Apple is set to roll out iOS 18 next month – just as its 2024 flagship phones launch. iOS 18 has already been previewed at WWDC 2024 earlier this year and the iPhone software has been in beta testing since then. For those who don’t know, the software is available in both developer and public beta. The iOS developer beta is for app developers, while the public beta is for those who want to test new features early. Both are available for free – there is also a paid developer beta that has a much more detailed developer kit. Having said that, developer betas can be less stable than public betas and may contain bugs and glitches. Also, developer betas also tend to have some features that are still not stable enough to roll out on public beta.

If you ask us, we would always suggest you stick to the public beta only if you want to try out a feature before others but if you don’t have another phone, we would strongly advise against downloading the developer beta. It’s great to get early access to these features but in the worst case scenario, sometimes the bugs in these beta updates can brick your phone, drain the battery excessively, and so on. That’s why we took it upon ourselves to test the features in the developer beta so that you don’t have to. We tested some of the features coming to MacBook and iPhone in the latest version.

And there’s been a lot to say about the new iOS 18 beta, and especially the call transcription feature that comes with it. While some iOS 18 features, such as the Apple Intelligence feature, will be limited to the Pro models of the iPhone 15 and iPhone 16 series, call transcription will also come to older, non-Pro models. The feature will be available for phones starting with the iPhone 12 and later models. We’ve been testing the feature on the iPhone 14 Plus. There’s a lot to like in iOS 18, such as customization on Control Center, more control over widgets, but we think the new iPhone call recording and transcription feature is quite a game changer, especially the transcription part of it.

Now, you might be wondering why we are writing about this feature when it has already become a topic of discussion on social media just a few weeks after its release. Because that was the initial excitement of this feature. We wanted to test it to see if the novelty of this feature wears off and how it works in the long run. We have been testing it for a few weeks now and we think it is one of the best features coming in iOS 18 – especially if you do a podcast and need an audio byte from someone, or if you are a journalist like us who has to conduct telephonic interviews from time to time, or if you are an intern who is usually tasked with making notes along with minutes of online meetings.

The call recording and transcription feature of iPhone allows you to capture calls in both audio and text formats. And with the voice isolation and iPhone noise cancellation features, the resulting audio recording of the call is pretty great. When we were testing the feature, the transcription of the call was pretty accurate, but only when the conversation was entirely in English. Hopefully, this feature will soon support other Indian languages ​​as well. The transcription feature currently supports English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, and Portuguese.

Answering this question, if the novelty of the feature can wear off, we think this feature will get even better. The functionality it offers has the potential to make you get used to using it in more ways than one. This is why we believe that right now you might feel that you don’t need this feature, but we think you’re probably wrong. You’ll love it.

Here’s what it is and how it works: As the name suggests, the call recording feature now lets you record calls natively on the iPhone. You don’t need any third-party app. The feature will always notify you and the other party on the call when the recording starts. You can always choose to opt in or out of recording a particular call. Once you make a call, you will see the option to start recording the call on the top left of the call UI. The recording of the call is completely saved on the device and can be accessed through the Notes app. Why Notes? Because along with the call recording, you also get a complete transcription of the recording.