AI-powered instruments like OpenAI’s Whisper have enabled many apps to make transcription an integral a part of their function set for private note-taking, and the house has rapidly flourished consequently. Apps like AudioPen, Cleft Notes, and DiscussNotes have proliferated throughout app shops and the Internet, however most supply a fairly restricted function set: They allow you to report notes and transcribe them, with some providing summarization options, however there’s a whole lot of floor to cowl when it comes to the options supplied.
The newest app within the house is Voicenotes. Built by creator-tipping platform Buymeacoffee‘s founder, Jijo Sunny, and his spouse Aleesha, Voicenotes goals to set itself aside by together with an AI assistant that allows you to ask questions of your previous notes, along with offering varied options like summaries and completely different formatting choices.
The builders stated in a video that after they suffered a miscarriage, to distract themselves, they began constructing a voice observe device together with Jijo’s brother and Buymeacoffee co-founder, Joseph Sunny. When the couple was consulting medical professionals, they took a whole lot of voice notes to seize all of the issues nurses and medical doctors had been saying so they may recall the knowledge later. That additionally fueled the thought of getting a transcription device helpful in order that they didn’t must replay notes repeatedly to recollect particulars.
Jijo and Aleesha shipped the primary model of the app in March to pick out testers, and so they made the online app public in April.
The app itself
Voicenotes’ webapp doesn’t require you to log in — you’ll be able to immediately hit report and begin speaking and the app will transcribe.
You can solely report voice notes as much as one-minute lengthy except you pay for the device. Once you cease recording, you’ll be able to tag the notes, edit them, and regenerate titles utilizing AI. It additionally permits you to use AI to reformat the observe — flip it right into a weblog submit, a tweet, a to-do checklist, or an e-mail — and the app will even generate a abstract of the observe and checklist the details.
There can be an “Ask my AI” function, which helps you to verbally search by way of your notes utilizing the AI assistant — if you wish to bear in mind what model of dishwashing liquid you added to your grocery checklist two months in the past, for instance.
The firm has now launched each iOS and Android apps. This is an enormous benefit, given Cleft Notes solely works on Mac and iOS (nonetheless in beta). While AudioPen is accessible as an online app from anyplace, it will possibly’t do background recording on iOS — in case your smartphone display will get locked or for those who change to a different app, it’ll cease recording.
Voicenotes additionally makes use of AI to nudge you with prompts that you may reply and report some notes.
Competition and roadmap
Voicenotes brings some helpful options, however as we talked about above, it’s coming into an area that’s rising crowded rapidly. It additionally has to cope with opponents who carry higher options. Cleft Notes, for instance, permits for on-device transcription (an essential level as a result of it retains your notes non-public as a substitute of sending it to a server for transcription), has higher Apple integration, and permits you to report notes as much as 10 minutes lengthy within the free tier. AudioPen provides you a ton extra choices for formatting your notes, which some might discover helpful.
Apart from competitors with different AI-powered voice observe apps, Voicenotes additionally has to compete with native apps resembling Google Recorder on Pixel, and Samsung’s Transcribe Assist — each apps can be found solely on choose fashions, however they may trickle all the way down to different fashions because the expertise advances.
The greatest threat for all these apps could be Apple including transcription to its voice memo apps, since that may primarily make third-party apps redundant on iOS gadgets. Still, there may be worth in providing…
