Tells

Write your fiction the way you think it, out loud. Tells is a voice-first writing app for authors, built for the entire Apple ecosystem. Capture ideas on your Apple Watch while walking, expand scenes on your iPhone, and shape your manuscript on your Mac. Everything syncs seamlessly through your private iCloud account.

CORE WORKFLOW • Record voice fragments on Watch, iPhone, iPad, or Mac • On-device transcription via Apple's Speech framework • Tag fragments as Scene, Character, Idea, or Worldbuilding • Drag transcripts into a rich-text editor for scenes and chapters • Tap any passage to replay the original audio that inspired it

WRITE LIKE YOU CODE • Named snapshots let you save a version of a scene at any moment • Branches let you explore alternative takes without losing the original • Visual diff shows exactly what changed between two versions • All versioning is manual and intentional, no clutter, only decisions

BUILT FOR WRITERS • Clean rich-text editor with dialogue dash, italic-for-thought shortcuts • Word counts at scene, chapter, and project level, always visible • Focus mode hides everything except your current scene • Export to Apple Pages for final formatting (.pages or .rtfd)

PRIVACY BY DESIGN • Zero AI. No LLMs, no cloud transcription, no third-party processing • Zero analytics. We don't know how you use the app — and that's the point • No account, no login, no server. Your data lives on your devices and in your private iCloud only • Fully offline, iCloud sync resumes automatically when you reconnect Tells is a tool, not an assistant. The value is in the workflow, the fluidity between devices, and your trust that every word stays yours. Requires iOS 18, iPadOS 18, macOS 15, or watchOS 11.