Transcribing is no fun at all. Luckily, it’s something AI is good at. Aiko is an app for Mac, iPad, and iPhone that lets users transcribe audio files using Whisper—open-source technology from OpenAI. Aiko doesn’t upload the file to the cloud to transcribe it; everything happens on your device. And it’s pretty fast, too: I was able to transcribe a half-hour radio play in just a few minutes.

The app works best on devices with Apple Silicon processors (Intel Macs are technically supported, but are extremely slow at transcribing); my 2022 iPhone SE was significantly faster than my 2018 Intel MacBook Pro, which took about three minutes to transcribe 10 seconds of conversation. If you have the right hardware, though, this app is nearly perfect.

To get started, you’ll need to point the app to a file or start recording what you want to transcribe. You can add any audio or video file to the app, which will immediately start transcribing it for you. The recording feature is mainly for quick notes: the software recommends that you record things with another app first, if possible. The mobile version can grab audio from the Voice Memos app, which is a nice addition.

The app shows you the text as it is transcribing, meaning you can start reading before the entire transcription is complete. The app automatically detects the language being spoken, but you can set a different language in the settings if you prefer. You can even set the app to automatically translate non-English conversations into English if you prefer.