The built-in Notes app can now document and transcribe audio in iOS 18
Apple’s Notes app simply bought an enormous productiveness improve with iOS 18 due to new audio recording, transcription, and summarization instruments.
On Monday, on the firm’s annual Worldwide Builders Convention, Apple showcased a wide range of completely different options and OS enhancements. Throughout the occasion, it was introduced that the Notes app would obtain audio recording and transcription capabilities, together with summarization made potential by Apple Intelligence.
AppleInsider completely revealed the brand new audio recording, transcription, and summarization options of Apple’s app Notes months earlier than the official announcement. In our studies, we offered an outline of the app’s new options with potential use circumstances and comparisons to current merchandise.
Though it was beforehand potential so as to add audio recordings to a observe after the actual fact, the most recent model of Notes lets customers document audio instantly inside the utility. Audio recordings get embedded inside particular person notes, that means that customers also can add extra materials of their selecting, equivalent to photographs, tables, or textual content.
When a recording is completed, Apple Intelligence generates a abstract, letting customers recall the important thing factors with ease. Recording, transcription, and LLM-powered summarization can even be out there within the Telephone app – whereas the Voice Memos app has solely gained audio transcription.
It is price declaring, although, that Apple Intelligence – and the associated summarization options – will solely turn into out there later this yr, on gadgets with an A17 Professional or M-series chip. This finally signifies that customers will want both an iPad or a Mac outfitted with an M1 or newer chip, or an iPhone 15 Professional to expertise Apple’s newest AI software program.
Apple Notes will be capable of generate summaries via Apple Intelligence in iOS 18
Apple Intelligence can even carry with it a bunch of different enhancements, together with AI-powered picture era through the brand new Picture Playground software. As soon as the function formally launches, it’ll turn into potential to incorporate AI-generated imagery alongside audio recordings made in Notes.
Further enhancements for the Notes app embrace Good Script, which might mimic your handwriting on iPadOS 18, and Math Notes, which introduces assist for mathematical notation. AppleInsider broke the information on Math Notes in our earlier studies, such because the one detailing Apple’s new common Calculator that options the very same performance.
These newest enhancements will make Notes a real note-taking powerhouse – as a big selection of customers will now be capable of document and transcribe a large number of various issues on iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia.
Who will profit from these new Notes options?
College students will be capable of document lessons or lectures, and embrace whiteboard photos or related hyperlinks alongside their recorded audio. Since such recordings can typically embrace massive quantities of information, equivalent to definitions, examples, and complicated theoretical ideas, Apple Intelligence will assist carry readability at a look by producing a quick abstract.
Elevating Notes with extra instruments helps everybody
The brand new options inside Notes will undoubtedly serve to learn customers who frequently attend enterprise conferences, seminars, and digital convention calls – all of which frequently include a wide range of data. This consists of completely different statistics, dates, schedules, enterprise proposals, and plans for the long run, which Apple’s on-device AI will be capable of summarize and condense into key information factors.
Creatives equivalent to authors or screenwriters will now have the choice to document story concepts and ideas, and hearken to the recorded audio or skim via a transcription. The LLM-powered summarization function will make it even simpler to search out essentially the most related data equivalent to core ideas, character names, and areas.
On the similar time, journalists now have a extra environment friendly approach of recording and transcribing prolonged interviews, all whereas preserving the privateness of everybody concerned. Whereas third-party merchandise equivalent to Otter have already got comparable audio transcription options, Apple’s Notes app handles the whole lot on-device – that means that no delicate information is transmitted within the course of.
By including in-app audio recording, transcription, and summarization to its default Notes utility, Apple doubtless sought to compete with, and cut back customers’ reliance on, third-party merchandise equivalent to Microsoft’s OneNote or the previously-mentioned Otter app.
Apple’s newest enhancements will make Notes the go-to note-taking app for practically each sort of observe and each sort of consumer. A single observe will be capable of include rather more than ever earlier than – the whole lot from recorded lectures and conferences, to story concepts with AI-generated photographs.
The upgraded Notes app was previewed at WWDC alongside main upgrades to functions equivalent to Mail and Safari. Later this yr, Mail will obtain on-device electronic mail categorization via machine studying, whereas Safari will introduce a brand new Highlights function that gives key data and summaries of webpages.