Sidekick for iOS

In the Settings app: General → Keyboard → Keyboards → Add New Keyboard, choose Sidekick, then open it once and turn on Allow Full Access.

Get the app from the App Store and sign in with your OpenCharts account first; the keyboard has no sign-in screen of its own.

Press and hold the globe key to pick Sidekick (or tap it once it is your last keyboard), tap the mic at the right of the bar, talk, then tap the check when you are done. The words land at your cursor, cleaned up for wherever you are writing — a chat, an email, a note.

iOS only lets an open app use the microphone, so the very first tap opens Sidekick for a moment. After that it stays ready in the background, and every dictation after happens right on the keyboard — no more trips to the app.

Each of these opens Sidekick for a moment, gets it ready, and hands you back.

• Action Button. One press starts a dictation to your clipboard, the next press stops it. Set it up once in Settings, Action Button, Shortcut.
• Control Center. Add the Sidekick control and it gets the keyboard ready from anywhere, including the Lock Screen.
• Back Tap. Settings, Accessibility, Touch, Back Tap, and choose the Sidekick shortcut. Two taps on the back of the phone.
• Siri. Say “Dictate with Sidekick” or “Take a Sidekick note.”

The keyboard extension never holds your account or reaches the network directly. It reads the text around your cursor so Theo can fit the words in, and sends that to the Sidekick app only while Context Awareness is on in Dictation settings; turn that off and only your voice is sent.

A dictation on the keyboard and one in the Sidekick app itself can never run at once — they share the same microphone. Recordings and their transcripts stay on your phone; your dictionary, shorthand, transforms and language picks sync with your account.