iOS 12 has a handy dictaphone in app form. A dictaphone is always handy to have on hand and it offers nice possibilities.
iOS 12 includes a brand new sound recording app. The most obvious application is of course recording interviews, meetings and so on. The new app is called Dictaphone and contains not only a recorder, but also a sound editor. For example, recordings are easy to shorten. Before you start recording, it is good to know that the recording quality can be set. It is set to compressed by default. That in itself is fine for voice recordings, but if you want to record music, an uncompressed quality is also possible. Keep in mind that the latter option costs more storage space, so use it sparingly if you have a device with relatively little (free) storage space. To adjust the recording quality, first launch the Settings app. Tap in it Dictaphone and then Audio quality. Then you can choose from Compressed (default setting) or Without Loss. By the way: one level back you will also find the option Clear Deleted Items. Like Photos, Voice Memos has a trash can. Deleted recordings are stored there for 30 days by default. This time period can be adjusted by pressing Clear Deleted Items to tap. Now you can even Never choose, but of course removing it doesn't make much sense anymore.
Usage
The operation of the Dictaphone is simple. Launch the app and tap the inviting red button to start recording. You can immediately see the waveform of the recording live, which is always handy. At the same time, you will see that the file has been given a name, consisting of the recording location (for example, a street name nearby). Tap on Ready when you're done recording. If you don't like the default file name, tap - after you finish recording - on the name and change it to something you prefer. To edit or trim the recording, tap Change top right of the image. Now the larger screen of an iPad comes in handy! After all, you see a nice and spacious editor in the picture. But it also works fine on an iPhone. To cut a part of the recording (and remove the surrounding uninteresting things) tap the crop button at the top right. Use the yellow selection block at the bottom of the screen to select the desired part and tap Short in. You could also tap Delete, the selection is just removed and the surrounding image is preserved. So just what you want. Tap on Keep after your trim or clipping action.
Management
You can remove a recorded recording from the list by swiping to the left on the name and then on Delete to tap. Deleted recordings can be found under Recently deleted. Another swipe to the left and then Delete you can delete them permanently. Or you can wait for the previously set time until they are automatically deleted. If you want to share a recording with someone else, you also swipe to the left, but now tap the button with the three dots. Then choose the app you want to use for sharing, for example E-mail. The recording is then attached to an email message as an audio file. Finally, if you want it, Voice Memos can also store files in iCloud. To do this, in the Settings app, tap your username at the very top. Then tap iCloud and put the switch behind Dictaphone at.
