Otter: Transcribe Voice Notes 4+

Simply The Best & Affordable!

It must be at least ten years or more* I’ve been using Sync Folders Pro. In the secular world, I led the world’s largest live-streaming compliance archive of 90pb+, processing 1 billion messages a week compliant with multiple financial services and SEC regulations, so I consider myself relatively knowledgeable about software and back-ups. In my domestic life and experience throughout those ten years, I’ve seen nothing that comes even close to the range of options, simplicity and stability of Sync Folders Pro. I am obsessed with backing up and using Sync Folders Pro to secure several Macs and PCs, plus innumerable multi-terabyte storage devices, to two NAS drives (originals to NAS No1, which is backed up to NAS No2). Over the years, it’s been fascinating to see the imperfections of various ‘cloud’ providers - who, I promise you - corrupt and lose files. However, most people would never notice and likely blame themselves! However, the ‘safety’ options provided in Sync Folders Pro ensure you can easily spot those missing files and retrieve multiple versions. It amazes me that the average user trusts terabytes and petabytes of data without a sync strategy. Anyway, I highly recommend Sync Folders Pro if you want a simple, multifaceted sync and backup solution with outstanding customer support (though I’ve only had to use that service twice).

Podcasters dream solution

I’ve been using this app for a month now and not only does it have the essential requirements of voice recorder quality, accurate transcription to text and intuitive interface but it surprises me with thoughtful output hacks like the word cloud which allows me to pull all recordings into a list based on a chosen tag.
Its so easy to podcast using Otter. I just record the podcast episode on Otter (usually in sections) then import to Dropbox before adding to the Audacity editor where I can add music and refine the show. It’s a great time saving tool because the playback functionality allows you to read the text transcript (which makes it easy to spot those parts of the show you want to edit) and tap the screen at the partvyuu want to listen to again. This saves hours of time listening to audio.
There seems to be masses of free recording minutes which is generous and allows time to explore before committing to a subscription.
Thank you Otter team, absolutely brilliant.

Developer Response ,

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Usefulness degraded by the fact that it auto joins all meetings by default

I downloaded this to try on the recommendation of Birmingham Institute for the Deaf.

The main problem I’ve found is that it will automatically join every meeting in your calendar by default. A better default would be that you have to explicitly invite it or mark a meeting as requiring transcription. You can turn off auto join, but you have to look for the setting and know it’s there.

The subscription price is potentially prohibitive for the occasional/casual user who needs to transcribe meetings over 30 minutes but not that often so don’t go over the free tier 300 minute per month limit. Perhaps some sort of prepaid credits system could be implemented where if an individual meeting goes over your tier limit or you exceed your tier total usage for the month you are charged by the minute or in 5 minute slots. This would be a similar model to a mobile phone plan where you get so many inclusive minutes and text messages each month but if you go over then you are charged per minute/text. It would also help paid subscribers who normally stay within their tier limit but once in a while have a meeting run over or extra meetings, but not often enough that it justifies moving up a tier.

Developer Response ,

Thanks for taking the time to share your feedback. I have tagged this for our product team to review!