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 area has rapidly flourished consequently. 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 document notes and transcribe them, with some providing summarization options, however there’s numerous floor to cowl by way of the options provided.
The most recent app within the area 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 allows you to ask questions of your previous notes, along with offering varied options like summaries and totally different formatting choices.
The builders mentioned in a video that after they suffered a miscarriage, to distract themselves, they began constructing a voice word instrument together with Jijo’s brother and Buymeacoffee co-founder, Joseph Sunny. When the couple was consulting medical professionals, they took numerous voice notes to seize all of the issues nurses and docs have been saying so they may recall the knowledge later. That additionally fueled the thought of getting a transcription instrument useful so 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 possibly can immediately hit document and begin speaking and the app will transcribe.
You’ll be able to solely document voice notes as much as one-minute lengthy until you pay for the instrument. When you cease recording, you possibly can tag the notes, edit them, and regenerate titles utilizing AI. It additionally helps you to use AI to reformat the word — flip it right into a weblog publish, a tweet, a to-do listing, or an electronic mail — and the app can even generate a abstract of the word and listing the details.
There may be additionally an “Ask my AI” characteristic, which helps you to verbally search by your notes utilizing the AI assistant — if you wish to bear in mind what model of dishwashing liquid you added to your grocery listing 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 online app from wherever, it may’t do background recording on iOS — in case your smartphone display screen 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 document some notes.
Competitors and roadmap
Voicenotes brings some helpful options, however as we talked about above, it’s getting 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 personal as an alternative of sending it to a server for transcription), has higher Apple integration, and lets you document 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 word 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 may trickle all the way down to different fashions because the know-how advances.
The most important danger for all these apps can be Apple including transcription to its voice memo apps, since that will primarily 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’ll be able to strive Voicenotes without cost or pay $10 a month to unlock entry to higher fashions like GPT-4 Turbo and Claude Opus, in addition to take away the word size restrictions. For a restricted period of time, you may also 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 mentioned it has already gained $100,000 in income from subscriptions.
Jijo informed TechCrunch over electronic 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 out there on smartwatches, too, desires to increase its performance throughout platforms as a real-time assistant. Moreover, it’s also engaged on turning voice notes into to-do lists with reminders.
