AI-powered instruments like OpenAI’s Whisper have enabled many apps to make transcription an integral a part of their characteristic set for private note-taking, and the house has shortly flourished because of this. Apps like AudioPen, Cleft Notes, and TalkNotes have proliferated throughout app shops and the Web, however most provide a fairly restricted characteristic set: They allow you to file notes and transcribe them, with some providing summarization options, however there’s lots of floor to cowl when it comes to the options provided.
The newest app within the house is Voicenotes. Constructed 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 permits 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 notice software together with Jijo’s brother and Buymeacoffee co-founder, Joseph Sunny. When the couple was consulting medical professionals, they took lots of voice notes to seize all of the issues nurses and docs have been saying so they might recall the knowledge later. That additionally fueled the concept of getting a transcription software useful so that they didn’t have to replay notes repeatedly to recollect particulars.
Jijo and Aleesha shipped the primary model of the app in March to pick testers, they usually made the net app public in April.
The app itself
Voicenotes’ webapp doesn’t require you to log in — you’ll be able to instantly hit file and begin speaking and the app will transcribe.
You may solely file voice notes as much as one-minute lengthy until you pay for the software. When you cease recording, you’ll be able to tag the notes, edit them, and regenerate titles utilizing AI. It additionally allows you to use AI to reformat the notice — flip it right into a weblog publish, a tweet, a to-do record, or an e-mail — and the app can even generate a abstract of the notice and record the details.
There’s additionally an “Ask my AI” characteristic, which helps you to verbally search by way of your notes utilizing the AI assistant — if you wish to keep in mind what model of dishwashing liquid you added to your grocery record two months in the past, for instance.
The corporate has now launched each iOS and Android apps. It is a large benefit, given Cleft Notes solely works on Mac and iOS (nonetheless in beta). Whereas AudioPen is accessible as an internet app from anyplace, it may possibly’t do background recording on iOS — in case your smartphone display will get locked or in the event you swap to a different app, it’ll cease recording.
Voicenotes additionally makes use of AI to nudge you with prompts that you could reply and file some notes.
Competitors and roadmap
Voicenotes brings some helpful options, however as we talked about above, it’s coming into an area that’s rising crowded shortly. It additionally has to deal with opponents who convey higher options. Cleft Notes, for instance, permits for on-device transcription (an vital 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 means that you can file notes as much as 10 minutes lengthy within the free tier. AudioPen offers you a ton extra choices for formatting your notes, which some might discover helpful.
Aside from competitors with different AI-powered voice notice apps, Voicenotes additionally has to compete with native apps comparable to Google Recorder on Pixel, and Samsung’s Transcribe Help — each apps can be found solely on choose fashions, however they might trickle right down to different fashions because the expertise advances.
The most important danger for all these apps could be Apple including transcription to its voice memo apps, since that might basically make third-party apps redundant on iOS units. Nonetheless, there is perhaps worth in providing cross-platform compatibility, higher formatting choices, and extra options.
You may attempt Voicenotes totally free or pay $10 a month to unlock entry to raised fashions like GPT-4 Turbo and Claude Opus, in addition to take away the notice size restrictions. For a restricted period of time, you may as well pay $50 for a “believer” plan and get entry to the app for all times (learn: so long as the developer retains supporting it). The corporate stated it has already gained $100,000 in income from subscriptions.
Jijo informed TechCrunch over e-mail that the app’s differentiation shall be its “easy however elegant design,” its use of the very best AI fashions, and the “Ask My AI” characteristic.
He added that Voicenotes will quickly be accessible on smartwatches, too, desires to increase its performance throughout platforms as a real-time assistant. Moreover, additionally it is engaged on turning voice notes into to-do lists with reminders.
