Lifestyle

Best news of the day: voice memos are getting transcriptions

By Wieke Veenboer | #!30Tue, 06 Jun 2023 12:45:27 +0200+02:002730#30Tue, 06 Jun 2023 12:45:27 +0200+02:00-12Europe\/Amsterdam3030Europe\/Amsterdam202330 06pm30pm-30Tue, 06 Jun 2023 12:45:27 +0200+02:0012Europe\/Amsterdam3030Europe\/Amsterdam2023302023Tue, 06 Jun 2023 12:45:27 +02004512456pmTuesday=9#!30Tue, 06 Jun 2023 12:45:27 +0200+02:00Europe\/Amsterdam6#06-06-2023#!30Tue, 06 Jun 2023 12:45:27 +0200+02:002730#\/30Tue, 06 Jun 2023 12:45:27 +0200+02:00-12Europe\/Amsterdam3030Europe\/Amsterdam202330#!30Tue, 06 Jun 2023 12:45:27 +0200+02:00Europe\/Amsterdam6#

You either love them or you hate them: voice memos on WhatsApp. I am on team send-not-receive, which I think is quite a large group and actually very selfish. I find it very handy to send when I can't type easily or want to tell a long story, but sometimes when I receive them, it's at such an inconvenient moment.

Recognizable? Then you will also be very happy with the new iOS 17 update from Apple. I often find those updates not very intense, but this one has so many improvements. Like with the voice memos: if you don't have time (or don't feel like it) to listen to them, you can just display the message as text with the new update. Really: with iOS 17 they can make transcripts of your voice memos. How handy.

So the next time you get a seven-minute memo, you don't have to free up a long time, or be very alert and play it at one and a half or two times speed, but you can just read it in your app. I'm already looking forward to that.

But there are more new features: there will be a ‘Check in’ for when you want to know when you've arrived home. You turn on Check in when you leave and check it off when you're home. And if you have a delay for any reason, you'll get a notification from your iPhone asking if everything is okay, and it will let the other person know as well. Also very handy.

A selection of the other improvements: you can also use Apple Maps offline, AirDrop is supplemented with the NameDrop function, autocorrect is improved with AI, there will be a Journal app, and you can now address Siri just with ‘Siri’ instead of ‘hey Siri’.

This update will be available in the fall. I guess that will also be the moment the iPhone 15 is announced; it will come standard with iOS 17. I'm already curious about how it is. Well, that's a bit of my toxic trait: when it comes to Apple products, I always want the newest one right away. I already found the iPhone 14 such an improvement, so I can hardly imagine that the 15 will make such a big difference again... But there's a good chance I'll want it right away. Even if it's just for the color, because it's leaked that they will come in bright pink (for the first time ever) and baby blue. FUN.