By invoking a quick phrase, Siri captures a sentence or two of dictated text and adds it to a bucket where I can then do something with it later. Critically, it should also automatically capture the location where the note was made as well as the date and time of the note.
I'm new to riding a 70 lb. ebike on which balance can be tricky and the 20mph+ speeds mean I really prefer to keep both hands on the handlebars and ready to hit the brakes. I don't even like using one hand to adjust a mirror or signal a turn—let alone trying to fiddle with a device like my Apple Watch or iPhone.
But, when I'm riding my bike, I often find myself wanting to capture a short note via Siri. Originally, I just craved a way to capture something about a given route, especially when I want to remember that a stretch of road is particularly rough or has bad traffic, etc.
Also, as with so many activities that are not work (among which I'd also count taking showers and urinating), I've found my bike rides are often when I have thoughts or ideas that I'd like to return to later. Whether it's remembering I need to buy toilet paper or having a left-field idea for a podcast topic, it'd be handy to have a way to capture a short note about pretty much anything.
With that said, I can think of so many other uses for a simple voice log that I'd personally utilize all the time.
There's something so powerful about yelling into the air and knowing with (relative) confidence that the note and some useful metadata will always be in this sort of "inbox" that I can return to later.
- Apple Reminders. "Remind me to do a thing in one hour" is something I yell at Siri a lot, and it usually works a treat. But, even more important than not wanting to clog up my TODO list with things that aren't tasks, to my knowledge, Reminders does not easily capture stuff like the time the Reminder was created or the geolocation data for where it was created.
- Apple Notes. Yes, using Siri to append to an Apple Note seems like table stakes for such an app and service. But, at least to my knowledge, appending to a Note is not possible using Siri (at least in the absence of a Siri Shortcut that I lack the skills to make)
- Drafts. This is another very promising contender, especially since Drafts Actions like WalkWriter, Quick Journal, or Assemble Diary seem close to doing what I want. I just haven't figured out how to do it via Siri and in an output format I'd like
- Day One, Diarly, or similar. Obviously it makes sense to start with a diary app/service since logging is kind of what they do. But, in my admittedly short time looking into it, I haven't found a way to make it all happen hands free.
- Apple Shortcuts. While my intuition tell me this can be done with one Shortcut, I haven't found one that does what I'm looking for, and I lack both the skills and inclination to make it from scratch myself.
- Hail via Siri with a short and unambiguous phrase
- none of this "Hey, dingus, append to my cycling journal for today"-type stuff
- should work equally well on Apple Watch and iPhone
- hailing phrase should be user-customizable; I want mine to be crazy short with hard consonants that my iPhone can hear and understand amidst the wind and traffic of a bike ride.
- EG
- "Hey, Siri, tack this…"
- "Hey, Siri, real quick…"
- Capture 1-2 dictated sentences
- Accepting something longer is fine, but just in my own usage, I won't be dictating a novel.
- EG
- "40th between Judah and Kirkham has lots of holes"
- "Check out the new coffee place near Kezar"
- "Get my right brake looked at"
- "Don't do Great Highway on windy days"
- Include some metadata
- At a minimum, I want to capture
- location as an address
- lat long is potentially okay, but not preferred
- both would be awesome
- date and time of note
- location as an address
- Other easy popular metadata like current weather is fine but not required
- At a minimum, I want to capture
- Generate useful log files
- Results should be portable and easy to do other things with.
- I'll often want to do something with the log, like generate a map or make a spreadsheet, so I need the results to be formatted.
- I'd prefer not just separate lines with carriage returns in a text file
- EG
- CSV?
- JSON?
- Extra work to perform before or after capture
- I don't want to have to make a new document or list each time I use it
- I don't want to have a bunch of separate files generated per note.
- I don't want to have to assemble the results later on
- No exotic formats
- While I'm open to using third-party apps and service, I'd love for this to be doable with stock Apple software.
- foo
- Tags
- I have no idea how to do this, it'd be neat if the inclusion of a given word in the natural dictated text could cause the entry to be tagged with one of n predefined keywords.
- foo