AI-powered tools like OpenAI’s Whisper have allowed many apps to make transcription an integral part of their personal note-taking feature set, and the space has blossomed quickly as a result. Apps like AudioPen, Cleft Notes, and TalkNotes have proliferated in app stores and on the Internet, but most offer a fairly limited feature set: They let you record notes and transcribe them, and some offer summary features, but there’s a lot of room for coverage in terms of the features offered.
The latest application in the field is Voice notes. Created by creator advice platform Buy coffeeFounded by Jijo Sunny and his wife Aleesha, Voicenotes aims to set itself apart by including an AI assistant that lets you ask questions about your past notes, in addition to providing various features like summaries and different formatting options.
The developers said a video that after suffering a miscarriage, to distract themselves, they started building a voice memo tool with Jijo’s brother and Buymeacoffee co-founder Joseph Sunny. When the couple consulted medical professionals, they took multiple voice notes to record everything the nurses and doctors said so they could recall the information later. This also fueled the idea of having a transcription tool handy so they don’t have to go over the notes over and over again to remember details.
Jijo and Aleesha shipped the first version of the app in March to select testers and released the web app in April.
The app itself
The Voicenotes web app doesn’t require you to log in — you can directly hit record and start speaking, and the app will transcribe.
You can only record voice memos up to one minute long unless you pay for the tool. Once you stop recording, you can tag notes, edit them, and recreate titles using AI. It also lets you use AI to reshape the note — turn it into a blog post, tweet, to-do list or email — and the app will also create a summary of the note and list the main points.
There’s also an “Ask my AI” feature, which lets you verbally search your notes using the AI assistant — if you want to remember which brand of dishwashing liquid you added to your grocery list two months ago, for example.
The company has now released iOS and Android apps. This is a big plus since Cleft Notes only works on Mac and iOS (still in beta). While AudioPen is accessible as a web app from anywhere, it can’t record in the background on iOS — if your smartphone screen locks or you switch to another app, it will stop recording.
Voicenotes also uses AI to prompt you with prompts that you can answer and record certain notes.
Competition and roadmap
Voicenotes brings some useful features, but as we mentioned above, it’s entering a space that’s filling up fast. It also has to face competitors that bring better features. Cleft Notes, for example, allows on-device transcribing (an important point because it keeps your notes private instead of sending them to a server for transcribing), has better Apple integration, and lets you record notes of up to 10 minutes or free step. AudioPen gives you a ton more options for formatting your notes, which some may find useful.
In addition to competing with other AI-powered voice memo apps, Voicenotes also has to compete with native apps like Google Recorder on the Pixel and Samsung’s Transcribe Assist — both of which are only available on select models, but could to go to other models. technology advances.
The biggest risk for all of these apps would be Apple adding transcription to its voice tag apps, as this would essentially make third-party apps redundant on iOS devices. However, there may be value in offering cross-platform compatibility, better formatting options, and additional features.
You can try Voicenotes for free or pay $10 per month to unlock access to better models like GPT-4 Turbo and Claude Opus, as well as remove note length restrictions. For a limited time, you can also pay $50 for a “loyalty” plan and get access to the app for life (read: as long as the developer continues to support it). The company said it has already earned $100,000 in subscription revenue.
Jijo told TechCrunch via email that the app’s differentiation will be its “simple yet elegant design,” its use of the best AI models, and its “Ask My AI” feature.
He added that Voicenotes will soon be available on smartwatches as well, he wants to expand its functionality to all platforms as a real-time assistant. In addition, it also works to turn voice memos into to-do lists with reminders.
