Using Notes Like a Digital Dictaphone

There is a partial workaround with my obsolete iPhone SE. I go back to VoiceMemo. First I turn on "Live Captions" through the Settings app. Now I go back to VoiceMemo. I select an already recorded memo from this app. There is a Live Capitons icon or the Live Captions screen comes up. Only when I touch the play arrow to hear the recorded message do I get the Live Captions transcription. You do not get the transcription while you are recording the message. Only on playback.

However, I do not seem to be able to copy and save the Live Captions transcription to Notes even though google info tells me that it should be possible. So I get text only when I play back the voice recording. This is progress, but not what I really want. Once I save the text in Notes, I just want to refer to the text without the voice recording. But, unfortunately, my out of date iPhone does not seem to support that.

This will have to do until I buy a new iPhone.

Anyone have any other ideas to get the VoiceMemo text successfully copied to Notes on an older iPhone?

It is the first generation SE. I bought it in 2020.

Apple has found a way for its customers to spend more money on their products. This is quite motivating for me and I may consider taking the plunge. I really find the dictaphone feature extremely important. I do not remember things easily and when I am on the go at a moment an idea can strike me. If I do not record it, it promptly gets forgotten. All I remember is a pointer that there was an idea I had, but I have not a clue to its content from memory. This is where the dictaphone feature on my iPhone, which like any modern human being, I always carry with me like my wallet. I just zip out my iPhone. Record by voice through Notes the idea and the idea is captured as a note for all time. No more memory loss problems!

Right now I use the original HOME button Siri voice option to record notes in Notes. But this does not work very well. I get recording failure error messages if the Siri recording is too long or there are too many pauses while I am thinking about what I want to record next. Also Siri misunderstands me frequently. So the automatic dictaphone/transcription option will solve my problem for all time.

There is a fundamental reason why I believe in any iPhone or iPad regardless of the version, new or old, screenshots or captures of the "Live Capture" text will never work. This is because at the end of the complete recording all you get from Live Capture are the last few lines of the text and you lose everything else for longer messages. So you will never capture the transcript of the complete recording in Notes or in any other transcript texting app based on copy and paste. This has actually been observed on my iPhone/iPad.

There is a good reason for this behavior on any Apple device. The function of "Live Capture" is a "handicap" accessibility function by design. That means its intention is to capture in text the "running" voice message as it is being played back. This means the intent of the feature is that a person, say, hard of hearing (i.e., hearing handicap) will get the "running" text of the most current part of the voice message as it is being played out. This is exactly the same as the subtitle feature you get on TV when the accessibility features are turned on. The point is to allow a hearing handicapped person to understand the voice message as it rolls out by using text because the voice is hard to understand due to the handicap.

This means that there is no intention in Live Capture to capture the entire voice message in text: this latter function which is what is desired from a dictaphone/transcription application, but not from a (hearing) handicap accessibility application.

Looking forward to Apple creating a very reliable digital dictaphone on an iPhone with Notes so as to obsolete the analog dictaphone. If modern technology can obsolete the analog 8-track tape with a digital CD or DVD, why cannot modern technoloy obsolete the analog dictaphone with a digital dictaphone, say, with Notes?

If the technology is not yet there for a reliable digital dictaphone as previously commented, at least Apple can come up with easy fixes as a workaround. Why not being able to swipe the screen to immediately go from one note recorded to the next? In this way we can essentially read back a long note as constituted by a list of very short notes, simply by swiping from one note to the next. We get around the current limitation of recording very long notes without Notes generating an error message failing to record the message.

Thank you so much for the info. I did not know about the VoiceMemo app before (in the "Utilities" group). This is why I recently had joined the Apple Community!

Note you can copy the recording directly into the file structure within the VoiceMemo app as an alternative to copying it into Notes.

This is almost what I want. What I really want is to have all of those voice recordings transcribed as text in Notes. True, I can listen to my voice message on playback, but I use my thoughts generated in my own personal writing. I could go to voice that recalls the idea I had right to my document I am currently writing. However, it is much easier for me to insert the idea saved as text in Notes to my document that I am writing.

Again, thank you so very much!

Yes. Now I see that there is a complete solution under IOS18. I have an earlier iPhone, earlier than the iPhone 12. You get the recording capability within Notes. However, you do not get the transcription capability neither automatically nor a "....." option of "Transcribe Notes". By googling information I discover that you need an iPhone 12 or later for the full recording/transcription capability within Notes to work. My out of date iPhone seems to be the cause of the failure of the transcription capability.

Unless I have a workaround, the complete solution requires a new iPhone so that I get transcription along side of voice recording within notes.