

Show HN: Ever wish you could save what you had just heard? Thank my 2-year-old - hammaz
http://www.heardapp.com/

======
hammaz
The idea for HEARD was born one evening as my wife and I sat at the dinner
table and she described to me some funny thing my 2 yr old son had said
earlier that day... I wondered out loud: "How great would it be to have an app
that lets you save such cute little things (that usually came as a
surprise)... but AFTER you had already heard them..." and she said: "that
would be an amazing thing to have ... but how is that possible ?"

Well, by that time I already knew I had to build something like that, and a
precursor to HEARD was born.... It has made us feel surprisingly empowered
over the past several months we have been using it ....

Now HEARD is available for everyone to enjoy as an iPhone app available on the
App Store ... Please check it out and share with people who you think might
benefit from it. In particular any parents with young kids that want to
preserve these wonderful moments with their children. Thanks guys!

~~~
rdouble
It's a cool app because I have a goofy friend whose daily banter rivals Karl
Pilkington. "I wish someone was recording this" is said daily regarding his
routine.

That said, I personally would hate this app being used on myself. The thought
of having to re-hear anything I said as a small child makes me cringe. My
Facebook feed is now dominated by baby pics and I often wonder what the kids
will think about having everything in their life since infancy logged on the
internet without any say in the matter.

------
mason55
Any info on what this does to the battery life? It is a cool idea but I can
imagine it totally kills the battery if it's always recording.

~~~
hammaz
Thanks for asking. I keep it running in the background regularly and get 12
hrs easily and 15hrs normal with my iPhone 5 ...

Compared to something like navigation which drains it in ~4 hrs.

So the extra battery drain will not be a deal breaker for many ... but it
still might be for some.... Totally depends on the user's situation in my
opinion.

~~~
hammaz
I should have said ... the variability is b/c of what else I happen to be
doing with my phone that day...

------
labpdx
Great idea, but aren't there some laws that prohibit recording people without
consent?

~~~
hammaz
There are a few points that help:

1) This is not meant to be a spying device (given it can not remember anything
more than 5 mins old anyway).

2)Instead it is meant to be kind of a "personal memory enhancer" .... so you
are basically recording conversations you are a part of and there are no laws
against that.

Infact an excellent use of this is to fight bullying, where you can capture
the bully (or black mailer etc) without their knowledge and there is nothing
illegal about it because you are a part of that conversation.

3) Nothing gets written to long term memory unless the user tells the app to
do so.

4) we don't let the user do anything that they cannot already do with an
actively recording (Apple supplied) Voice Memo app. We just it make more
convenient to capture the interesting parts of their life without having to
sift through gigs of audio data every day

~~~
hammaz
5) There is a big toggle switch that lets the user shut ON/Off background
listening ....

~~~
hamburglar
Ship it with a t-shirt that says "this conversation may be recorded for
quality purposes."

------
nonrecursive
This looks really neat. I'm going to give it a try. One suggestion: put an
itunes link on the home page :)

edit: an _obvious_ link, I should say. I kept clicking around without luck
until finally I thought to click the "app store" text.

Also, it was completely not obvious to me that I could scroll on the page, and
when I did scroll and a menu appeared out of nowhere it freaked me out.

~~~
hammaz
Good points ... will fix :-)

------
reustle
How long before we see a video equivalent for Google Glass? Creepy.

------
asdf8765
How long until it is available for android? With regard to the usefulness
against bullying, you don't know what I would have given to have this app a
year or two ago...

~~~
hammaz
Sorry to hear about your situation few years back ... But I am glad you wrote
this comment b/c up until you said it ... my comments about bullying were
based solely on a hunch...

If one person in that situation can benefit from it today ... I would think
the whole thing paid off...

I cannot give a date on Android yet, but its definitely coming ... :-)

------
hrr
Despite the drawbacks mentioned here, it's a very neat idea.

Also - kudos for making it happen. I know how hard it could be to have a nice
idea and find some time to make it happen.

~~~
hammaz
Thanks!

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indrax
Is 5 minutes the maximum? Consider extending that option. Bullying and Police
abuse situations can last longer than 5 minutes before someone can be safe
enough to activate the saving.

~~~
hammaz
It can be increased ... but not by a whole lot, as that means more RAM
consumed by this background app .... (thats the way its currently designed
...)

------
dynamic99
Two things:

1) Battery killer, right? 2) My phone is usually in my pocket... is it going
to catch things that are, I don't know, 5 feet away if it's in my pocket?

~~~
hammaz
Both valid concerns ... it works reasonably well on both counts in my opinion
(but others will need to try it to form their own opinions)...

Btw, I dog-fooded it for several months before deciding to release publicly,
based on how useful I found it :-)

------
slash-dot
Nice idea, but I don't really like the in-call style header visible
everywhere. I believe there is no way to make it work without it without
jailbreaking?

~~~
hammaz
I expect ios7 will make that part less intrusive ... will check.

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heck0045
What about the pocket? Does the recording still come through okay?

~~~
hammaz
Slightly worse than when holding the phone in your hand ... but overall
perfectly audible. Thanks.

------
realcul
nice app and a neat site as well. how did you build it?

~~~
hammaz
Thanks! :-) The site is built using a great (and very economical) theme from
themeforest: [http://themeforest.net/item/vireo-ultra-responsive-app-
landi...](http://themeforest.net/item/vireo-ultra-responsive-app-landing-
page/full_screen_preview/4634837)

------
newsmaster
NSA got it covered. They save everything these days.

~~~
hammaz
hehe ... did they not start a free backup/retrieval service for all the data ?
One you can't actually opt out of :-)

