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How to use Google Recorder on your Pixel smartphone
Record and transcribe voice notes with Google Recorder
You'll find a variety of great voice recorder apps for Android, but Pixel owners have the best in the form of Google Recorder. Its deceptively simple UI hides on-device machine learning, which transcribes voices accurately and differentiates between speakers. We show you how to use Recorder to record, transcribe, and edit speech. If you don't have a Pixel phone but want to try it, the Pixel 6a is an affordable option that has most of the Pixel lineup's exclusive features.
Google Recorder can now distinguish between speakers
Recorder v4.2 is rolling out via the Play Store
The Pixel-exclusive Google Recorder app is one of the best recording apps for Android. It can record and transcribe conversations in real time, making it perfect for taking quick notes. Google has also kept improving the app with regular new feature additions and enhancements. During the Google Pixel 7 launch event in October, the company teased the addition of speaker labels to the app. Nearly two months later, the feature is finally rolling out.
June's Pixel Feature Drop is here, and there's more new stuff than we expected
Video astrophotography (astrovideography?), Locked Folders for Google Photos, Heads Up for Digital Wellbeing, and market/language expansions for existing features, plus lots more
It's June, and that means a few things: Nice weather, Pride Month, gardening, donut day, and the latest Pixel Feature Drop update. This month we're getting several new features: previously leaked long-exposure Night Sight videos for animated astrophotography, the debut of the Locked Folder feature for Google Photos, a new Heads Up feature for Digital Wellbeing that leaked last year to help pedestrians, Assistant-based voice controls for answering or rejecting calls, a new Gboard feature to pull details like phone numbers or URLs from bigger chunks of text in your clipboard, and an expansion of car crash detection. Recorder and Call Screen are also coming to more markets and languages, plus a set of new Pride-themed ringtones and backgrounds.
March Pixel Feature Drop packs changes for bedtime, communication, note-taking, and even underwater photography
Plus plenty of bug fixes
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Following Verizon's early teasing, Google has just released details about the March 2021 Feature Drop update, which should be rolling out today. Pixel owners can look forward to enhanced underwater photography when paired with a specific case, expanded Smart Compose support for some messaging apps, a snazzy new bedtime screen when using the Pixel Stand and Clock app, and wallpapers for International Women's Day. On top of that, Google promises more fixes for Android Auto disconnection issues.
Google Recorder now has a companion web app for storage and sharing
You'll need the latest v2.2 update
Google Recorder has quickly become one of the best audio recording applications on Android, even though it's only officially available on Google's own Pixel phones. Backup support was announced earlier this week, and now it's finally rolling out.
Pixel-exclusive Google Recorder getting backup support and a snazzy new web interface
Probably coming as part of the March Feature Drop update next week
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The best perks of Pixel ownership outside the camera are the exclusive software features like Recorder, which (as its name suggests) records audio and transcribes it in near real-time. Last year, the first signs of Google Drive-based backups were spotted. At the time, the bits of the feature that could be enabled claimed to point to a new recorder.google.com website, which didn't exist. Well, the site is live now, and it's promising the other half of the currently non-functional feature.
Google Recorder app with new transcription-based editor now rolling out (APK Download)
Splicing around the words
It's been a hot minute since Google announced a big v2 update to its Recorder app for Pixel phones. With it comes the ability to make edits not just around waveforms, but by words in the automatically-generated transcript. Well, that update is rolling out in baby steps right now, but it's also available to sideload through APK Mirror.
Recorder on the new Pixel phones lets you edit audio straight from the transcript
Interviews just got a whole lot easier to tweak
Those of you who use your phones to record interviews or other talking will appreciate this feature addition that Google has made with Pixel 4a 5G and Pixel 5 Recorder app: the ability to edit the audio by just messing with the transcript. It's a small change, but a welcome one for those who use the Recorder function often.
Google Recorder gets Assistant integration in v1.2 (APK Download)
And with direct saving to Google Docs, one of the Pixel's most useful apps just got even better
Google's third big Pixel feature drop arrived yesterday, and while it was a little lighter on standout features than the two previous, some interesting upgrades for the Recorder app were included. The ability to control it with the Google Assistant makes an already great app even more useful, as does saving transcripts directly to Google Docs so you can use them more easily later.
Google's third Pixel Feature Drop update has been announced with a handful of new features and tweaks for the company's line of phones. While we might yet find more minor changes hiding inside when it rolls out, we're told there are four broad categories of new features Pixel owners can look forward to: New Adaptive Battery tweaks to stretch out battery life, Recorder app integration with the Google Assistant and Google Docs, tools to better manage your sleep, and new personal safety features including crisis alerts and a "safety check" feature that notifies emergency contacts if you don't respond to a scheduled check-in.
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After teasing it earlier this year, Google is now rolling out real-time translation transcriptions in the Google Translate app for Android. The feature will be delivered as part of an app update, which also brings a slight tweak to the app's interface and will be landing over the "next few days." It will work in any combination of eight currently supported languages: English, French, German, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, Thai, and Spanish.
Google's Recorder app has been one of those especially popular revelations from the launch of the Pixel 4, and rightfully so —the voice transcription and search features are incredible. However, plenty of people weren't happy with the Pixel 4 exclusivity. That changes now...kinda. The Recorder app is now also officially available to the Pixel 2, 3, and 3a, but that's about it.
When Google unveiled its voice recording app aptly called Recorder at its Pixel event last month, we were impressed by its capabilities. Unlike standard run-of-the-mill recording apps that simply make and store audio files, Google's version uses its AI smarts to perform real-time voice transcription into text, and it can locate music and specific words inside the audio file — all without a cloud connection. Initially announced as a Pixel 4-exclusive, a Google employee has confirmed on Reddit that Recorder will be made backward-compatible with older Pixel devices.
We first caught wind of Google's new Recorder app in a major software leak at the start of October, and now this upcoming feature is ready for launch. On stage at Made by Google 2019, Vice President of Product Management, Sabrina Ellis, showed us that the new Recorder app is more than just an audio note taker.
There are few things on Android more useful than good floating apps. Because, honestly, how often have you been looking at something and needed to jot down a quick note but didn't want to leave the foreground app? Or how about those times when a calculator is clutch, but so is seeing the numbers you need to calculate? We've seen various apps that answer these quandaries before, but now there's a place to get a handful of mini-apps all in one place. It's appropriately called Tiny Apps, and consists of some of the most useful tools one could have atop other windows: notes, recorder, paint, music player, and calculator.