Audio Memos review

Reviews Rob Potter 18:46, 7 Oct 2009

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We review Audio Memos, an iPhone app that allows you to set reminders using the power of voice

The latest iPhone OS update added Apple’s own voice recorder to the handset’s homescreen, so why would anyone fork out for an app that delivers the same thing? It’s a question David Detry thinks he has the answer to, with Audio Memos.

The premise is simple: Audio Memos offers a tad more control than Apple’s app, without being unweildy or complicated. To an extent, that’s exactly what the app delivers.

Fire it up and you’ll see familiar buttons and a reasurring level meter. On testing, we noticed little difference in audio quality between the app and Apple’s own Voice Recorder, despite the developer’s claims of using a “professionally engineered audio normalising filter,” but noted with glee the neat features designed to make navigating your recorded noise much easier.

Additions like bookmarking made it easier to navigate through longer recordings, and there are editing tools included too.

The latter is a nice touch, but far from essential: In practice we found trimming clips quite a fiddly job and abandoned it in favour of simply skipping past unwanted audio.

Perhaps the handiest feature is Audio Memo’s ability to send recordings via e-mail, or transfer them to an FTP server, PC or Mac. It’s a slick feature that makes backing up recordings a doddle, and avoids the typical problem of sounds staying stuck on the iPhone itself.

Is Audio Memos worth the outlay? The bookmarking feature alone will save those recording lengthy lectures or meetings a ton of time, while easy offloading of files is similarly valuable. If you’re tired of lugging a dictaphone, this could be a perfect replacement.