Record a meeting and get notes on your iPhone

To record a meeting and get notes on your iPhone, you need three things: a recording that keeps going when the screen locks, a transcript, and a short write-up of what was decided. Apple's Voice Memos and Notes already give you the first two for free. TackNote for iPhone does all three on one note, transcribes and summarizes on the phone itself, and is a free beta on TestFlight right now.

The difference is where everything ends up. In TackNote the note is the container: the recording, every word of it, the photo of the whiteboard, the list of things people agreed to do, and the place it happened all sit on the same note instead of in four apps.

What the iPhone already does for free

Before you install anything, it is worth knowing what is already on your phone. Both of Apple's options are good, and for some people they are enough.

• Voice Memos transcribes speech in your recordings, and you can watch the transcription live while you record. Apple lists it on iPhone 12 or later in English and several other languages (Apple Support). With Apple Intelligence, you can summarize a transcript using Writing Tools.
• Notes records audio inside a note, shows a live transcript, and lets you add the transcript to the note. With Apple Intelligence it can generate a summary of the transcript (Apple Support).

If a recording and a transcript is all you need, use those. Where TackNote differs is what the note becomes after the meeting ends.

How to record a meeting in TackNote

1. Tap Record, then the button, and talk. The words land on the paper as people speak, and the recording keeps going with the screen locked, so the phone can sit face down on the table.
2. Tap Stop. The recording and every word of it are already a note on your board, with the audio kept underneath the transcript. When the transcript gets a name or a number wrong, the audio is there to check.
3. Tap the sparkles. Your iPhone writes a short overview, the decisions, and who agreed to do what, and puts it above the transcript. It is marked as written on this iPhone and not sent anywhere, and it never replaces the transcript or the audio.
4. Finish the note. Photograph the whiteboard from the note's camera button, turn the to-dos into a checklist, and tack the note to the place if you will be back there.

The summary is a reading aid, not the record. The transcript and the audio stay on the note.

That last point matters. A small model condensing a forty-minute conversation can miss things, so TackNote adds its summary to the note and leaves everything that was said underneath it. For long meetings it reads the transcript in parts and then summarizes the parts together, rather than giving up when the text is too long.

Filmed it instead? The video is transcribed too

Sometimes the useful part is somebody explaining a machine, a site or a process on camera. Take a video from the note, or add one from your library, and TackNote listens to it with the same on-device transcriber it uses for voice recordings. The words land on the note next to the video, and the sparkles button summarizes what was said in the video as well as in any recordings.

What stays on the phone

A meeting transcript is often the most sensitive thing on a phone, so we built this part to be simple to explain:

• Transcription runs on your iPhone using Apple's on-device speech model. The first time, iOS may need to download the model for your language. After that, recording and transcription work without an internet connection.
• Summaries run on your iPhone using Apple's on-device language model. There is no account, no API key and no server of ours in the loop.
• Notes and their media are sealed on the phone with AES-256, using a key kept in the iPhone's Keychain.

If the phone dies halfway through

A recording app has one job it cannot fail at. TackNote saves a long recording in pieces as it goes, starting with a short first piece so the opening of the meeting is protected early, and it keeps the transcript saved beside the audio. If the app is killed partway through, the next time you open TackNote the audio saved so far and the transcript come back as a note on their own, with no prompt to dismiss. The most you lose is the audio of the piece that was being written at that moment and the last few seconds of text.

Where it falls short today

• It is a beta. TackNote for iPhone is on TestFlight, not in the App Store yet, and it needs iOS 26 or later.
• Summaries need Apple Intelligence. On an iPhone that cannot run it, or with it switched off, you still get the recording and the transcript, but not the summary. Apple lists iPhone 15 Pro and later for Apple Intelligence.
• It transcribes in the language your iPhone is set to. If a meeting is held in another language, change the phone's language first or expect a rough transcript.
• Syncing with the Mac is not in the beta yet. TackNote for iPhone is built to pair with TackNote for Mac (a separate purchase), with notes traveling end to end encrypted through your own iCloud. Until that ships, the phone keeps its own notes.

If you are still choosing a notes app for the Mac side of your work, our honest comparison of sticky notes apps for Mac covers Stickies, Apple Notes and TackNote, and Apple Notes vs sticky notes on the Mac explains when each one fits.

Common questions

Can an iPhone transcribe a meeting for free?

Yes. Voice Memos and Notes both transcribe recordings on iPhone 12 or later in the languages Apple lists. TackNote for iPhone also transcribes on the phone, and it is a free beta on TestFlight while it is in testing.

Does TackNote upload the recording to transcribe it?

No. Transcription uses Apple's on-device speech model and the summary uses Apple's on-device language model, so the audio and the words stay on the iPhone.

Which iPhones can write the summary?

The summary needs Apple Intelligence turned on. Apple lists Apple Intelligence on iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max and iPhone 16 models or later. Recording and transcription work without it.

Is TackNote for iPhone in the App Store?

Not yet. It is in public testing on TestFlight, which is free to join, and it needs iOS 26 or later.