Just Press Record

RECORD, SYNC, TRANSCRIBE, REPEAT. $7.99 | openplanetsoftware.com

You can approach Just Press Record from two angles. On the Apple Watch, it’s the memos app Apple never bothered to make. You prod a big button to kick off audio capture (or jump to recording from the app’s complication), and press Stop when you’re done. Recent recordings remain on your Apple Watch for your perusal. On the iPhone, the app’s a mite more involved. You also record using your phone’s mic or external kit. If you want pro-level recording, you can even ramp up the capture quality from AAC to 96kHz/24-bit.

Individual recordings can be renamed, shared, and played back at various speeds. You’ll also notice when firing up a recording that Just Press Record will have transcribed everything (assuming permissions were granted at the appropriate time). This means recordings are searchable by date and file name, and also by content. Sure, the transcriptions aren’t always accurate, but we’d prefer to start with a pretty good first attempt we can later tidy up on the Mac, rather than have to laboriously type out every word ourselves. In short, it’s all very useful, quick and convenient, whatever your device.