Compare
Aunori, Voice Memos, and Journal compared
Apple’s Voice Memos and Journal are excellent at what they do. Here is where a dedicated app for sound memories fits next to them.
Updated
What each app is for
- Voice Memos is a recorder: meetings, lectures, music ideas, reminders. It records Spatial Audio on iPhone 16 and later.
- Journal is for writing about your day, with photos, places, and audio recordings as attachments.
- Aunori is for moments you want to hear again: one photo and the surrounding sound, kept together and resurfaced later.
Side by side
| Voice Memos | Journal | Aunori | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Main focus | Recording audio | Writing entries | Photo plus surrounding sound |
| Spatial Audio recording | Yes, iPhone 16 and later | Not its focus | Yes, iPhone 16 and later |
| Photo with the recording | No | Yes, as part of an entry | Yes, the cover of every Moment |
| Map of recordings | No | Places in entries | Map tab with sound and date filters |
| Sound recognition tags | No | No | On-device, editable |
| Brings recordings back | No | Suggestions for writing | Echoes and Echo Scenes |
Finding recordings later
A Voice Memos list grows into hundreds of “New Recording” entries. Aunori gives each recording a cover photo, a date, an optional place and note, and sound tags, so you can find it by what it looked like, where it was, or what you heard.
Using them together
Keep using Voice Memos for work and ideas, and Journal for reflection. When a moment is about the sound of a place or the people in it, capture it in Aunori — it is free to capture, keep, and export your Moments.
