Transcription on iOS

How to transcribe audio on your iPhone

An iPhone can already record audio and turn speech into text, but the two are not the same feature and neither gives you a meeting record. Here is what iOS covers on its own, and how to record a conversation and come away with a transcript, a summary, and the follow-ups.

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Site visit notesRecording
YO
You00:03

They want the second-floor layout revised before the contractor quotes it.

CL
Client00:12

And can we see two options for the entrance? The current one feels tight.

YO
You00:20

I'll have both to you by the end of the week.

Action items
  • Revise second-floor layout before quoting
  • Two entrance options by end of week

What iOS does, and what it does not

The built-in tools are good at their jobs. They are just not built around meetings.

Built into iOS

Voice Memos and keyboard dictation

Voice Memos records audio, and keyboard dictation turns your speech into text as you talk. Both are useful, but neither gives you a speaker-labelled record of a conversation between several people.

With Laxis

Record, transcribe, summarise on the phone

Capture a meeting or an in-person conversation from your iPhone and get a transcript, a summary, and action items in the same workspace as your desktop meetings.

The built-in tools

How far Voice Memos and dictation get you

iOS splits the problem in two: recording audio, and converting speech to text. Each does its half well, which is why the gap between them is easy to miss until you need a record of a conversation rather than a monologue.

1

Voice Memos records

Good for capturing audio quickly. Recent iOS versions can produce a transcript of a memo, though what you get is a single block of text rather than a structured meeting record.

2

Dictation types

The keyboard microphone converts your own speech to text in any text field. It is built for one person composing, not for capturing a conversation.

3

Anything else is manual

Turning either output into notes, decisions, and follow-ups is work you do yourself afterwards.

The Laxis route

The same meeting record, from your pocket

The Laxis iOS app is the mobile end of the same workspace as the desktop app, so a hallway conversation and a scheduled video call end up in the same searchable history rather than two separate places.

1

Record from the phone

Capture in-person conversations, site visits, and ad hoc calls, or let the assistant handle scheduled online meetings.

2

Get a structured transcript

Speaker-attributed text in over 100 languages, rather than one block of undifferentiated speech.

3

Leave with the summary

Decisions and action items are written up automatically and land in the same workspace as everything else.

Voice Memos vs. Laxis

For a quick note, Voice Memos is fine. For a conversation you will need later:

Voice MemosLaxis for iOS
Speaker labelsNo — one block of textEvery line attributed
SummaryNot producedWritten automatically
Action itemsNot producedExtracted as a list
Online meetingsNot coveredZoom, Meet, Teams, and Webex
Where it livesOn the phoneOne workspace shared with desktop
SearchMemo by memoAcross every conversation you have had

What the iOS app adds

Mobile capture that is part of the same record as everything else.

In-person recording

Site visits, hallway conversations, and interviews captured where they happen.

Enhanced voice memo

Recordings transcribed and structured rather than left as raw audio.

AI summaries

Decisions and next steps written up without opening a laptop.

Ask about past meetings

Query your meeting history from the phone instead of scrolling a list.

Shared with desktop

Everything recorded on mobile is in the same workspace as your video calls.

100+ languages

Useful for conversations that do not happen in English.

iPhone transcription questions

Partly. Keyboard dictation converts your own speech to text as you talk, and recent iOS versions can transcribe a Voice Memo. Neither separates speakers or produces a summary, so a multi-person conversation comes back as one block of text.

Record it in the Laxis iOS app. It transcribes the conversation with speaker labels and writes a summary with action items, and the result sits in the same workspace as meetings captured on your computer.

Yes — that is the main reason to transcribe from a phone rather than a laptop. Recording works the same way for a conversation in a room as for a video call.

Plans differ in how much transcription they include. The pricing page has the current limits for each tier.

An existing audio file can be uploaded and transcribed after the fact, which is the usual way to handle a recording made before you had a transcription app installed.

Recording works without a connection; transcription and summaries are produced once the device is back online.

Neither was built for a conversation between several people. There are no speaker labels, so a discussion comes back as one undifferentiated block, and there is no summary or action item list - the text is the whole output. Recordings also live on the phone, separate from the meetings on your laptop, so searching across many memos means opening them one at a time, and nothing connects to your CRM or the rest of your team's notes.

Transcribe your next conversation from your phone.

Recording, transcript, summary, and action items — in the same workspace as everything on your desktop.

Start for free, no credit card required.