Voice Notes: Call for requests
Erica Sadun | 1:43 pm | October 28, 2007 | Feature Requests, Bug Reports, Admin, Utilities, Software, Applications, iPhone
I’m about to do a few updates on Voice Notes and need your feedback. Voice Notes is my iPhone recording program. It allows you to record your voice using the speech-specific AMR format, and then play back those notes, manage your notes library, and share those notes by email.
For those of you familiar with VNotes, what features do you want to see? What changes do you want me to make? Bugs to fix? Here’s my current list of feature improvement goals. Feel free to add!
Stuff that I’m very likely to add
Sharing Add a feature that allows you to share wirelessly between iPhones. Add iPod touch receiver & playback.
Voice Mail Scan the voice mail folder as well as the recordings folder, so you can play back and share vmail as well as vnotes.
Beeps Users have requested quick beeps at the start and end of recording.
Improved renaming Better names and debugging.
Stuff that I’m less likely to add
Import into iTunes Frankly, I am nowhere near figuring out how to add to your music library. But this remains on the list as a feature I’d really like to add.
Scrubber bar This one is low on my priority list, guys. A scrubber with pause/stop, positioning.
MP3 conversion The magnificent core of wickedpsyched.com has ported ffmpeg to iPhone. It converts amr to mp3. But given how huge this tool is, I’m hesitant to include it in the otherwise compact VNotes distribution.
Your suggestions
So that’s my working list. What do you guys want to see? Let me know in the comments.
26 Comments »
Comment by patrickj | October 28, 2007 | 4:04 pm
Would it be possible to configure one (or maybe more) default email address to send VoiceNotes to? I find that I nearly always send to myself, so just one address would be a major bonus.
Great app by the way …
Comment by jwcrash | October 28, 2007 | 4:16 pm
Patrick’s got a great idea in the default email address option…that would be excellent.
So far as the mp3 conversion goes, I think that would be a HUGE addition. I could stop hearing my less-than computer literate family say that they have trouble playing back my amr notes. I’d gladly eat the disk space adding ffmpeg would take up. But I’m also not a programmer and don’t really understand the amount of work this would take.
In any event, this is my #1 native app…thanks so much for introducing it!
Comment by Dash-2 | October 28, 2007 | 6:40 pm
A scrubber bar would be very nice. And of course we’d like to be able to record calls. =D
Comment by Erica Sadun | October 28, 2007 | 7:02 pm
Unfortunately, recording iPhone calls with VoiceNotes is not going to happen any time I can see. The telephone software cuts off the recording.
Comment by danboc | October 29, 2007 | 12:58 am
Here’s an idea,
I use VNotes as a To Do list. it would be great if I could mark recordings as “Un-Listened” and for the red counter to appear on the app icon to display the number of un-reads. This will put those to do’s in my face so I don’t forget about them…
I asked previously about the option to place the recordings in the voicemail. the reason was for the above- getting the red counter to show me how many to do’s I have.
Hope this makes sense…
Comment by kaputnik | October 29, 2007 | 2:49 am
I wonder that a scrubber bar with positioning is low on your priority. I find it’s the most important feature.
I would further like to see:
- info about file size
- since the microphone is not that good for recording speakers in a larger room, a controller for the input level would be great. If possible of course.
Anyway: Thanks for this nice app!
Comment by acrobatic | October 29, 2007 | 8:39 am
You mentioned scanning the voicemail folder… what about a utility (like Voice Notes, or integrated with it) to scan through the voicemail directory and do a hacked version of Visual Voicemail?
Comment by Erica Sadun | October 29, 2007 | 10:04 am
The scrubber bar is low priority because it will take a lot of work and I have very little time and do not get paid!
Otherwise, I think it would be a great feature.
(Back to TUAW to earn some money by writing. Later!)
Comment by kaputnik | October 29, 2007 | 10:51 am
Erica, thanks for the explanation about the scrubber priority. I don’t have an idea about the amount of work for this.
have a nice day!
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Comment by t2wagen | October 29, 2007 | 3:09 pm
This looks like a FANTASTIC app but every time I launch it it just crashes and returns me to the iPhone home menu. My iPhone is running firmware 1.1.1, I am using Installer AppTapp 3.0b5 and installed VoiceNotes 0.21.
Comment by Erica Sadun | October 29, 2007 | 3:12 pm
If you get the crash problem, make sure to install the BSD subsystem and try again
Comment by Kingredmer | October 30, 2007 | 3:12 am
I don’t know how feasible it is, but I’d like to see a “send to ringtones” option. I think it would be cool to have my friends record a message and have it play when they call me. No idea, just throwing that out there….
Comment by bigspoody | October 30, 2007 | 4:55 am
Hi Erica, this app is great. When i try to edit the name of the file the program kicks me back to my home screen. Am i missing something? I record and playback no worries, i’m able to delete the recorded file no probs also.
Is there a limit on how long the file can be? I’d like to use it to record meetings, some of which can go for 2 hours.
thank you for all your effort on writing programs
cheers
Comment by ruftytufty | October 30, 2007 | 5:21 pm
From your comment above regarding recording iPhone calls, it appears that you’re aware of the problem that the recording terminates when a call starts (I haven’t investigated all scenarios, but Voice Notes definitely loses the sound when the phone rings on an incoming call).
It may not be possible to change this, but it would really be nice if it could
- warn you when it stops recording because of a call, and if possible
- pick up recording again when the call ends.
And - document the problem. The first time I tried to use Voice Notes for a real application, the phone rang half way through. i clicked the sleep button to decline the call, but I didn’t find out till later that the last 30 minutes of my recording was silent!
Great app, though. Thanks much!
Comment by eric.muir | October 30, 2007 | 6:12 pm
i love this app! the only thing i can think of to make it better, actually really doesnt have much to do with the app! confused? i would love to see a video camcorder for my iphone, with audio of course, but if not atleast the video part. can you imagine an 8gb camcorder in your pocket? i would love it, and i am willing to throw some cash around for it to, as i would use it DAILY, please let me know what i can do to help this!
Comment by phil | October 31, 2007 | 12:47 pm
Erica-
I’ve been using voicenotes recently as a general purpose audio recording app, specifically to record band rehearsals.
It works very well for this, but there’s two things that would make it indispensable.
1.) A scrubber…I heard around here that this is a low priority, but I have to imagine there are others who would like to be able to make long recordings and scan through them in some fashion.
2.) A way to adjust the sampling rate used when recording… 16-bit 44.1 kHz would be fantastic, but anything would be better than the current sampling rate, which i think is 8-bit at like 9 kHz…. I know that the original iPods were capable of doing 16/44.1, so I guess it is possible to do this on the iphone, although whether the API provides for it or not is another issue…
Anyways, thanks again for the app and all your work in the iphone hacking community…
-phil
Comment by jphansen | October 31, 2007 | 4:13 pm
Hey Eric - First of all GREAT work.. I would love to be abel to record when the phone is locked or not running in the forground.. Is that possible?
Comment by RickRockin | October 31, 2007 | 5:18 pm
Hey Erica .First and foremost ,Thank You. Voice Notes has got be one of the best apps for the iPhone yet. So here it goes 1) Adjustable Mic Level Input - So you know when the audio your recording is coming in too hot. 2) the Scrubber Tool 3) Adjustable Sample Rate. I also use in this rehearsal situations, so being able to adjust the mic level input is essential.I really hope you add this in the future.Thanks again for the great work you’ve done.
Comment by delegall | November 3, 2007 | 8:39 pm
Hi Erica, I am having the same glitch that a previous poster has with VNotes. When i try to edit the name of the file the program kicks me back to my home screen. I can record and playback with no problem and I can also delete the recorded file. I also noticed that the option to “Send to Voicemail” is not available on my phone. I am using an unlocked phone on Tmobile, so I thought that might be why. Any suggestions on the renaming recorded message bug?
Thanks a bunch for an awesome app. Shame on Apple for not including one themselves.
Comment by mrn | November 16, 2007 | 2:40 pm
Hello. Amazing and very important Application!
As already mentioned before: pure Wave-format (not compressed), with a sample at least up to 32, maybe 44.1kHz would be amazing. Why? Because The Line-In pins of the iPod Touch are just active:
http://www.ipodtouchfans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9347
That means not only the possibility to record from external audio sourcesb, but also .. VoIP and other speech-related apps also on the iPhone. I am not sure about the Line-In pins of the iPhone (I do not have an iPhone) but will be able to provide a dock connector soon if anybody is interested to test it on the iPhone. Thanks, and cheers! Mrn.
Comment by jacques mk2 | November 20, 2007 | 4:19 pm
Hi Erica, thanks for your work…
A question : will the voicenote app will soon be compatible with the ipod touch ? (if not, is it a hardware problem or a software matter ?)
A lot of people were expecting the ipod to be featured with this kind of app…
Many thanks for all.
Comment by gfmartino | November 26, 2007 | 6:22 pm
Erica, fabulous app. However when I try to edit name it sends back to my home screen immediately.I noticed a prior comment regarding this. Are we doing something wrong?
Comment by samfarrar | December 3, 2007 | 6:31 pm
i’m having a strange problem . . . no audio being recorded . . . i’ve had the crash happen a few times as well. i’ve restored, reinstalled, BSD subsystem added, and still when i go to record, it acts as though sound is being recorded. but playback is blank. i tried emailing the clips, to see if maybe i could hear something that way, but alas, no. its as if the mic is muted when i go to record. any thoughts?
Comment by Erica Sadun | December 3, 2007 | 7:00 pm
Samfarrar: Could you mike be broken?
Comment by infectedco | December 6, 2007 | 3:19 pm
Actually I am getting the same exact problem. At first it was only crashing my iPhone then I reinstalled the bsd subsystem and it stopped crashing my phone for a little while but started again. Is there something to do to fix that and the recording of voice notes
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