Apple Notes received many modern upgrades with the new iOS and iPadOS 18 and macOS Sequoia releases.

One of the most powerful features in the list is voice recordings and transcriptions.

On any note, you can hit the voice recording button and ramble your thoughts and ideas, and Apple Notes will transcribe the entire thing for you in seconds, which you can then add to your note:

But even better, this audio transcription feature also works if you drag and drop an audio file into one of your notes.

The file gets attached to your note as usual but also receives a complete transcription:

This is fantastic if you listen to podcasts or have lecture recordings from which you want to take notes. Drop the audio file into one of your notes, and start clipping ideas from the generated transcript.

I dropped an hour-long episode from the Art of Manliness podcast, and the Notes app transcribed it pretty accurately in a few seconds.

While plenty of apps, including AI-powered ones in the market, do this job, having this feature baked right into the Notes app for free makes it even more accessible.

This feature doesn't require Apple Intelligence, so if you have an Apple device running the latest OS, try out this feature.

It might become a handy tool for you to dump ideas on the go and take notes from non-text content.

Also, if you use Apple Notes or are considering using it for note-taking, I've written a comprehensive guide that'll teach how you quickly get ideas, resources and information into the app, organise it and find what you need when needed.

Apple Notes is free, fast and powerful, and this guide will help you use it in simple to complex situations.

Now, if you've been procrastinating on a project or other ideas, here's a newsletter that might help you make progress.

Before you move on to the rest of this newsletter issue, here are a few words from: