No matter how much it hurts Android fans to hear it, Google has been copying the iPhone ever since the first Pixel came out, and the Pixel 4 does it also. And yes, Apple has taking stuff from Google too, but things are far from being even. Up until now, we thought that Google only adapted one iPhone feature for the Pixel 4 series — and Android. That’s 3D face recognition, something that hasn’t been done on phones before the iPhone X. It took two years for Google to pull 3D face recognition off, and Google is one of the few companies that tried to replicate Face ID — Xiaomi, Huawei, and LG did it with a few of their devices too. It turns out there’s one other tiny thing the Pixel 4 swipes from iOS, and that’s an app that’s been on iPhones for years. However, Google’s version of the app will be a lot better.
Called Voice Memos on iOS, the app offers a simple way to record voice, whether it’s your own thoughts, interviews, or anything else you’d want to save in this format. We learned a few days ago that Google made a similar app for the Pixel 4 called Recorder, which you can already download on other devices.
But it turns out that Google’s voice recording app comes with automatic transcription and audio search features, according to xda-developers. The new features were not present in the initial version of the app and were added with the help of an update.
That means Recorder will be superior to Voice Memos, making it a lot easier to transcribe interviews and any other type of voice recording you want to turn into text.
The only supported app is English for the time being, and the app can recognize several audio events, including “Applause, Bird, Cat, Didgeridoo, Dog, Knock, Laughter, Music, Rooster, Speech, Phone, and Whistling.”
The ability to transcribe recordings is certainly something Apple should add to its app, as is the audio search feature.
