And Yet Another Apple Weblog: Griffin Announces iTalk for iPhone & iPod and iTalk Sync for Mac

On Tuesday, Griffin Technology announced the availability iTalk voice recording app for iPhone and the iPod Touch. Griffin also announced the immediate availability of iTalk Sync, the desktop companion app to iTalk.

Griffin iTalk turns iPhone or iPod touch into an ultra-mobile, super-compact recording unit. This two-part app allows users to create high-quality recordings, and then transfer the recordings to a Mac or PC. Users will appreciate the one-touch recording controls, and the ability to pause/resume recordings and even append to previous recordings on the fly. iTalk is a two-part software application.
Download the iTalk app from the iTunes App Store and install it on your iPhone or iPod touch, for mobile recording and playback. Its companion program, iTalk Sync, runs on your computer to transfer recordings from iPod or iPhone for editing and sharing. iTalk Sync connects to your iPod touch or iPhone wirelessly via your local Wi-Fi network, and makes transfers a snap: just drag the recordings from iTalk Sync's list and drop them onto your desktop. Recordings are saved as high-quality AIFF files, playable in iTunes and most other media players.
High-quality handheld recording
Easy, convenient user interface and controls
Drag and drop file transfers wirelessly to your computer
User-selectable Good/Better/Best sample rate
Pause/resume and append to existing recordings on the fly
Recording on 2nd gen iPod touch works with the addition of Apple's iPhone headset, or with Griffin's updated TuneBuds Mobile and SmartTalk mic/control solutions

For more info see the full press release at Griffin's website.

For a limited time Griffin is giving both apps away free. They don't say how long the "limited time" is so if you want a pretty decent voice recording app combo for your iPhone or iPod Touch and you don't want to pay for it, download them both while you can. There is a small ad that displays across the bottom of two of iTalks 3 screens so perhaps Griffin is testing this as an ad supported app. The ad is very small and unobtrusive so don't let that stop you from trying it out.

Both apps are very intuitive and using them went without a hitch. Syncing via iTalk Sync was painless other than having to turn on Wi Fi on the iPhone. When the app store first opened I immediately purchased nFinity's QuickVoice and it's desktop companion app for the then special introductory price of $9.99 for both. QuickVoice has been a nice app and now nFinity is giving away the iPhone/iPod touch app. You still have to buy the companion app which is currently priced at $14.95 (nFInity's QuickVoice PC page says the regular price is $25). QuickVoice PC is certainly a more full featured app than iTalk Sync. In fact the only thing you can really do with iTalk Sync is wirelessly sync with your iPhone and then drag and drop your recordings to your Mac. iTalk and iTalk Sync are free, however, so they'll no doubt give the QuickVoice combo and all the rest of the voice recording apps on the iTunes app store a run for their money.

Oh and one more thing. Although the iPhone version of QuickVoice works well and has some pretty cool features (upside down mode for when you want to point the iPhone mic away from you) I can't get the desktop app to import any of my recordings. I go through the motions and it does import something but for the life of me I can't figure out where they go. Add to that the seriously ugly interface and OS X 2002 feel and the desktop app just seems like a bad port from a Windows version. I've filed a support request (there is a serious lack of documentation with the desktop app) so hopefully nFInity will be able to help me figure this thing out. We'll see....

In the mean time check out the iTalk & iTalk Sync screen shots below and the QuickVoice shots below that.