadence (fortnightly vs every 3 months) and review sentiment (75% vs 58%). Textwell's advantage is rating (3.3 vs 1.0) and ads (none vs shown). On in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Offline Dictation is free to download; Textwell costs $2.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Textwell holds the better App Store score, 3.3 against 1.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Textwell has 6 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 58% of Textwell's written reviews are positive against 75% of Offline Dictation's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Textwell ships an update every 3 months, Offline Dictation fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on September 23, 2026 and June 7, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Textwell | Offline Dictation |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $2.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 3.3 (6 ratings) — better | 1.0 (1 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 57.8% of reviews | 75.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 6 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months | Fortnightly — better |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Ad-supported — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 17.6 | 14.3 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 10 MB | 32 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Sociomedia | Yasuhiro Suzuki |
Customer experience
Textwell
Offline Dictation
In-app purchases
Textwell
No in-app purchases
Offline Dictation
No in-app purchases









