Native iOS features

Build an iPhone app with voice recording and speech

Borel builds iPhone apps that listen and talk: they record voice memos, turn what people say into text, and read text aloud. Describe what your app does with voice, and Borel writes it in Swift with Apple's AVFoundation for recording, the Speech framework for speech to text, and the iPhone's own voices for reading aloud.

Ideas

What you can build with voice and speech

A few apps people make with it. Describe yours in your own words.

  • A voice memo app

    Record, list and play back memos with their length.

  • A spoken journal

    Talk about your day and keep it as text you can search.

  • A bedtime story reader

    Stories read aloud in a calm voice, page by page.

  • A phrase practice app

    Say a phrase in another language and see what the phone heard.

  • A meeting notes app

    Record a meeting and read it back as text.

Try it

A prompt to start from

Copy it, or start with it and change it to fit your idea.

The prompt
“A voice memo app: record, list and play back memos with their length, and turn each memo into text I can read.”

From words to your iPhone

Three steps, no code

  • 1

    Describe it

    Say what the app does in plain words, or start from the prompt above. No code, and no Mac.

  • 2

    Watch it build

    Borel writes the Swift, compiles it with Xcode on its own Mac and opens it in the iOS Simulator, streamed into your browser.

  • 3

    Put it on your iPhone

    Borel Companion installs it over a cable the first time, then over Wi-Fi, and while it runs it puts each new version on by itself.

How Borel handles it

Written in Swift, with Apple's own frameworks

What Borel takes care of for you, so the feature works the way iPhone owners expect.

  • Recording

    The app records into its own files with AVAudioRecorder, after iOS asks for the microphone with a sentence Borel writes.

  • Speech to text

    Apple's speech recognition turns spoken words into text, with its own permission sentence filled in too.

  • Reading aloud

    The iPhone's own voices read text aloud with AVSpeechSynthesizer, with no account or key.

You speak and listen on your iPhone, with Borel Companion. While you build, the app's screens run in the iOS Simulator in your browser.

Your Apple ID

Works with a free Apple ID

Yes. Borel Companion puts the app on your own iPhone with a free Apple ID, which keeps up to 3 of your apps there, and Companion renews them every 7 days for you.

Frequently asked questions

No. It's Apple's own speech recognition, so it isn't Borel's AI and costs nothing to run.

Yes. The iPhone's built-in voices read any text in the app, such as a story, a recipe step or a note.

Yes. Memos play back in the app with their length, and people can pause and play them again.

In the app's own files on the iPhone, or, with sign-in, uploaded to the cloud Borel runs for your app.

Yes. iOS asks the first time someone records, with your app's own sentence saying why.

Yes. Ask in the chat, or choose Microphone from Device in the chat's + menu.

Build your app with voice and speech

Start from the prompt above, change it to fit your idea, and Borel builds it while you watch.