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AudioPen turns a ramble into prose. Amanu turns it into action.
AudioPen and Voicenotes built a beautiful tool for cleaning up a recording into readable text. Amanu does that too — and then routes the result into the apps where you actually do the work.
Who AudioPen is for
Writers, content people, anyone who wants a tidy paragraph from a messy two-minute thought. The web-first interface and the polish-the-text loop is the whole product. If that's what you're after, AudioPen is excellent.
Who Amanu is for
People who don't want a paragraph. They want a reminder, an event, a follow-up, a mood logged. The conversion from voice to action, not voice to prose.
How they compare, side by side
| What you need | Amanu | AudioPen |
|---|---|---|
| Output | Reminder, event, note, person — multiple items per capture | One tidy paragraph per recording |
| Platform | iPhone-native, Lock Screen widget, Action Button | Web-first, opens in browser |
| Routes into Apple Reminders / Calendar | Native | Manual copy-paste |
| Talk-back / continuous duplex | Yes | No |
Where Amanu wins
Each capture isn't one note — it's any number of items: a todo, an event, a person, a mood, an idea, all from the same thirty seconds of speech. AudioPen gives you one block of text per recording.
iOS-native. Lock Screen widget. Action Button. AudioPen is web-first; you have to open it to use it.
Reminders and events route into Apple Reminders and Calendar automatically. AudioPen leaves the routing to you.
Where AudioPen wins
Cross-platform. AudioPen runs in any browser. Amanu is iPhone-first.
If your output is "a tidy summary of what I just said", AudioPen's whole product is that. Amanu does it as a side effect, but tidy prose isn't the goal.
The honest call
If you want voice-to-prose, use AudioPen. If you want voice-to-action, use Amanu. The keyboard you're typing on probably already tells you which side of that line you're on.
Common questions
Is Amanu just AudioPen with reminders attached?
No. AudioPen turns one recording into one paragraph. Amanu turns one capture into multiple items: a reminder with a time, a calendar event, a journal note, a person mention — each routed automatically. Different shape of the output.
Can I get prose summaries from Amanu?
Each capture is shown as transcribed text in your timeline; if you want a polished paragraph version, AudioPen is built around that. Amanu prioritises action over prose.