Tom: Transcribe Audio & Video

Transcribe audio & video with the engine that fits the job — three options, all 100% on-device.

Tom turns sound into clean, editable text right on your iPhone. Lectures, WhatsApp voice notes, screen recordings, interviews, podcasts, long meetings — pick your engine, drop in the file, read the transcript. No account, no upload.

Built originally for a friend who is deaf, Tom is for anyone who needs to read what was said.

TRY IT, THEN DECIDE

Five transcriptions are on the house — from files or recorded live, with any engine, no time limit and no minute counter. Enough to put your own audio through it and see what comes out.

Tom Pro — a single payment, no subscription, no ads — removes the limit on new transcriptions, and adds subtitle export in SubRip and WebVTT plus re-transcribing a file with a different engine, keeping every version.

Whatever you've already transcribed stays yours either way: read it, edit it, search it, play it back and export it as text, with or without Pro.

Bought Tom back when it was a paid app? You already have Tom Pro, free, forever. Nothing to do.

CHOOSE YOUR ENGINE

• Apple Speech — fast, low memory, built into iOS. Great default for live recording and short files. 25 languages.
• Whisper — OpenAI's recognizer, running locally. Six sizes from Tiny (80 MB) to Large v3 (3.1 GB), including Turbo for the best speed/quality balance. Up to 99 languages.
• Parakeet v3 — high-accuracy European transcription from FluidAudio, on-device. 25 European languages.

KEY FEATURES

• Live recording — tap once and watch the transcript appear as you speak.
• File import — any video from your library, or audio from the Files app (WhatsApp voice notes included).
• Multiple engines + re-transcribe — pick Apple Speech, Whisper, Parakeet or Nemotron per file, and (with Tom Pro) re-run the same audio through a different engine without losing the previous transcript.
• Editable segments — long-press a segment to fix a word the recognizer got wrong. Your edit stays on the device.
• Subtitle export — save any transcript as plain text, or as SubRip (.srt) and WebVTT (.vtt) with Tom Pro.
• Player with smart controls — tap-to-seek, follow the highlighted segment, skip ±10s, switch speed to 1.5x or 2x.
• Honest hallucination flag — when Whisper invents text on silence or music, suspect segments are clearly marked. We never silently strip your transcript.
• Long files — chunked processing for meetings, lectures and full episodes.
• Model management — downloaded models live in Documents, visible in the Files app. Delete one from Settings or Files to reclaim space anytime.
• Wi-Fi only downloads — on by default, so large models never eat your cellular data.
• Smart storage — custom titles, search by title or content, activity log on every step.

WHO IS IT FOR

• Students extracting notes from lectures, videos, or screen recordings.
• Professionals transcribing interviews, meetings, or long audio files.
• WhatsApp users who want to read voice messages instead of listening.
• Content creators turning audio or video into text or subtitles for TikTok, Reels, Shorts, or blogs.
• Podcasters making episodes accessible with .srt subtitles.
• Anyone who is deaf or hard of hearing and needs private, reliable transcription.

WHY CHOOSE TOM

Most transcription apps upload your audio to a server. Tom does the opposite: every engine — Apple Speech, Whisper, Parakeet, Nemotron — runs entirely on your iPhone. No account, no upload, no subscription: Tom Pro is a one-time purchase. With multiple engines, re-transcribe-and-compare, segment editing, subtitle export and an honest hallucination flag, Tom covers the whole flow from "I said this" to "here's a clean text I can share" — without ever sending a byte off your device.

Note: the app needs permission for the microphone (live recording), the photo library (video import), and Apple's speech recognition. Your audio stays on your device. Offline models are downloaded once on first use.