Have you ever wished you could write down every idea in your head, regardless of where you are? Siri can be great to take a quick note or make a quick reminder, but when it comes to long-form text, Siri just doesn't cut the mustard.
If you're tired of typing everything out and would rather use your voice to dictate your text, check out these great apps for transcribing voice to text.
- Evernote
- Just Press Record
- Dragon Anywhere
- Call Recording by NoNotes
- Day One Journal
- Transcribe - Speech to Text
Evernote
You can always trust iMore. Our team of Apple experts have years of experience testing all kinds of tech and gadgets, so you can be sure our recommendations and criticisms are accurate and helpful. Find out more about how we test.
Evernote is a robust note-taking app that has long been recommended for note-taking and document sharing, and best of all, you can use your voice to type. You can share notes, annotate images, and collaborate on notes so that you can be as productive as possible. If you just need a note taker, Evernote's perfect for that. If you need a robust note-taking/presentation making/word processing app for business or school, then Evernote is perfect too.
It may not have all the features PowerPoint or Word have, but it'll certainly get you started. Plus, you can also sync across all of your devices so that you have access to your ideas no matter where you are or what device you're using.
Evernote is free to use, but you can purchase various levels of storage so that you can upload more, use it on an unlimited number of devices, access your notebooks offline, and much more.
Just Press Record
Whether it's a conversation between you and your friends that you want on record or you just want to get some quick thoughts on paper, Just Press Record lets you record anything you want and transcribe it into text.
You can choose to save your files locally or on iCloud so all your devices can access it and there are no recording time limits. Plus, you can even record from your Apple Watch with one tap if you use the Apple Watch complication.
What's really cool about Just Press Record is you can use the built-in microphone on your device or use an external mic hooked up through the lightning port. This makes Just Press Record a great tool for podcasters!
Dragon Anywhere
Nuance Communications has been making their Dragon series of speech-to-text software for years, and they have really done a great job at making it better over time. Dragon Anywhere is the mobile version of its flagship dictation software that has been making desktop users' lives easier.
Not only can you talk to Dragon Anywhere and it will instantly transcribe your words, you can also edit, customize your dictionary, and search through your documents and fill things in, all with the power of your voice.
You can upload all your notes and documents to plenty of cloud storage apps like iCloud or Dropbox making it easy to access all your files across your devices.
The app is free to download, but there is a subscription fee to unlock all the useful features.
Free with in-app purchases - Download now
Call Recording by NoNotes
Do you take a lot of business calls that you wish you could recall for later? Call Recording by NoNotes will let you record any call and give you the option to have it transcribed.
You can record any and all outgoing or incoming calls and save the audio recordings and even get them transcribed at any time after recording the call.
The app is free to download and will let you record 20 minutes of phone calls for free every month. If you do want to transcribe your calls or record for more time, you'll need to pay for it.
Free with in-app purchases - Download Now
Day One Journal
Journaling is not only a great way for us to reflect on our memories and life events, but it's also handy for notes and other random thoughts that we have throughout the day. Day One is an excellent app for keeping a digital diary for yourself, and it has some useful voice recording features.
With Day One, you can dictate a new entry with just your voice. The speech recognition that is built-in is pretty good, and will do a nice job of transcribing your voice into text for whatever you need to record. There is also the ability to just record audio clips themselves, which is fantastic if you want to remember important audio notes, or perhaps baby's first words.
Day One is free to download and use, but you will get even more out of the app with the Day One Premium. A subscription gets you unlimited journals, unlimited photos, videos, and audio for each entry, unlimited cloud storage, and more.
Free with in-app purchases - Download Now
Transcribe - Speech to Text
Transcribe is a simple app that gets the job done, no matter what situation. Just launch it, start talking, and Transcribe does the rest.
With Transcribe, you get almost-instant Artificial Intelligence transcription, and there's no lag between the speech and the transcription itself. You can transcribe voice memos and even videos, and then export that text transcription into a third-party text editing app. It even allows you to search through transcriptions, sync across multiple devices, and it supports 89 languages.
The free download includes a trial, which allows you to record up to 15 minutes. If you find it useful, you can purchase more recording time through in-app purchases.
Free with in-app purchases - Download Now
Which apps do you use?
Let us know in the comments!
August 2019: Added Day One Journal and Transcribe to the list.
