why I built NotchPrompt

·Ali Arain

tl;dr

I needed a teleprompter that didn't ruin my screen share. Nothing existed. So I built one that lives in the Mac notch and is invisible to Zoom, Teams, and OBS.

NotchPrompt on GitHub · #8 on Product Hunt

the problem

Every time I recorded a demo or joined a call with a script, I had the same problem: the teleprompter was visible on screen share.

I tried every app. They all render in a normal window. The moment you share your screen, the script is right there for everyone to see.

The Mac notch is dead space. No app uses it. It sits above the menu bar, outside the shareable area. That's the answer.

what I built

NotchPrompt expands from the notch like a Dynamic Island animation. It uses sharingType = .none so it never appears in Zoom, Teams, Meet, or OBS recordings.

The big feature in v2 is word-level real-time highlighting. As you speak, each word lights up and dims as you pass it. Tap any word to jump there. It handles accents, speech recognition errors, and fast speech with a fuzzy matching algorithm.

Three overlay modes: notch (original), floating window, fullscreen for dedicated setups. Three listening modes: word tracking, voice-activated scroll, and classic constant WPM.

Everything runs on-device. No cloud, no account, no subscription.

what happened

Shipped v1. Got to #8 on Product Hunt.

Shipped v2 with word tracking, multi-page scripts, PPTX import, OpenDyslexic font, macOS Services integration, URL scheme, and 30+ other things.

The response from people who do regular recordings, presentations, and demos has been the clearest signal I've gotten on any product I've shipped.

what's next

Browser remote viewer so you can watch the script on your phone over local WiFi. Director mode so a remote operator can send the script to the presenter. AI script polish on-device.

Building in public at github.com/aliarain/notchprompt.