HEARD vs Fancy Hands
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
HEARD
This app acts as a memory backup, allowing you to capture audio from the recent past. It's useful for remembering important conversations, lectures, or fleeting moments. The app runs in the background and lets you save audio with a simple tap.
- Capture audio from the past
- Background recording
- One-tap saving
- Customizable buffer length
- Diverse use cases
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Let's admit it, we don't have perfect memories, and for the most part that's a good thing :) But there are many situations when we wish we did have perfect memory. HEARD is a practical way to have a backup of anything important you hear. When you hear something worth remembering, tap a button to preserve it for later reference. Its that simple :) Featured by: TechCrunch, PCMagazine, LifeHacker, USAToday, FoxNews, and 100s of other publications. HEARD is a ground-breaking app that lets you capture sounds from up to 5 minutes in the past. **** Diverse uses as reported by our users: - Office Productivity: Focus on the conversations, capture audio highlights, then synthesize notes offline, stress free! - As a back up for our short term memory, especially but not exclusively for the elderly - Improves grades in the classroom: similar to office productivity, but also as a work around for when we zone out for a while during say a late afternoon session and something important gets said. Also as an aid for students with disabilities such as dysgraphia - Musicians can capture gems in practice sessions - Law enforcement. Let's leave it at that :-) - Bird watching - Capture kids cute words, or a joke at a party. .... and many many more !! --------- Note: Now the base version gives you a 1 min buffer. An In-App purchase is needed to buffer up to 5 mins. Limitations: Just like any app that uses the MIC on iOS, while HEARD is listening in the background: - you will notice a red bar at the top of the screen - some notifications get silenced by the OS when the MIC is ON. Although the important stuff such as Phone calls, Calendar alerts and Clock alarms will continue to make sounds - Recording 'regular' cell phone calls is not allowed by iOS. But the app should work fine with VoIP calls such as Skype and Viber (when on speaker) Privacy: We take user's privacy very seriously, and we go the extra mile to make sure we protect it: - Nothing gets saved to permanent storage until the user tells us to do so. This means, what gets 'recorded' is completely in the user's control. After a few mins (equal to the length of the buffer) there is no trace left of the audio HEARD listened to - User's recordings never leave the device unless the user wants them to e.g via email or FB post. -------- How many times have you been in a meeting, playing with the kids or just hanging out with friends and family…and wished you could have recorded what just happened? Unless you’re a mind reader, there’s never been a way to see into the future and anticipate all those save-worthy sound bites. Until now. With HEARD installed on your iPhone, you have a powerful time-shifting app that lets you customize how far back you want to go so you can grab that otherwise missed audio. The HEARD app runs silently (and seamlessly) in the background and ‒ with a simple tap ‒ the instructions / driving directions / jokes / stories / first words / laughter you would have previously missed are now saved and stored on your iPhone. You probably never go anywhere without your iPhone, right? Now, with a quick download, HEARD lets you travel back in time from a few seconds (for free) to as much as five minutes (with the one-time, in-app upgrade). With HEARD, the length of the audio clip(s) you save are completely up to you. The interface is easy to navigate and you only keep what you “tap-and-tell” the app to go back and capture as soon as you’ve heard it. Every saved sound bite is stored in your personal library…and then the fun really begins! You can: • Replay previously-recorded audio clips • Associate each clip with an appropriate photo from the camera roll • Share via e-mail (using Quicktime) • Post to Facebook (where permission and privacy settings are up to you) It’s time to stop wishing you could have recorded it – and save it even after you’ve HEARD it.
Fancy Hands
Access a team of human assistants to complete tasks for you. Submit requests, track progress, and communicate with your assistant directly through the app. Leverage a blend of human intelligence, AI, and automation to boost your productivity.
- Submit new requests
- Check up on old requests
- Message your assistant
- View call and email activity
- View attachments
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Fancy Hands is a personal assistant service. We've got a team of assistants ready to work for you today. Just tell us what to do and we'll have an actual human get it done for you. We've blended humans, artificial intelligence, and automation to ensure you're as productive as possible. This app has been rewritten from the ground up. It allows you to submit new requests, check up on old ones, message your assistant, see call and email activity, view attachments.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Fancy Hands at Free against HEARD's $0.99. Fancy Hands also leads on in-app purchases (none vs 1). HEARD's advantage is review sentiment (51% vs 19%) and update cadence (every 6 months vs every 15 months). On rating, ratings volume, ads and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Fancy Hands is free to download; HEARD costs $0.99 up front. HEARD sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Fancy Hands asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 3.2 for HEARD against 3.3 for Fancy Hands. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 25 and 16 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 51% of HEARD's written reviews are positive against 19% of Fancy Hands's.
HEARD ships an update every 6 months, Fancy Hands every 15 months. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and November 2, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | HEARD | Fancy Hands |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 3.2 (25 ratings) | 3.3 (16 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 50.6% of reviews — better | 19.2% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 25 — better | 16 |
| Update frequency | Every 6 months — better | Every 15 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 10.0 | 10.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 7 MB | 84 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Faalsa Labs | Fancy Hands, Inc. |
Customer experience
HEARD
Fancy Hands
Bugs and requests
HEARD
Reported bugs
37 issues- Cannot export recordings
- App mutes notifications
- Background recording stops working
- App does not allow sending recordings to other apps
- Paid purchase not recognized
Show 32 moreShow fewer
- App shuts off unexpectedly
- Flashing red bar when running
- App gets removed when another app runs in background
- Recording becomes unplayable after emailing
- App crashes when accessing menu
- App stopped working after iOS update
- Stopped working with new iOS versions
- App crashes after purchasing longer buffer
- Audio plays through speakers instead of headphones
- Requires force-quit to stop recording
- Emailing recordings results in null error
- App needs to be open to work
- Red bar drains battery
- Speaker not strong enough
- Red banner interferes with other apps
- Mutes phone functions
- Cannot record phone calls
- Red bar fades in and out
- Text messages, emails, keyboard clicks are silent when app is running
- App crashes immediately after pressing hamburger menu
- Recording stops at 30 seconds in free version
- App stopped working on iPad
- Cannot listen through speakers on iPad
- Audio continues to play through speakers when headphones are plugged in
- App requires force-quit to stop recording
- Audio becomes unplayable after emailing
- App crashes after purchasing longer buffer
- App stops working after updating iOS
- App shuts off unexpectedly
- App gets removed when another app runs in background
- Flashing red bar at top of screen
- App needs to be open for it to work
Requested features
20 requests- Allow export of recordings
- Longer buffer options (hours)
- Ability to choose microphone
- UI update
- Lock screen control/save button
Show 15 moreShow fewer
- Integration with Apple Watch
- Trim audio clips
- Save clips to camera roll
- Option to hide or move the red status bar
- Improve background recording reliability
- Add documentation
- Allow recording phone calls
- Add a stop recording button
- Open In functionality for audio files
- Combine pre-recorded and live audio into one file
- iPad version of the app
- Share clips via MMS/SMS
- Seamless background recording start
- Save clips to Dropbox
- Sound editing features
Fancy Hands
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
HEARD
- Bigger Audio Buffer (up to 5 mins)$4.99
Fancy Hands
No in-app purchases









