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Comment by fennecfoxy | Hacker News Reader

I don't get it?

It sounds like it just creates a recording and saves this in a video format with some visual, which is alright I guess.

Perhaps it's because I'm more of an Android person, but does ios really not have a file browser?!?!

The iOS file browser is not fun to use at all. I'm one of those iOS users whose whole entire life exists on his camera roll. Pictures of notes videos and photos. That's why I navigate my life from also, and therefore I made my own solution to saving audio files to the camera roll which I did by adding the audio to a simple visualisation to make a little bit less basic. and exactly the execution is for me acceptable but it's the function of it that provides utility; by passing an annoyance of iOS that you've just can't put an audio file into your camera roll.

I'm really grateful for the time you took to write a comment to me thank you.

You basically hit the nail on the head. This app sounds like it would have no purpose to Android users, since the only purpose is to work around a really dumb limitation of iOS that Android doesn't suffer from.

I think I might defect from ios

Nope, not really for voice memos - those are locked away in the app. Unrelated, but it also has terrible built-in support for playing audio files from the file browser.

so true. And it's just locked away thing that bugs me. If I record an audio in WhatsApp or in Messages or Voice Memos they are locked and I have to go back inside of those apps to access them. I prefer to have easy access to notes that I make in one place so really I just developed my own work around that allows me to do that. Thanks so much for your comments. It's interesting that people notice some problems. Apple file browser is pretty useless and I end up using the app called "Documents" for when I really need to access the file saved somewhere in the file system.

I saw your other comment about thinking about defecting ha ha. Just remember that with great power comes greater (ish) responsibility - apps can do a lot more on Android but this means that malware can potentially do more damage. Though for a while many apps have had restricted access to filesystem, you have to enable full file system access on a per-app basis.

So as long as you don't install random apks (and enable the option that allows this) or give arbitrary/untrustworthy apps full file system access (also specifically enabled) then you're good.

iOS has a file browser called Files.

I believe this is an attempt at trying to level up the Voice Memos feature which has been neglected compared to other OS features.

It just makes you wonder why Apple is so behind with its apps. I remember when Android was the one struggling to catch up, but now the tables have turned. A friend of mine was able to remove people from a photo ages ago, something that only recently came to iOS. Apple spent so much time and money on those 3D avatars, but honestly, who's using them? I mean, 8-year-olds don't even have iPhones, right?

Apple could take inspiration from this little app and build something brilliant using AI and machine learning.

- An app that animates your photos and lets you record a message on top

- Or a feature in iOS that converts any audio into text and lets you summarise 2 or 5 minute voice messages into a paragraph. I don't have time to listen to long audios. And please, don't just add it to Messages, add it to iOS.

- Or an app that turns your voice messages into a video with subtitles for people who can't hear, with animations, background moving, colours, and all the AI jazz.

- Or even better, an app that creates images based on what you're saying in the audio.

I don't know, there are so many cool ideas floating around.

Apple really needs to start showcasing its AI capabilities. Even the camera software feels behind. I keep upgrading the hardware & software and barely see any difference.

Tim, if you are reading this: Stay hungry, stay foolish!

These all really good points. And also really good ideas. I think they're going half heartedly going the way you envisage (i speculate). Mimojis are pretty fun but literally It's an app my 3 year old wants to use. Runway ML has an awesome realisation of some of your ideas, well worth having a look at... Apple allowing developers to access their own AI on device foundation model is apparently a step ahead, but at the same time so much power is being kept under the surface that would be amazing to actually use. I love your thoughts and thinking btw.

I think "behind" because they are risk averse and short of a unifying vision atm. Share holder satisfaction and unimaginative decision making perhaps?

I think big tech companies take risks, calculated ones, and they're masters of prioritisation. Pushing AI to devices was a smart move by Apple. They're great at giving developers cutting-edge tools to keep an edge in app quality.

I just hope Tim's gamble pays off and we start seeing some amazing apps soon. Because Siri was a massive flop (cool tech, but completely useless), the camera software feels outdated compared to some Android phones, and the 3D emojis felt like a bad marketing idea to get kids playing with their parents phones and hooked on Apple (just like McDonald's did with Ronald the clown).

I have definitely some optimism about on-device AI combined with iOS integration ie App Intents. They were really keen on developers making something with this, and I can see why. It gives a chance for Apple to allow us to provide a different experience than Siri when it comes to an AI "powered" OS interface.

I don't know if Android was ever the one catching up with apps. Remember the first iPhone wanted to use html5 apps + not allow an app store/custom apps, only those provided by Apple.

Whereas Android wanted SDK + app storefront from the get-go. The "Androids" book has this quote: "I wanted a fourteen-year old kid sitting in Kansas to be able to write an app in the morning and upload it in the afternoon to Android Market and have it go out to sell to all the customers."

Can't recommend this book so much though - it has some interesting bits but it's just not technical enough/the writing style is very same-ey across the book (which makes sense since they're telling the same part of the story from different perspectives) but it just gets very boring reading essentially the same phrases etc over & over.

It is an honour to be the recipient of such a comment, thanks for taking the time to write. Yes it really is just an app to try and level up an iOS deficiency.

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