Voice Memos, rebuilt.
It never loses a take.

Same screens, gestures and animations as iOS 27. Open source, in SwiftUI.

retake's full recording screen in dark mode with a red waveform and a running timer

“it looks good. but do anything complicated with it and it probably breaks.”

bassim, on Voice Memos

Stop is instant.

The file closes the moment you tap stop, and the take is in the list before the sheet finishes collapsing. There's no “Saving…” to get stuck on.¹

After you tap stop, at real speed

Voice Memos

saving, nothing moves · ~330 ms collapse · ~215 ms New Recording

retake

collapse, no wait New Recording

Every take hits the disk as you record.

If the app dies mid-recording, the next launch finds the file and puts it back in your list. A call or Siri pauses the take and keeps everything so far.

300 takes in a row.

A test records, stops and starts again 300 times, and checks every take is there at the right length.² A UI test does the same through the real app.

New Recording70 ms long

Frame for frame with iOS 27.

Built against 60 fps footage of the real app, frame-counted, plus Apple's own iOS 27 strings. Tap record and the card rises with no overshoot, like Apple's.³

The record card over the recordings list, with a live red waveform — The record card

A recording expanded in the list with its scrubber and transport — The row it lands in

The rest of the app, screen for screen.

Trim, Replace from the playhead, transcripts that write themselves while you record.

Trim, with the yellow selection over the waveform — Trim

A recording open in the full player, with Replace — Transcript and Replace

A recording's transcript in the full player, with Replace — Transcript and Replace

Options: playback speed, Skip Silence and Enhance Recording — Options

Folders: All Recordings and Recently Deleted — Folders

iPhone, iPad and iPhone Duo.

The iPad gets the split view. The Duo gets both screens, closed and open.

retake on iPad Pro 13-inch in split view — iPad Pro 13″

retake on iPhone Duo, open: the list beside the player — iPhone Duo, open

retake on the iPhone Duo cover screen — Duo, closed

In

The list with its inline player, the record card and full sheet, pause and resume, Replace from the playhead, trim and delete with Save or Save as New, playback speed, Skip Silence, Enhance Recording, on-device transcripts (live while recording), folders, Favorites, Recently Deleted, search across titles and transcripts, rename, duplicate, share, the iPad split view, Live Activity and Dynamic Island, a Control Center button, and Settings.

Not yet

Layered recordings, Spatial Audio and Studio Sound (they need iPhone 16 Pro and 18 Pro mics), iCloud sync, Apple Watch.

Build it yourself.

You need Xcode 27 (27.1 for the iPhone Duo simulator). Launch with -demo for a sample library and a fake microphone.

git clone https://github.com/AVGVSTVS96/retake
cd retake
brew install xcodegen
xcodegen generate
open Retake.xcodeproj

A retake is recording it again. That's exactly where Voice Memos falls apart, so it's what this one is built around.

Voice Memos, rebuilt. It never loses a take.