Voice Memos & Sound Recorder vs Voice Memos
Choose Voice Memos for a more reliable and user-friendly experience.
Voice Memos offers a more dependable and straightforward recording experience compared to Voice Memos & Sound Recorder, which has faced criticism for its subscription model and reliability issues. Users appreciate the clarity and ease of use of Voice Memos, while many of Voice Memos & Sound Recorder's users express frustration over its limitations and costs.
Head to head
you are looking for specific transcription features and are willing to navigate potential issues.
you want a reliable, easy-to-use app for recording without the hassle of subscriptions.
Evidence note: Voice Memos & Sound Recorder has a significant amount of negative feedback regarding its subscription model and reliability, while Voice Memos benefits from a larger user base and more consistent positive reviews.
Frequently asked
Is Voice Memos free?
What reviewers actually said
Built only from these 100 real reviews (foreign ones translated). Superscripts jump to the quote here. Apple has no per-review links, so [ref] opens that app's reviews on the App Store.
- [R1] Voice Memos & Sound Recorder Free version did not work to transcribe for some reason.: Don’t see the point of free trial if you cannot try it.
- [R10] Voice Memos & Sound Recorder Unreliable: My subscription is active until 2025. I used the app several days ago. Tonight when I needed to use it, it would not record. So I had to use another app. This is not the first time the app has not worked and I had to switch. If you need 100% dependability, this is not the app to use, especially for the money.
- [R58] Voice Memos Worth it.: It’s fast and clear. Even if my phone is far away or I’m in a noisy environment the audio picks well, loud and clear. I can also edit my audio like I’m editing a video (my favourite feature). I’m taking time to write this because this app is honestly worth it. Looking forward to more special updates xoxo💕
- [R83] Voice Memos Clean, Reliable, and Incredibly Useful for Students!!: I use Voice Memos daily for university lectures and meetings, and it’s one of the most reliable apps on my phone. The recording quality is clear, and the automatic transcription makes it easy to turn discussions into usable notes later. I often pair the transcripts with other tools to organise and refine my notes, and the simplicity of Voice M
- [R7] Voice Memos & Sound Recorder Not Worth The Money: The sound is really good, but it’s easy to lose entire recordings because you changed the name of the recording before clicking save first. I clicked to edit the title then clicked save and the recording deleted. It’s not reliable, you will likely lose a receding at some point.
- [R16] Voice Memos & Sound Recorder Won’t save: I’ve attempted three recordings in the past two days, none of them have saved. I’ve clicked save in the upper right hand corner after stopping the recording. Saving shouldn’t be a ten step process.
- [R55] Voice Memos Keeps crashing: I loved this app for years in last couple months its been crashing and not recording this is a big problem fix this app glitch
- [R62] Voice Memos Simple and effective: Been using this as a song writing aid since the iPhone 4. All of my notes have carried over from phone to phone since then. It does everything you need it to without any unnecessary faff and also has some handy additional features. For me this’ll always be a ‘must-have’ on my phone.
- [R20] Voice Memos & Sound Recorder Scam - paid $9.99 for a couple of months and then said I needed to pay: STAY AWAY! You will lose money and NOT be able to record without paying more again, and then requesting refund(which you may or may NOT get back). I bought this and had it for about 3 months. I should have never spent that much money on it but I forgot I bought it. When I needed to use it I was welcomed with a message to purch
- [R4] Voice Memos & Sound Recorder Why make it subscription only????: I used to use this app all the time to record book readings for my friends and all of a sudden I can’t record anything without a subscription??? Not worth the 10 dollars a month I’ll find something else
- [R42] Voice Memos & Sound Recorder Not able to record unless I commit to paying $9.99/month.: Not able to record unless I commit to paying $9.99/month. There are very good options available that have voice transcription are not this expensive.
- [R28] Voice Memos & Sound Recorder No longer free.: It used to be free. When I opened it today, I was presented with pricing and unable to use it without paying. I chose not to use it.
- [R50] Voice Memos & Sound Recorder This is a pay to use app.: It lets you record once. Asks for subscription after that.
- [R63] Voice Memos Recordings aren’t downloading: Anything before 6 months ago show “downloading”. There is no support for the app, so these recordings are basically lost
- [R51] Voice Memos You’re. So. Bad: One. Star Trek and the Force I’m Afraid you’re bad
Synthesized from 100 recent App Store reviews · updated July 2026 · View on the App Store