It's possible that in a few short hours Steve Jobs will announce a new voice recording feature for the iPhone, but for the time being there's no way to record a voice memo using Apple's so-called state-of-the-art phone.
Couple that with the AT&T voicemail system, which makes it difficult to record yourself a message and that pretty much eliminates your phone as a voice memo option.
Luckily I've discovered a solution on the web: the new Voice service from Drop.io.
Drop.io started last year as a drop box for your files, something like Box or similar services. Accounts are free with 100 MB of storage and an anonymous page, known as a drop, for accessing your uploaded files.
Yesterday Drop.io added a new service, called Voice, which adds a phone number and extension to each “drop.” To use it, just call the number for your drop, dial in the extension and record your voice message — perfect for notes or even a low-fi podcast. Voice will then make your recording available on your drop as an MP3 file.
Voice is limited to a single call and the 100MB storage limit still applies, but a service like Skype or three-way dialing can overcome the first limitation and there's an account upgrade available which will get you 1 GB of storage for $10/year.
Keep in mind that calling drop.io to record a voice memo is just like calling any other number (the area code is 646) so, depending on your phone plan, the call may use some of your precious minutes.
Other possibilities include the somewhat more feature rich, Jott which will transcribe your recording, send it as a text message and can even post your recordings to your Tumblr blog. However, I've never liked Jott because it doesn't just go straight to recording, I have to wade through a series of dialogs, increasing the chance I'll forget what I wanted to say in the first place.
For those looking for a dead simple way to take some quick voice notes, a speed dial setting for Drop.io could be all you need.
[via Techcrunch]
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