At the Pixel 4 launch event today, we expected to hear about some new and exciting Google Assistant features, as is the tradition with every Pixel phone. The Google Assistant made its debut alongside the first Pixel, Google Lens alongside the Pixel 2, and Call Screening alongside the Pixel 3. We might not have seen an exciting new Google Assistant feature get unveiled today, but we got something close. Google's Vice President of Product Management, Sabrina Ellis, showed us that the new Recorder app is more than just an audio note taker. Here's a short video of it in action.
Google's new Recorder app is now capable of transcribing recorded audio in real-time. All audio captured via the app will automatically be transcribed to text. One no longer has to rely on third-party speech-to-text apps. The best part is that you can even search for audio recordings that contain specific words, and you'll be shown all relevant recordings with the phrase highlighted every time you said it. Pretty neat for someone who leaves a lot of personal memos and the likes.
The best part is that it can all be done offline without a data connection. Google says that all of the processing is done on-device using their secret sauce. And yes, the Recorder app will remain exclusive to the Pixel 4 for the foreseeable future. There's an early build of the app going around, so if you want to give it a try, grab it from here. Do note that since this is an early, unfinished build, not all features may be switched on or even work properly. It'll be interesting to see how the new Recorder app will fare in the real world. While it may have looked flawless in the demo, that's not how things work in reality.
