Apple’s Notes app simply acquired an enormous productiveness improve with iOS 18 because of new audio recording, transcription, and summarization instruments.
On Monday, on the firm’s annual Worldwide Builders Convention, Apple showcased a wide range of completely different options and OS enhancements. Through the occasion, it was introduced that the Notes app would obtain audio recording and transcription capabilities, together with summarization made attainable by Apple Intelligence.
AppleInsider completely revealed the brand new audio recording, transcription, and summarization options of Apple’s app Notes months earlier than the official announcement. In our studies, we offered an summary of the app’s new options with potential use instances and comparisons to present merchandise.
Though it was beforehand attainable so as to add audio recordings to a word after the actual fact, the newest model of Notes lets customers document audio straight inside the software. Audio recordings get embedded inside particular person notes, that means that customers may add extra materials of their selecting, equivalent to photos, tables, or textual content.
When a recording is completed, Apple Intelligence generates a abstract, letting customers recall the important thing factors with ease. Recording, transcription, and LLM-powered summarization may even be obtainable within the Telephone app – whereas the Voice Memos app has solely gained audio transcription.
It is price mentioning, although, that Apple Intelligence – and the associated summarization options – will solely turn out to be obtainable later this 12 months, on units with an A17 Professional or M-series chip. This finally signifies that customers will want both an iPad or a Mac outfitted with an M1 or newer chip, or an iPhone 15 Professional to expertise Apple’s newest AI software program.
Apple Intelligence may even convey with it a bunch of different enhancements, together with AI-powered picture technology by way of the brand new Picture Playground software. As soon as the function formally launches, it is going to turn out to be attainable to incorporate AI-generated imagery alongside audio recordings made in Notes.
Further enhancements for the Notes app embody Sensible Script, which might mimic your handwriting on iPadOS 18, and Math Notes, which introduces help for mathematical notation. AppleInsider broke the information on Math Notes in our earlier studies, such because the one detailing Apple’s new common Calculator that options the very same performance.
These newest enhancements will make Notes a real note-taking powerhouse – as a wide selection of customers will now be capable to document and transcribe a mess of various issues on iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia.
Who will profit from these new Notes options?
College students will be capable to document courses or lectures, and embody whiteboard photos or related hyperlinks alongside their recorded audio. Since such recordings can typically embody giant quantities of knowledge, equivalent to definitions, examples, and complicated theoretical rules, Apple Intelligence will assist convey readability at a look by producing a short abstract.
The brand new options inside Notes will undoubtedly serve to learn customers who usually attend enterprise conferences, seminars, and digital convention calls – all of which regularly comprise a wide range of info. This contains completely different statistics, dates, schedules, enterprise proposals, and plans for the longer term, which Apple’s on-device AI will be capable to summarize and condense into key information factors.
Creatives equivalent to authors or screenwriters will now have the choice to document story concepts and ideas, and take heed to the recorded audio or skim by a transcription. The LLM-powered summarization function will make it even simpler to search out essentially the most related info equivalent to core ideas, character names, and areas.
On the identical time, journalists now have a extra environment friendly means of recording and transcribing prolonged interviews, all whereas preserving the privateness of everybody concerned. Whereas third-party merchandise equivalent to Otter have already got comparable audio transcription options, Apple’s Notes app handles all the pieces on-device – that means that no delicate information is transmitted within the course of.
By including in-app audio recording, transcription, and summarization to its default Notes software, Apple possible sought to compete with, and scale back customers’ reliance on, third-party merchandise equivalent to Microsoft’s OneNote or the previously-mentioned Otter app.
Apple’s newest enhancements will make Notes the go-to note-taking app for practically each kind of word and each kind of person. A single word will be capable to comprise far more than ever earlier than – all the pieces from recorded lectures and conferences, to story concepts with AI-generated photos.
The upgraded Notes app was previewed at WWDC alongside main upgrades to purposes equivalent to Mail and Safari. Later this 12 months, Mail will obtain on-device e-mail categorization by machine studying, whereas Safari will introduce a brand new Highlights function that gives key info and summaries of webpages.