Apple added a voice recording app called Voice Memo with iOS 12. It adopts a lean approach with only sound recording capabilities. While it will get the job done, you can’t do anything else on it. That’s the story of most Apple apps. Several third-party developers have launched various audio recording apps that offer more features than the stock app.
So what more can you do with a voice recording app? Voice memos, cloud storage support, multiple file formats, bookmarks, transcription etc. Take text notes along with it. Voice Memos is pretty lacking. Let’s see what alternatives we have.
1. Sound Recording Professional
Voice Record Pro is versatile and one of the best voice recording apps in its niche. The UI has a vintage feel to it that looks cool. Press the REC button to start recording immediately. When you start, there is a bookmark option so you can take notes at a specific time during the lesson. timestamp.
When you stop recording, you will see a bunch of options. Voice Record Pro supports almost all cloud storage sites like Drive, Dropbox and more including SoundCloud.
You can trim the audio to remove unnecessary or blank parts where no one is speaking. There is a transcription option that will try to convert audio to text. It works pretty well, but it’s not 100% accurate. Accuracy depends on various factors such as clarity and background distortion. As if all that wasn’t enough, they decided to create an MP3 converter that supports color and ID3 tags.
Voice Record Pro is free but full of ads and you can pay $6.99 to remove them.
2. Audio Recorder & Audio Editor
I never thought that any other app could beat Voice Record Pro. I mean, what else do you want from an audio recording app for iPhone? That was until I found Sound Recorder & Sound Editor. You can also record phone calls with this app, but it’s a premium feature.
Some useful features are fast listening and sleep timer. Tapping the share icon will reveal audio editing options like trim, upload, and copy. You can save voice memos in folders or upload them to most popular cloud storage sites.
The Pro plan will cost you $1.99 per month and will unlock transcription, remove ads, unlock access to some other apps like QR Reader, Scanner, Photo Editor and 20+ other apps. Call recording also costs $4.99 per month.
3. Otter Voice Memos
Otter Voice Notes uses AI to take notes for you, so you don’t have to. Otter will record audio and transcribe everything in real time with stunning accuracy. Yes, you don’t have to wait for transcription. Multiple speakers? Label each speaker to identify them individually. For Otter to accurately identify the speaker, you must record a speaker’s voice for at least 15 seconds before tagging it. You can also add images.
It looks like the developer designed Otter with teams in mind. You can invite other speakers to share the entry or edit the transcript. They can also add notes when needed. With support for AirPods, Siri, AirPrint, and iOS Calendar and Contacts, Otter is the transcription king.
Otter Voice Memos will cost you $9.99 per month. This will get you 600 minutes free every month.
4. Evernote
Evernote needs no introduction. One of the best note-taking apps allows you to take notes in various formats including audio on iPhone. However, the Evernote save size is limited to your user account. Free users get 25MB and go up to 200MB.
You can take text notes or click pictures and add them while recording audio. The app neatly files everything in a new note where you can save it in notepad with tags. Evernote is more suitable for those who are already using it and don’t need a lot of space. It lacks some advanced features like transcription and converter that we see in other dedicated audio recording apps.
5. Rev Voice Recorder
While the AI is pretty good at transcribing voice memos, it’s still not perfect. Rev Voice Recorder offers human transcripts, which further reduces the risk of errors. Useful for professionals who don’t have time to review themselves. An example would be people who work in the legal field where accuracy matters most.
The Rev Audio Recorder team will remove the silent portions and copy the entire note for $1 per minute with a turnaround time of 12 hours. If you need a timestamp dump, this will cost you an additional $0.25 per minute. While this is expensive, Rev Voice Recorder is not for the average user. The user interface is very simple and well cluttered.
Hear Their Voices
Voice recording apps are a good idea for iPhone users. You never know when you’ll need it. I would recommend Voice Record Pro to most users as it is free and very powerful. If you also want to record phone calls, Voice Recorder and Audio Editor are more suitable. Use Otter or Rev if transcription is more important to you.
Next: Do you use Skype? Click the link below to learn how to record Skype calls on Windows.
