

Show HN: Audobox – Android Voice Recorder - willwhitney
https://www.audobox.com/

======
willwhitney
A couple of friends and I built a voice recoding app that was actually
designed for your smartphone. Instead of just saving an audio file (probably
entitled "My Recording #4"), we wanted an app that provides context (think
people and places) to the things we record. It automatically saves where and
when the moment was recorded, letting you browse and search the context of
your recordings.

We've been using it for meetings and standups, and we've found it really
useful to be able to go back and reference what we said. We hope you find it
useful too.

This is a beta release, so if you run into anything wonky just let us know:
hi@audobox.com

And if you just want to tell us what you think, or suggest a feature, we've
built in a pretty fun feedback tool — hit "Record audobox feedback" from the
menu.

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slowmotiony
Hi, your app seems great! I am however having trouble understanding how it
works - does it upload the recording after an arbitrary period of time or does
it stream it from the start of the recording process? Just recently I have had
an unfortunate adventure with the police when they were clearly abusing their
power, and when I told them I would record it with my phone the cop told me to
better not try it or he'd smash my cellphone on the wall and do the same with
me. I wish there was an app with constant streaming so this kind of stuff
would be less likely to happen in the future.

~~~
jordanthoms
I was actually thinking about this the other day - It'd be awesome to have an
app designed specifically for that use case. So it'd stream a version that's
as high res as your connection can support to the server, broadcasting it live
to anyone on the site/app who could tag it, share etc.

Meanwhile, it's saving the full res to the phone and also trying to backfill
with that as the connection allows, you could even have it use wifi direct or
bluetooth to stream to other devices in the area. That way someone could have
their phone inconspicuously in their pocket, backing up and uploading the
content from the people recording. It'd also keep recording with the screen
locked, record the location, maybe even integrate remote wiping.

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srikrishnan
For the first time, other than for my own app, I am one of the first 50 to try
a new app :) We built a voice messaging app called PhonOn (its on play store
and iOS appstore). This was one of the pivots we were considering before
opting to pursue another idea. Do you stream the content to the server or is
it record the whole thing and then upload the file?

~~~
willwhitney
It records in ten-minute blocks and uploads each of the blocks as it's
completed.

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raminassemi
Just some feedback for your website: Maybe show a small video of what it's
like to actually use the app, rather than screenshots + descriptions what it
does. Doesn't have to be fancy at all, but just a demonstration of the actual
user experience.

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NikolaTesla
First, it looks great.

When I went to install the app the permissions were kind of onerous: Modify
your contacts, Read phone status and identity, reroute outgoing calls, etc.
Can you give some color as to why these are necessary?

~~~
willwhitney
Contacts: so that you can tag people from your phone's contacts instead of
having to type them out by hand. We don't actually modify any contacts, so we
should probably just be using the "Read contacts" permission only.

Phone status / calls stuff: needed to be able to detect when you receive or
make a call so that we can stop recording. I'm not sure why it's called
"Reroute outgoing calls" except that it lets you get a callback when a call is
placed.

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kmax12
I thought about making an app in the same vein, but for a specific purpose:
recording lectures. However, I think it'd be useful in meetings.

The idea was to have the ability to take a photo and associate it with the
time you took it. This would come in handy when the audio is referring to a
specific powerpoint slide, whiteboard drawing, etc.

I think if you add this in, you could have a killer app for college kids to
record lectures for later use.

~~~
nileshtrivedi
> take a photo and associate it with the time you took it

Otherwise known as a "video". :)

~~~
kmax12
It is very different from video, in my mind. Video places emphasis on visuals,
where for many lectures or meetings the audio is where most of the content is.
By only talking photos or short videos at the points in time where the visuals
are important you cut down on a lot of excess information that will need to be
searched through later. In a way, the photo are essentially bookmarks into
your audio.

If I was looking back on a hour lecture that had 15 slides, it'd be much
easier to tap the photo of the relevant slide and listen to surrounding audio
rather than scrub through a hour of video to find it.

Additionally, taking video requires being able to position my phone properly
for the entire duration of recording. I don't know how my profesor's would
respond to me setting up a mini tripod during lecture. I do know they don't
care if i snap a picture of a slide or whiteboard every once in a while.

Finally, photos capture the content in higher quality then videos can, which
often is very important.

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jordanthoms
I only have a use for a recording app occasionally, but when I needed one they
were all awful. This looks great, I've installed it in case I need it - thanks
for doing a nice design!

It would be cool to show the levels while recording, recorded time etc to give
us more confidence that it's actually recording and the levels are good

~~~
willwhitney
Good point! We've thought about showing time before, but levels would
definitely help too.

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robbfitzsimmons
Looks gorgeous, and recording quality has been fantastic on my Nexus 7 (have
been testing the alpha).

Makes me significantly less twitchy in meetings - I'm a compulsive note-taker,
and it actually has really changed my note-taking behavior towards
summarization and takeaways versus "minutes" style.

Nice work, guys.

~~~
willwhitney
Thanks for the support!

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anigbrowl
Not to be a wet blanket, but what are you offering that Soundcloud doesn't?

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alooPotato
Love it, wanted this for so long. But I want to record everything.

What will happen to the app and to my batter if I just let this record
perpetually? Do you upload pieces of the recording throughout the session?

~~~
gtank
Thanks!

The app works for long-form recordings too. We upload in chunks throughout the
session, and the battery usage from our all-day tests is currently about 30%
on a Nexus 4.

~~~
voltagex_
That's gonna be expensive on a data plan.

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popopje
so how can i access recordings away from my phone?

and a delete is vital. you should really warn users that they can't delete
right now.

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jerrya
It looks pretty nice. How is it not compatible with a Nexus 10 (and is
compatible with Galaxy Note II and an HP Touchpad running CM 10)?

~~~
willwhitney
Will fix.

~~~
JoshuaRedmond
If it helps, the app currently isn't compatible with the Nexus 7 either. Also,
it doesn't seem to support landscape on my Padfone 2 when docked (should act
like a tablet). Looks good though.

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gahahaha
Beautiful, but where does it store the sound files, and will it soon be
possible to delete recordings?

~~~
willwhitney
I just pushed a version with moment deletion to the Play store. Should be live
in a couple of hours.

Cheers!

~~~
gahahaha
Thanks!

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petarb
Visually appealing. Unfortunately keeps crashing on the sign up form on Nexus
4.

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jlengrand
Why does a voice recorder need android > 4.0? Can't use .

~~~
jordanthoms
Because Android 2.3 is pretty badly broken these days, and is a ever shrinking
portion of new app installs.

~~~
jlengrand
Agreed. It's still more than 45% of the new installs of my app though, even
today :).

~~~
jordanthoms
Interesting. Launched a new app recently, and it's been 15%. Guess it varies
greatly depending on the demographics for your app, this app is mostly
targeting US.

~~~
jlengrand
My bad. You made me recheck, and 45% is actually android <4.0, 3.x being
neglictible.

My app is overly simple, and answers a very basic need. It is relevant for
only one city in France (public transportation related app). I wanted most
people to be able to use the app :).

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tta
Is there a way to delete a recording on the phone?

~~~
willwhitney
I just pushed a version with moment deletion to the Play store. Should be live
in a couple of hours.

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ivanbrussik
was so pumped to install this then realized my Photon was not compatible with
this, mer.

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yuvipanda
Apparently isn't available in my country?! (India)

~~~
gtank
That should not be the case, as we've allowed distribution to everywhere. It
could be a device issue- are you on a tablet? We're working to fix that issue
at the moment. If you are on a phone, what type is it and which Android
version does it run?

Feel free to email me (see profile) and we'll get you set up.

