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 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 a number 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 allows you to ask questions of your previous notes, along with offering numerous options like summaries and completely 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 a number of voice notes to seize all of the issues nurses and docs had been saying so they might recall the data later. That additionally fueled the thought of getting a transcription instrument 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 testers, and so they made the net app public in April.
The app itself
Voicenotes’ webapp doesn’t require you to log in — you possibly can straight hit document and begin speaking and the app will transcribe.
You possibly can solely document voice notes as much as one-minute lengthy except you pay for the instrument. When you cease recording, you possibly can tag the notes, edit them, and regenerate titles utilizing AI. It additionally allows you to use AI to reformat the word — flip it right into a weblog submit, a tweet, a to-do listing, or an electronic mail — and the app may also generate a abstract of the word and listing the details.
There’s additionally an “Ask my AI” characteristic, which helps you to verbally search by your notes utilizing the AI assistant — if you wish to keep 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 anyplace, it might probably’t do background recording on iOS — in case your smartphone display will get locked or in case you swap to a different app, it’ll cease recording.
Voicenotes additionally makes use of AI to nudge you with prompts you can reply and document 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 rapidly. It additionally has to take care of rivals who carry higher options. Cleft Notes, for instance, permits for on-device transcription (an vital 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 provides 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 corresponding to Google Recorder on Pixel, and Samsung’s Transcribe Help — each apps can be found solely on choose fashions, however they might trickle all the way down to different fashions because the know-how advances.
The largest danger for all these apps can be Apple including transcription to its voice memo apps, since that might primarily make third-party apps redundant on iOS gadgets. Nonetheless, there could be worth in providing cross-platform compatibility, higher formatting choices, and extra options.
You possibly can attempt Voicenotes free of charge 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 instructed TechCrunch over electronic mail that the app’s differentiation will likely be its “easy however elegant design,” its use of the most effective AI fashions, and the “Ask My AI” characteristic.
He added that Voicenotes will quickly be obtainable on smartwatches, too, needs 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.