Can you use Whisper AI as a keyboard on iPhone or Android?

You can use Whisper as a keyboard, but the keyboard comes from a third-party developer, not from OpenAI. Whisper is a speech recognition model that OpenAI publishes for anyone to run. The keyboards you can install are built on it in two ways: some run a Whisper model on the phone, and others send your recorded speech to a server. Which kind you choose decides where your speech goes, whether the keyboard needs Full Access on iPhone, and whether it works without a connection.

Whisper is a model, so a keyboard has to wrap it

A Whisper keyboard needs three things: a keyboard you can type with, a microphone key, and a way to turn the audio into text. The developer can do the last step on the phone, or send the audio to a server that runs the model. That single choice drives most of the differences between the apps you will find.

Because the model is open for anyone to use, several developers build keyboards on it, and their prices, privacy terms and quality differ. A free keyboard and a paid one may run the same model in different places.

On Android, WhisperType runs Whisper on the phone

WhisperType is the clearest example of a Whisper keyboard that works on the device. It is a full Android keyboard with a QWERTY layout, and its microphone key does offline, on-device speech-to-text ¹. The microphone stops after 30 seconds, so it suits short messages rather than long dictation.

Its models are small English models, named tiny.en, base.en and small.en. The listing says that Whisper models download from Hugging Face when you choose, and that importing your own model file works offline ². A smaller model runs more easily on a phone, but its accuracy can be lower than that of a larger model, so test it on your own voice before you rely on it.

On Android, Whisper To Input sends your speech to a server

Whisper To Input is an Android keyboard that does its speech-to-text with OpenAI Whisper. Its readme says that you either use the official OpenAI API with your own API key, or self-host a Whisper ASR Webservice ³. Either way, your speech leaves the phone, so it is not an offline keyboard.

On iPhone, a cloud Whisper keyboard needs Full Access

On iPhone, some Whisper keyboards are listed on the App Store as keyboard extensions. The listing for Whisper AI Keyboard describes a keyboard extension among its features ⁴. A keyboard that sends speech to a cloud model needs open access, and you must turn on Allow Full Access for that keyboard in Settings ⁵.

That switch is the privacy cost. Apple's warning on third-party keyboards, as quoted by TechCrunch in 2014, says that if you enable Full Access, developers are permitted to access, collect and transmit the data you type ⁶. Read the developer's privacy policy before you turn it on, and ask whether the same work could run on the phone. The terms are defined in the entries for Allow Full Access and third-party keyboard.

A claim on a listing about where speech is processed is not a test. One App Store reviewer of WhisKey wrote that "the integrated keyboard simply doesn’t work and loses control of the audio device" ⁷, and the listing shows three ratings. Check how any keyboard works in your own apps before you depend on it.

Whisper makes errors you can miss

Whisper's output needs reading before you send it. A 2024 study of a 2023 version of Whisper, on one dataset, found that roughly 1 percent of its audio transcriptions contained entire hallucinated phrases or sentences that did not exist in the audio ⁸. A keyboard places the text straight into your message, so you may not see an error before it is sent. Read every dictated sentence, most of all before a payment, a medical note or a legal message.

Choose a Whisper keyboard by where the speech goes

If you want a Whisper keyboard for private notes on Android, WhisperType is the one to test first. If you want Whisper on iPhone, check whether the App Store keyboard sends audio to a server, and decide whether that is acceptable before you turn on Full Access.

What to do

1. Decide whether your speech may leave the phone. If it may not, use only a keyboard whose listing and privacy policy describe on-device recognition.
2. On Android, install WhisperType from its F-Droid listing, download one model, and dictate a 200-word passage of your own writing.
3. On iPhone, read the keyboard's privacy policy before you turn on Allow Full Access, and turn it off again when you stop using that keyboard.
4. Test the keyboard in airplane mode. A keyboard that fails there does not work offline.
5. Read the output before you send it, and keep Apple's built-in Dictation or Gboard as a fallback.

For a free starting point, see the best free dictation app for iPhone and the best free voice to text app for Android. For the full comparison of phone apps, read the guide to the best dictation apps for iPhone and Android, which sits inside dictation on phones and tablets. If you also dictate on a computer, see whether Whisper runs on a Mac and installing Whisper on Windows. For Dragon on a phone, read whether there is a Dragon dictation app for iPhone or Android.