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Comment by schmidtleonard | Hacker News Reader

Button-toggled voice notes in the iPhone Notes app are a godsend for taking measurements. Rather than switching your hands between probe/equipment and notes repeatedly, which sucks badly, you can just dictate your readings and maaaaybe clean out something someone said in the background. Over the last decade, the microphones + speech recognition became Good Enough for this. Wake-word/endpoint models still aren't there yet, and they aren't really close, but the stupid on/off button in the Notes app 100% solves this problem and the workflow is now viable.

I love it and I sincerely hope that "Apple Intelligence" won't kill the button and replace it with a sub-viable conversational model, but I probably ought to figure out local whisper sooner rather than later because it's probably inevitable.

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I bought an iZYREC (?) and leave the phone at home. MacWhisper and some regex (I use verbal tags) and done

Some dubious marketing choices on their landing page:

> Finding the Truth – Surprisingly, my iZYREC revealed more than I anticipated. I had placed it in my husband's car, aiming to capture some fun moments, but it instead recorded intimate encounters between my husband and my close friend. Heartbreaking yet crucial, it unveiled a hidden truth, helping me confront reality.

> A Voice for the Voiceless – We suspected that a relative's child was living in an abusive home. I slipped the device into the child's backpack, and it recorded the entire day. The sound quality was excellent, and unfortunately, the results confirmed our suspicions. Thanks iZYREC, giving a voice to those who need it most.

Hahaha yes, a Chinese idea of marketing. However has good battery, good mic, and you can use if offline as mass storage so nothing lost

> Button-toggled voice notes in the iPhone Notes app

Is this a physical button or on-screen? I’ve been rewatching Twin Peaks recently and would love a high-tech implementation of Cooper’s tape recorder.

They could be refering to the "action button" on the newer Pro phones, which replaced the silent switcher.

They might be referring to an on screen button.

Check out the new voice transcription feature in iOS 18. On my SE 2022 (very much not high-end), I have a good-size record/pause button on screen.

After you’re done with the voice recording, it gives you a transcription of what you spoke.

It's an on-screen toggle button in the Notes app. Press to start recording, take your time, don't worry about about a 10 second turn around if you pause slightly too long between words, just speak and toggle the button back off when you are done. If someone walked up and had a conversation half way through just delete the words.

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