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What I would love to see if this could keep the audio file attached (.m4a from voice memos). For both reference and posterity in case I need to double check or verify transcription audio for any errors in the transcription. Other than that, I love the whole app and accuracy.
Kill subscription/server models and give us the option for offline and private transcription! Nice work!
Developer Response
Great, thanks! Yes updates are coming! Some nice new features and a macOS versionFundamentally, this is a pretty good implementation of Whisper on iOS. For longer transcriptions, it appears to just chunk the audio into 30 second segments, which can degrade the quality of the transcription, including unexpected line breaks and words that overlap two chunks not being great. I wish there were a few more options. One simple one would be a one-click button that allows you to re-process a finished transcription as a single complete audio file. Alternatively, I would like to set it up so that the real time preview is done using one model of my choice (maybe tiny, maybe base), and then after the transcription is complete, it would automatically process the complete audio with another model of my choice (maybe small or medium).
I go back and forth between this one and WhisperBoard. They’re both good in their own ways, but transcription quality is critical, so I rate WhisperBoard higher since it doesn’t seem to suffer the same oddities that are the result of Hello Transcribe attempting to do real-time transcription.
I’ve been waiting too long for apple to bring AI to voice memos but they haven’t done anything about it yet. I like that it uses whisper locally but would also have the option to just record audio and then let it transcribe overnight when I’m not using the phone (this could also enable us to use larger models since the transcription doesn’t need to be real-time); this in turn should allow me to search later through my recordings and when I tap on a word from the search result it should move the audio player cursor to that position, please implement something like this! Thanks, it’s almost there
Developer Response
Thanks for the support! On iOS it's not possible to run transcriptions in the background because of restrictions from Apple, so unfortunately you can only run those workflows on the Mac.
The next major version will have the cursor as you describe! With searchable text.This aop has no access to Medium or Large Models.
Developer Response
There is a charge for the larger models so I can support working on the app, but you can email me at ben@bjnortier.com and I will add you to TestFlight which gives you everything for free This app is EXACTLY what I’ve been looking for! As someone who relies on journaling/freewriting for everything—from internal reflections to business brainstorming—I’ve wished for an effective voice-to-text solution.
Other apps either lacked live dictation or were really inaccurate (looking at you, Siri). Hello Transcribe, however, has been a lifesaver! Now, I can freewrite on-the-go, while walking or driving or washing dishes. The hours I’m reclaiming, and the creative surge I’m experiencing, are simply monumental.
And feeding these transcriptions into ChatGPT has been incredible - giving me summaries, turning rambling thoughts into article drafts, emails, action items (and even app reviews 😉). And surprisingly, it even runs in near-real-time on my old iPhone X!
I do have 2 suggestions though: the ‘clear’ button is dangerously close to ‘pause’. Wish there was a confirmation prompt. And an option to keep the screen awake during recording would be really nice.
But even still, this app, especially at its price point, is perfect to me. Thanks for creating this Ben!
Developer Response
I've added a confirmation prompt for clearing the dictation in version 3 - should come out soon!i use this often and it’s offline capabilities is superior to all competitors
Developer Response
Thanks for the feedback. The medical terminology is interesting, and would require some investigation into how to approach it, but it's on the to-do list. I have investigated adding a keyboard - iOS has a hard memory limit for keyboards so not even the "tiny" model will fit. A keyboard would have to use server-side transcription, which has privacy concerns. Would you use a keyboard that sends your audio to a server?Not sure how Ben did it, but this implementation of Whisper is just as fast as any other I've used (such as MacWhisperer) on my Macbook Pro M1 Pro -- and yet it ONLY is using up RAM when actively doing the listening/transcribing infernece. I'm assuming that has something to do with CoreML and the 20-minute one-time initialization that took place when i first installed the ~600mb Eng Small Model.
A couple things that would be amazing to have in the future:
- a menu-bar version for quick/easy access to transcribing (or even something like the ability to right click in a text field and select an option for transcribing voice to text, if that's possible).
- MacWhisper has an option to clean up the random line breaks and spacing that happens during the transcription, would love to see Hello Transcribe get the same ability.
- Ability to use the Macbook's system audio to transcribe any audio source
Developer Response
Thanks for the review and thanks for the requests! I I will look into adding themThis app does a great job where you can see the transcription happening in real time and even has Shortcuts support. So much more useful (and faster) than anything Apple has. --- Tip: it's not obvious, but you can copy/export your transcription even after pausing it by press and holding on the output box. Then you can resume if needed. ---Wishlist: be able to select a specific section of the text rather than needing to export the whole thing.
Developer Response
Thanks for the positive review!This app is great! I do most all my computing on the App Store-- both for work and for personal use. For my profession, I also do a lot of transcription but need a transcription app that allows me to keep my transcription on my device and not send it over the internet-- this app does all of that! I tried different apps in the past but none achieved enough recognition and kept my information on my device (Apple's dictate is okay but not so accurate when not transmitting information to the cloud).
The app is also free and the developer shows the user in the settings good information about what is going on with the app and customizations. I opted to also purchase the "Pro" version which gets you a bigger speech model (more accurate) for a one time fee of approximately $7 (seems quite reasonable)-- rather than other Whisper apps often asking for $99/year (especially considering the underlying Whisper engine is open source and free).
Looking forward to the developer continuing to develop this app. Developer might want to consider a catchier app name to attract even more interest on the App Store.
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