Can’t live with it, can’t live without it.
The delay waiting for the transcription process is both understandable and mightily annoying. The process’s inability to recognize a question, for example, that should be obvious from the structure of the sentence, and to add a question mark rather than a period, can require a huge amount of editing time. Similarly, Otter seems to randomly interpret long pauses, sometimes representing them with periods and other times ignoring them altogether. That’s one of the most frequent items requiring correction.
There is little point in continuing this list unless the Otter team is reading it. If you can benefit from an approximate transcript accompanied by disambiguating audio, this app is a blessing. If you need a verbatim account of what was said, plan to put in substantial time making corrections.
Finally, this app would be of great benefit if the editing process could take place collaboratively in the cloud, and if it could begin on the part of the file that had already been processed. Perhaps there is already a means of doing this, but it seems it would be very clumsy. Clumsy and collaboration are not comfortable companions.
Offline?
Response from developer
Hi Petrarch101, thank you for your comments. Like Siri and other live transcription apps, Otter requires wifi or network connection. Would you please tell us which other live transcription apps you've found that work offline?
custom-vocabulary issue
Response from developer
Thank you! We listen to all feedback and use it to improve Otter. Would you please contact us at support@otter.ai with examples of which custom vocabulary words did not work for you so we can investigate further?
Love this app.
Response from developer
Thanks for your review! Although the minutes do not carry over, you get 600 free minutes every month! Please recommend our app to your friends using your referral link and you'll both get rewarded. Follow us on Twitter (@otter_ai), Facebook (@OtterAI), and LinkedIn (Otter.ai) for updates. Also check out Otter for Teams ( https://otter.ai/teams ) for your organization.
Don’t know what other reviewers mean
What came out was, to me at least, utter gibberish. It seems like if I can get people to speak slowly and clearly and without interrupting each other at any point then the app can largely handle that well, but that’s just not how people talk. Every time I tried to record something more chaotic- eg a family dinner, maybe one sentence in five was clearly transcribed with the others being almost non sensical.
Perhaps my phone has out of date software (pretty sure that’s not the case) or there’s some other underlying issue causing the app to not work properly but my experience is exceptionally poor. I am only giving two stars because I want the app to get better and the UI is quite simple and intuitive, as well it has a good search feature, but without the cornerstone of decent transcription, it’s just not enough.
Response from developer
Hi there, we would love to investigate why your results differ greatly from many Otter users. Otter is primarily intended for meetings, interviews, lectures, and podcasts. For best results, please record clear audio of people speaking clearly, minimize background noise and speech overlap. Would you like to give Otter another try with these tips? Please see these user testimonials of the accuracy that's possible with Otter: https://blog.otter.ai/accuracy
Extremely accurate, suggestion here
My suggestion (and what I was originally looking for) is to be able to record and transcribe phone calls.
Response from developer
Thanks for your suggestion. Meanwhile you try Zoom for scheduled calls and sync them with Otter, or import other recordings into Otter. Please tell your friends about Otter through your referral link and you'll both get rewarded. Follow us on Twitter (@otter_ai), Facebook (@OtterAI), and LinkedIn (Otter.ai). Also check out Otter for Teams ( https://otter.ai/teams ) for your organization.
Wow! This works incredibly well.
So when I went back to the program & found out I could already hit keywords (Otter picks them out of your text) and jump to that part of the meeting, etc. I was really surprised.
The transcription isn’t perfect, but I was having a phone meeting with my client on speakerphone, so I didn’t expect it to be anywhere near as accurate as it was. Additionally, you’ve got the recording synced up with the notes, so even if the transcription isn’t 100%, you can go back & listen & make an adjustment.
Normally after a meeting, I’m trying to go back through my notes and deciphering my abbreviations to figure out what exactly was said - inevitably losing some of the conversation, spending all the time to try to figure out what actually happened, and time to clarify what my abbreviations meant - but this was SO easy.
I am still learning as I’m going (May update this later ; )) but Thank you!!! This is awesome. You just made this meeting the easiest I can remember in ages. Wow!
Could not live without it!!
Response from developer
Thanks for your review! Please tell your friends about Otter through your referral link and you'll both get rewarded. Follow us on Twitter (@otter_ai), Facebook (@OtterAI), and LinkedIn (Otter.ai). Also check out Otter for Teams ( https://otter.ai/teams ) for your organization.
The app you didn’t know you needed
Response from developer
Thanks for your review! Please tell your friends about Otter through your referral link and you'll both get rewarded. Follow us on Twitter (@otter_ai), Facebook (@OtterAI), and LinkedIn (Otter.ai). Also check out Otter for Teams ( https://otter.ai/teams ) for your organization.
Amazingly useful
Especially helpful is the ability to jump to any point in the recording by selecting a word in the transcript.
All this with 600 free minutes a month - just fantastic. Highly recommended, a major time saver.
Response from developer
Thank you for your review! Please tell your friends about Otter and you will both get rewarded. Follow us on Twitter (@otter_ai), Facebook (@OtterAI), and LinkedIn (Otter.ai). Also check out Otter for Teams https://otter.ai/teams for your organization.
