1. Access Recording — After stopping, you’ll see it in the recordings list.
2. Start Transcription — Tap the recording, then tap “Generate Transcript”. The app processes your audio using your selected engine.
3. Progress — You’ll see processing status and time remaining. You can continue using the app while it processes.
4. View Results — Full transcript with editable text, timestamps (if supported), and confidence indicators.

1. Prerequisites — You need a transcript first.
2. Start Summary — In the recording detail view, tap “Generate Summary”.
3. AI Processing — The app analyzes your transcript and creates:
   • Enhanced Summary: Main content overview
   • Action Items: Tasks with priority levels
   • Reminders: Time-sensitive items with urgency indicators
   • Alternative Titles: AI-generated recording names
4. Review Results — Expandable sections, priority indicators, interactive maps, and integration options.

• “Enable iCloud Sync” — Summaries sync across all your devices. Uses your iCloud storage quota.
• “Keep Local Only” — Summaries stay on this device only. Better for privacy-sensitive content. Can be changed later.

Long press on any recording, or tap and use the “…” menu. Deletion options:

• Audio File Only — Keeps transcript/summary, removes audio. Good for saving storage.
• Everything — Removes audio, transcript, and summary. Cannot be undone.
• Summary Only — Keeps audio and transcript. Useful for regenerating with a different engine.

1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
2. Navigate to Action Button.
3. Select Shortcut as the Action Button function.
4. Tap “Choose a Shortcut” → Search for “Start Recording” or “BisonNotes AI” → Select it.
5. Press the Action Button to test!

What happens: The app launches, switches to the Recordings tab, and starts recording immediately. Recording continues even if you switch apps or lock your phone.

1. Select recordings — Go to Recordings tab → tap “Select” → check two recordings.
2. Tap “Combine” — A “Combine” button appears when two are selected.
3. Choose order — The app recommends chronological order. Tap the “First” card to swap if needed.
4. Review & confirm — Check combined duration preview, tap “Combine Recordings”.
5. After combining — The new recording appears in your list. Original recordings remain unchanged. Generate new transcripts and summaries for the combined file.

Tips:

• Make sure recordings are in the correct chronological order
• Combined file size = sum of both originals
• You’ll need to generate new transcripts/summaries afterward

Type: Local processing • Cost: Free • Privacy: 100% local • Internet: Only for initial model download

Requirements

• Transcription: iOS 17.0+, 4GB+ RAM. Uses Parakeet (default) for on-device transcription.
• AI Summary (llama.cpp models): iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 16+, iOS 18.1+
• Storage: 2-3GB per AI model, plus transcription model download

Recommended Models (by RAM)

• 8GB+: Gemma 3n E4B (4.5 GB) — Best overall quality
• 6GB+: Gemma 3n E2B (3.0 GB) — Good quality, smaller size
• 6GB+: Granite Micro (2.1 GB) — Very fast processing

Experimental Models (enable in settings)

• 8GB+: Granite (4.3 GB) — Reliable and accurate
• 6GB+: Ministral (2.1 GB) — Best for tasks/reminders
• 4GB+: LFM 2.5 Thinking (731 MB) — Fast, minimal summaries
• 6GB+: Qwen3.5 2B (1.3 GB) — Thinking mode, summary only
• 8GB+: Qwen3.5 4B (2.7 GB) — Thinking mode, excellent detail

Best for: Privacy-conscious users, offline use, recordings under 60 minutes

Type: Cloud • Cost: Pay-per-use • Privacy: Data sent to OpenAI • Internet: Required

Setup

1. Get API key at platform.openai.com
2. Go to Setup → AI Settings → OpenAI
3. Enter your API key, select model, test connection.

Summarization Models

Transcription Models

Best for: High-quality results, advanced features

Type: Cloud • Cost: Free tier, then pay-per-use • Privacy: Data sent to Google • Internet: Required

Setup

1. Get API key at aistudio.google.com
2. Go to Setup → AI Settings → Google AI Studio
3. Enter API key, select model, test connection.

Available Models

• Gemini 3 Flash Preview (Default) — Fast and efficient
• Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview — Lightweight variant for quick processing

Best for: Balanced performance and cost, with free tier for getting started

Type: OpenAI-compatible endpoint • Cost: Varies • Privacy: Depends on provider • Internet: Required unless local

Supported Providers

• LiteLLM — Base URL: your server (e.g., http://localhost:4000/v1)
• llama.cpp — Base URL: http://localhost:8080. API key: “no-key” or empty.
• Groq — Base URL: https://api.groq.com/v1. API key from console.groq.com
• Nebius — Your Nebius endpoint URL
• Custom — Any OpenAI-compatible endpoint

Setup

1. Go to Setup → AI Settings → OpenAI API Compatible
2. Enter API key and base URL for your provider.
3. Select model (use your provider’s exact model name, e.g., llama-3.1-70b-versatile for Groq).
4. Test the connection.

Best for: Using LiteLLM, llama.cpp, Nebius, Groq, or other compatible services

Type: Cloud • Cost: Pay-per-use (transcription $0.003/min) • Internet: Required

Summarization Models

• Mistral Large (25.12) — Most capable, 128K context (Premium)
• Mistral Medium (25.08) — Balanced, 128K context (Standard)
• Magistral Medium (25.09) — Economy, 40K context

Transcription

• Voxtral Mini Transcribe — $0.003/min with optional speaker diarization
• Supports MP3, MP4, M4A, WAV, FLAC, OGG, WebM
• Automatic language detection or explicit language code
• Files over 24MB automatically chunked

Setup

1. Get API key at console.mistral.ai
2. Go to Setup → AI Settings → Mistral AI
3. Enter API key, select model, test connection.
4. For transcription: Setup → Transcription Settings → select “Mistral AI”.

Best for: Fast summaries and affordable transcription with speaker diarization

Type: Cloud • Cost: Pay-per-use • Internet: Required

Available Models

• Claude 4.5 Haiku (Default) — Fast, efficient (Standard tier)
• Claude Sonnet 4.5 — Advanced reasoning and analysis (Premium tier)
• Llama 4 Maverick 17B — Meta’s latest, enhanced reasoning (Economy tier)

Setup

1. Create an AWS account and enable Bedrock service.
2. Create IAM user with Bedrock permissions and generate access keys.
3. Go to Setup → AI Settings → AWS Bedrock.
4. Enter AWS credentials, select region and model, test connection.

Best for: Enterprise features and compliance

Type: On-device • Cost: Free • Privacy: 100% local • Internet: Not required

Requirements

• iOS 26.0 or later
• iPhone 15 Pro or newer (Apple Intelligence–capable device)
• Apple Intelligence enabled in Settings → Apple Intelligence & Siri

Setup

1. Go to Setup → AI Settings.
2. Select Apple Native from the engine library.
3. No API key or model download required — uses the built-in Foundation Model.

Limitations

• Context window is 4,096 tokens. Long transcripts are automatically chunked and summarized in segments.
• Only available on devices that support Apple Intelligence.

Best for: Maximum privacy, no setup, and users with Apple Intelligence–capable devices on iOS 26+

Type: Local server • Cost: Free • Privacy: 100% local • Internet: Not required

Setup

1. Install Ollama on your machine.
2. Download models:

   ollama pull qwen3:30b
   ollama pull gpt-oss:20b
   ollama pull mistral-small3.2

3. Go to Setup → AI Settings → Ollama.
4. Set server URL and port (default: http://localhost:11434).
5. Tap refresh to scan for models, select one, test connection.

Best for: Privacy, customizable models, offline use

Initial Setup

1. Enable: Setup → Transcription Settings → select “On Device” → Parakeet is selected by default.
2. Download the model: Tap “Download” to get the Parakeet model.
3. Requirements: iOS 17.0+, model download required.

1. Install Whisper Server:

   # Using Docker (recommended)
   docker run -d -p 9000:9000 \
     -e ASR_MODEL=base \
     -e ASR_ENGINE=openai_whisper \
     onerahmet/openai-whisper-asr-webservice:latest

2. Configure: Setup → Transcription Settings → Whisper (Local Server). Set server URL and port (default: 9000). Choose protocol (REST API or Wyoming) and model size.

1. Create an AWS account and enable Transcribe service.
2. Create IAM user with transcribe:StartTranscriptionJob and transcribe:GetTranscriptionJob permissions.
3. Setup → Transcription Settings → AWS Transcribe.
4. Enter access key, secret key, region, language. Test connection.

Recording Title

Open summary → “Titles” section → “Edit” → enter new title or select from AI alternatives → “Use This Title”.

Custom Date & Time

Open summary → “Recording Date & Time” → “Set Custom Date & Time” → use pickers → “Save”.

Location

Open summary → location section → “Add Location” or “Edit Location”. Choose: Current Location (GPS), Map Selection, or Manual Entry → “Save”.

• No Audio: Check microphone permissions in Settings → Privacy
• Poor Quality: Adjust audio quality settings, ensure proper mic distance
• Background Recording: Enable in app settings

• Connection Failed: Check internet and API keys
• Timeout Errors: Increase timeout settings
• Authentication Errors: Verify API credentials

• No Transcription: Check engine configuration
• Poor Quality: Try a different engine or model
• Large File Issues: Enable chunking for files over 5 minutes

• Missing Recordings: Use Data Migration tools
• Corrupted Data: Clear and re-import data
• Sync Problems: Check iCloud settings

• Job Queue — Multiple operations queued and processed in order
• Progress Tracking — Real-time updates with accurate status display
• Error Recovery — Automatic retry for failures
• Stale Job Detection (v1.7) — Intelligent detection and recovery of stuck jobs, with timeouts based on actual processing start time
• Job Cancellation (v1.7) — Properly cancel and interrupt running jobs when the app is backgrounded or closed
• On-Device AI Handling — On-device AI jobs are gracefully interrupted when the app is backgrounded, since GPU processing requires the app to stay open
• Live Transcription (v1.8) — On-device speech-to-text streamed in real time during recording via SFSpeechRecognizer; transcript auto-saved when recording stops
• Duplicate Summary Cleanup (v1.8) — Automatically detects and removes duplicate summaries; manual cleanup available in Database Tools

• Import/Export — M4A, MP3, WAV, CAF, AIFF, AIF
• Audio Export (v1.8) — Share any recording as an audio file via the iOS share sheet
• Video Import (v1.8) — Import video files; audio is automatically extracted to M4A
• Audio Cleanup (v1.8) — Optional pre-transcription DSP: high-pass filter, noise gate, dynamic normalization, peak limiting
• Share Extension — Import from Voice Memos, Files, etc.
• Combining Recordings — Merge two into one
• PDF Export — Professional reports with metadata, maps, page numbers
• File Relationships — Audio/transcript/summary links maintained
• Orphaned File Detection — Find and clean disconnected files
• Selective Deletion — Choose what to keep

• GPS Integration — Automatic capture
• Reverse Geocoding — Coordinates to addresses
• Smart Search — 3-tier fallback system
• University Database — Built-in campus mapping
• Interactive Maps — View recording locations
• Manual Location — Add locations after recording

• iCloud Backup — Full backup of all data to iCloud Drive
• Auto-Backup (v1.7) — Automatically backs up when new recordings are created
• CloudKit Sync — Optional summary synchronization across devices with paginated queries and schema-safe fallback for reliability
• Prompted after generating your first summary

• Legacy Import — Migrate from old file-based storage
• Data Integrity — Validate and repair data relationships
• Batch Operations — Process multiple files at once
• Progress Tracking — Monitor migration progress