Otter: Transcribe Voice Notes

Okay, so I’m one of these people that hardly ever writes a review because either apps work they way they’re supposed to or not, in which case you look for ones that do, but I’ve been using this app for the past 10 minutes and I can attest that the transcription part has been working perfectly (probably 95% accuracy). I only need to go back into it and edit a few words which they it gets wrong, but basically this will end up saving me hours of the transcription process — what makes it even better/easier is that as the words are heard spoken, it highlights the specific words so it makes it that much easier for me to make sure that what was said is what was transcribed and I can fix it on the fly right there if it is not. You gotta try this out for yourself to believe it. In my case, it was just me speaking into the microphone from wherever I was and my voice was pretty clear, plus it imported perfectly from Scrivener into the app, I made corrections and instead of exporting it back into the app, I got as far as right before importing and copied the corrected transcription to paste into the app. If I had to do this for a living I’d be getting the premium service. Anyway, this truly works.

I’m in yearbook at my highschool and I do interviews all the time and this is the best app for the job, hands down. I still have to make edits to my interviews because the hallways can be noisy and the people I’m interviewing can be quiet and this can lead to the app not picking up words or getting the wrong words, but I can’t really control those things. My only problem with the app is that I cannot just convert it into a Google Doc straight from the app, many school districts are moving to Google for their way of communication (Classroom, Docs, Slides, Gmail) and it would save me time because currently I have to put it in my notes app, then copy it, then create a Doc, then paste it in the doc. My guess is you guys have been thinking about this for a while and I saw that you guys respond to reviews somewhat quickly so I thought I would give a review. P.S. Also, does a visual representation of the different speakers exist on the app? I would love to be able to visually know when speakers change, I understand how this would be hard because not everyone talks the same all day but maybe you could let us do it manually? Like my font would always be grey and other people talking (in my case it’s 1 person) would be another color. Alright, I hope this gets through to somebody who can at least think about it. Thank you for your time. Great app.

Believe me when I tell you I am a connoisseur of speech to text voice recognition. I have been using dragon anywhere but will cancel that account to use this one. My suggestions would be to make it so that I can use my Apple Watch with this. That would seem to make sense since it is designed to handle multiple conversations which the Apple Watch could be the intake for. The other suggestion, which is more important to me, is to simplify the process by which I can export the text to Notes. Having to click continue every time is a nuisance. My congratulations to the developers. Also because I have been doing so much speak to text voice recognition I routinely say the word Period. I also say the words new paragraph. This is not a big issue but perhaps you might allow for a setting that permits me to say these words and have them activate commands. And I think it is amazing that I can just leave it on and it only records when I start speaking. I hated it when dragon anywhere would stop recording on its own. Take-home message: make it easier to copy to notes. Make it easier to share. You still get five stars.

I’ve been transcribing for a couple years but I’ve usually only don’t small segments. Most were just small snippets of audio and never the full version. I recently accepted an offer from a client who required full transcription of her interviews, some of which, are over an hour. I was 15 mins into transcribing and I was exhausted. I did some googling tried Google Docs but it was complete trash. I found Otter and downloaded it on my phone at first. I played the audio on my computer and recorded it on my phone. I thought I hit the jackpot. Once it was done, I emailed it to myself. I got on my computer to open it and it made me sign in online. This is where I discovered that I could just upload the audio file and it would process it for me! Then by pure accident, I realized I could play it and it would highlight the words as it played. I would say it’s about 90% right. I love that we can assign speakers and timestamps. Then when we export it into word, you can choose to keep the speakers and timestamps or remove them. This has cut my transcribing time down extremely!! Saving me hours!! Love love love!

Thank you for creating this app. It is what the deaf and hearing-impaired community needs. I wear hearing aids and today, I went to Bible study and discovered that I had left my hearing aids at home. My pastor is soft-spoken so I began to search for real-time transcription apps and came across your app. I wasn’t expecting much from it as previous apps I had tried in the past had been terrible. About 5 minutes into using your app, I became convinced that this app is revolutionary: I was blown away by the speed and accuracy of the transcriptions. I used it throughout the two-hour Bible study and the transcription kept up in speed and accuracy. I am very impressed. Please, market this app to the deaf and hearing-impaired community because it is needed. A potential market for you is to find a way for cellphone calls to be transcribed real-time for deaf and hearing-impaired people. There is company that offers this service but their transcriptions are very, very bad. Thanks and I am happy to join your customer base.