Thought Recorder

Transcription runs locally by default through Apple's Speech framework, so your voice does not leave the phone. Recordings become searchable text with a one-paragraph summary, and you can swap engines per file when one recording needs more accuracy. Speaker labels appear automatically in interviews and panels, and renaming a speaker once carries that name into every export.

Thought Recorder records lossless M4A for everyday use or broadcast-grade WAV BWF with embedded time-of-day timecode for field work. That setup makes the iPhone behave like a Sound Devices or Zoom recorder, and the file is friendly to Tentacle Sync. Marker timelines export as XML for Premiere and Final Cut, or EDL for DaVinci Resolve, with labels and transcripts attached.

Exports are aimed at post-production rather than a notes folder. You get SRT captions, a markers CSV for Reaper or Logic, YouTube chapters for video descriptions, Markdown with YAML frontmatter for Obsidian or Notion, and PDF for client handoffs. One export pairs with the audio ZIP so an older session can batch-relink to broadcast WAV in a single step.

An idea usually dies in the gap before you reach your phone, so Thought Recorder records standalone from the Apple Watch when the phone is out of range. You can start a capture from a watch face complication and drop markers hands-free with the Double Tap gesture on newer models. Everything syncs back across iPhone, Mac and Watch once the devices reconnect.

Recordings and notes group into project categories you create and order yourself. From a category you can bulk-share chosen items to a director, editor or co-founder in a few taps, while leaving the rest private. Each shared item becomes its own record on the recipient's device, so per-item receipts and comment threads work the same as a single share.

Privacy is the design, not a setting. There are no analytics, no third-party SDKs and no servers holding your recordings. Everything runs on Apple frameworks, syncs through your personal iCloud, and lives encrypted on the device until you unlock it. You can also point backups at your own Google Drive folder if you prefer a second copy.