Voice-to-note quick capture
Coming soon
The current voice notes flow is great if you’re already in the Notes screen. The friction shows up when you’re not — you’re walking through a warehouse, on a call, getting out of the car. By the time you’ve opened Notes → tapped “+”, the thought is gone.
Voice-to-note quick capture is the fix.
What this will let you do
- Press and hold the FAB — anywhere in the app — to start recording.
- Speak. A small overlay shows a waveform.
- Release — the recording ends, transcribes, and saves as a new note instantly.
- Get a notification when the transcription completes (~30 seconds for a 1-minute clip).
- Open the note to refine, attach files, change the category.
How it’ll work (preview)
The capture flow is intentionally minimal:
- Long-press the FAB (any screen).
- Recording overlay appears with a waveform and a 5-minute timer.
- Release to stop. (Or release and start over if you fumbled.)
- The note is saved with a default title (
Voice note – [date/time]) and your active category as the home. - Transcription runs. When done, the note’s body is filled and a small notification fires.
Tap the notification to open and refine.
Why this matters
Capture-friction is the only thing that kills note-taking habits. We’ve tried five ways to make Hilal’s mobile capture faster; this is the one. Press-and-hold is muscle memory across phones (Voice Memos, WhatsApp). The same gesture, applied to notes that flow into the rest of Hilal’s tooling.
Edge cases we’re handling
- Accidental long-press. A 0.5 s threshold + a clear overlay; release before the threshold cancels.
- Phone call interrupts. Recording pauses; you can resume after the call.
- Background continues. If the app gets backgrounded mid-recording, the recording continues until you either come back or hit a 5-minute cap.
- Privacy. A small persistent indicator shows when the mic is hot. Hilal never records without an active overlay.
Status
- Native modules: in place (the existing voice-notes recorder).
- Transcription pipeline: in place.
- The press-and-hold capture flow: the only remaining work — UI overlay, gesture handler, default-categorization rules.
- Beta: planned alongside the Notes → Chatbot KB rollout.