Transcription
The iPhone Notes app is amazing. You probably use it just like me, just to jot down a note here or there. But there's another whole level to the iPhone Notes app that will level up your ability to remember anything, and to do it quickly and easily and seamlessly in the app. Let me show you how it works.
So, I'm on my iPhone. You can do the same steps on an iPad or a Mac. First, we need to navigate to the Apple Notes app. It looks like that. If you don't see that on your home screen, you can just swipe down and type in "notes" to be able to open it up.
Now, for me, we're getting to the spring. I've had sprinkler issues. We moved into this house last fall, and the sprinkler system is a mess. You can see this is my sprinkler controller. There are cobwebs in it. It's falling apart. And on top of that, the backflow preventer is missing. However, I've talked to some sprinkler and irrigation experts, and I want to get an idea of what's going on and to be able to capture all of that information in the Notes app. However, after I meet with a sprinkler guy, I don't want to go through and type on this tiny little keypad on my iPhone to try to remember exactly what was said.
A great feature is to be able to do a voice recording within the Notes app. So, tap anywhere on the Notes app and find that little paperclip icon. It's right here. It'll be right above the keyboard. When I've done that, you can see a number of different options. We'll go through a couple of these, but first, I want to go to "Record Audio." You can see with the little recording here. This brings up this page, essentially allowing me to immediately dictate whatever I talk to the sprinkler guy, or after a doctor's appointment, or after a genius idea that you had on a walk. You can do all of those.
I'm going to hit record here. "Hey, so I talked to the sprinkler guy and he said I need to install backflow preventer and then fix the controller on my irrigation system and then pressurize the whole system to see if it works." Now I'm going to hit the pause button. And I've made that recording. And now I'm going to show you some cool options you have to be able to use it.
Let's tap on the little check mark at the top right. And you'll see something really cool. So, one is, of course, I can just hit play and listen to it again. However, there's other things that you can do as well. There's a preview here that will just automatically kind of tell you what that note is about or that recording. But I can tap on that recording, and you can see there's a transcript. So, it does put together a transcript of exactly what you said.
However, you can take this one step further. On this transcript on the recording, I'm going to tap the three dots at the top right. And then you'll be able to see I can hit "Copy Transcript." And once I've done that, I've copied that transcript. I'm going to hop out of here. And under the recording, I'm going to just tap my finger and hit paste. So now, if I have this big long recording, maybe I have some ingenious thoughts on a walk, or I talked to a doctor and he told me basically I needed to do X, Y, and Z to be healthier, etc. You're going to put this all in here so you can read it.
But a cool additional factor or feature is we're going to double tap and then use our finger to select all of this text. So, let me select all of it. And now, depending on your phone, right above the "P," you'll see an Apple Intelligence logo. Keep in mind, not everybody has this. You do have to have Apple Intelligence on your phone. But if you do, you can tap on the Apple Intelligence and then you can say, "I want this as a bullet list," and hit the little arrow to the right of it. Essentially, what this will do is it will take that super long note and make a bulleted list of exactly what you need to do. You can see, "All right, talk to sprinkler guy, need to install backflow preventer, fix the controller," etc. Keep in mind, you can also just use this to go through the process of summarizing it or rewriting it, whatever you want.
Now, after I've done that, I want to bring in another photo because I also have an issue with the backflow. So, I'm going to tap under there and maybe put a couple spaces. Let's tap on the paperclip icon again. And then on here, I'm going to hit "Choose Photo or Video." And on here, let's say I can choose this rock, or I had... There we go. Here is the backflow, or where it used to be and where I need to install a new one. So, I've added another photo in here.
But I can also scan text in an image or just scan text in real life to be able to help me understand or to remember what's going on. So, I'll show you how it works. For instance, on this controller, if I tap on the photo, you'll be able to see at the bottom right, you can see little text icons here. I can tap on that text, and it automatically pulls all the text that it can read in an image. So, this is helpful if you're at a doctor's office and you need to take a quick photo of a document that reminds you to take your meds or something like that, or any other item that you took a photo of. And then I can hit "Copy All." And then on here, I can just hit the "X" button at the bottom. I can just tap and hit paste, and it will paste all of that information. Say I need to get a serial number for the controller or something like that.
But I can also tap on the paperclip icon. And from here, I can hit "Take a Photo" or I can choose "Scan Text." This is super helpful because if I tap on "Scan Text," let me just lift my phone up real quick, and let's say on here I had some text about a backflow preventer. You can see, all right, it identifies that text in my journal here, and then essentially it can automatically scan that text and then insert it into your note. Essentially, what we're doing is building a profile of information that you want to remember down the road.
Now, after you hit the check mark at the top right, it will save this. However, you might have lots of notes and you want to go back and find this again. A cool feature is at the very bottom of the note. Let's make a couple spaces. We're going to type in a hashtag. Let me tap on that little hashtag symbol or pound symbol. And then I'm going to type in "home" and hit enter. You can see that hashtag turns into a clickable link. However, this will allow us to easily just identify all of the notes that are associated with your home, or your work life, or your business, or your family, or whatever you want. If I then tap the check mark and back, and back again, you can see now it shows up with tags, and there is "home." I can tap on "home," and it will show me every single note that I have tagged with that home feature.
Now, let's say you're out and about and you just had a great conversation with a colleague or a friend, and you wanted to be able to remember it. Instead of opening up the Notes app and then going to the audio transcribe or recording a note, all you have to do on that Notes app if it's on your home screen is to press and hold on it. And there you can see is "Record Audio." I can tap on "Record Audio," and it will immediately bring up a new note with this page. Again, I can just tap on the red record button, and it will start recording my voice. So, just like that, you can quickly and easily get into a point where you're listening, or it's listening to you, and you can dictate whatever you want to remember down the road. When you're done, just hit the pause button at the bottom, and then just hit the check mark at the top right, and you can see a new note with that new recording.
Now, if I go back out of here, tap on the back arrow and back again. Another cool feature is just to search. But of course, if you were like me, you have tons and tons of notes, and you can't necessarily find where certain things are in certain notes. So, I can just type on the search, and I'm going to search for "backflow," and then it will pop up with that specific note that has the mention of backflow. So again, you can just search for certain notes.
And now the last thing I want to show you is, let's say you're not doing this just for yourself. You wanted to do it and you wanted to collaborate with someone else as well. You can tap on the share button at the top right of any note. And on here, you can see "Fix the sprinkler." I'm going to choose "Collaborate." You can choose "Send a Copy" if you just wanted them to see what you've entered into this note. But I'm going to choose to "Collaborate." And then I'm going to collaborate with my wife, Haley, because I want her to be able to see all this information. And then I can hit the send button. Essentially, what this does is it sends that note to her so that she can edit it and she can add her own notes as well, and we can collaborate in real time. It will automatically update through iCloud, essentially showing the real-time edits on your iPhone, on your iPad, or on your Mac.
I hope this helps. If it did, check out this video. I think you'll like it, and I hope you watch more of my videos.