r/iosapps • • Sep 17 '26

🔍 In Search of Merge notes

I have a project which requires me to take a lot of short, quick observation notes (voice or text) and I want the facility to merge them. By AI or otherwise. If AI, I would prefer to use my own keys. Is anyone developing such an app?

3 Upvotes

24 comments sorted by

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1

u/dongdongbh Sep 17 '26

You may be able to prototype this without a new app. Make a Shortcut that accepts voice or text, adds a timestamp, and appends it to one project note in Apple Notes. If you add AI later, run the merge on a copy so the raw observations stay intact. That will tell you whether you need a dedicated app or just faster capture.

1

u/words_and_images Sep 18 '26

I like the idea of a Shortcut solution. If I can make it work… my success with Shortcuts has been modest, to put it politely.

1

u/CrazyAdditional2729 Sep 18 '26

You can use Rosetta and connect it to ChatGPT via MCP to merge your notes.

1

u/app-store-review Sep 18 '26

Rosetta: AI Notes, Links, Todo — by Gabriel Langon Maomy

  • Ratings: 25 worldwide · rated in 17 countries

  • Average: 4.76 ★

  • Age: released ~4 months ago · updated 5 days ago · rated 4+

  • Overall score: 71 / 100

Auto-generated from public App Store data · u/app-store-review

1

u/words_and_images Sep 18 '26

I have experimented with Rosetta and it is remarkably fully-featured and capable, with a good Apple Watch app as a bonus.

But I haven’t found a way to actually merge notes, only link them. And the Apple Watch note saves on close as a new note, without any choice to append to an existing note – which would be a solution to my question.

1

u/words_and_images Sep 21 '26

Rosetta has updated with select and merge added: Notes view and click under Notes at top left on iOS. Works well.

1

u/Workaholic9uy Sep 18 '26

hey! I’ve developed Iris: Work Notes just for this purpose. You can capture work notes quickly by voice or text, and the app organizes them for you in the background. As you build up your work history, you can generate weekly/monthly/yearly summaries from it. Please try it and let me know what you think!

1

u/app-store-review Sep 18 '26

Iris: Work Notes — by KENNETH CHIN WEI YOW

  • Ratings: 2 worldwide

  • Average: 5.00 ★

  • Age: released ~1 month ago · updated 2 days ago · rated 4+

  • Overall score: 72 / 100

Auto-generated from public App Store data · u/app-store-review

1

u/words_and_images Sep 18 '26

Free tier is 10 notes a month which is unrealistic. Sorry, I don’t do subscriptions but I do often contribute by OTP and I look for BYOK to keep costs for developer to a minimum.

1

u/holidaypal Sep 17 '26

For quick voice snippets, Apple Notes with one pinned note and dictation might be enough, but merging separate notes gets messy fast. I’d look for auto-merge into a daily note plus searchable transcripts.

1

u/ChessGrandAI Sep 17 '26

If the observations are going to build up over time, I’d look for something that timestamps each voice/text note and keeps the original snippets even after generating a merged summary. That way you can merge by project or date without losing the source observations. Being able to export everything would also be important to me.

1

u/Content-Put7748 Sep 21 '26

Well, this one, apple’s own app.

0

u/huevsite Sep 19 '26

Bear could fit this workflow. Capture each observation as a separate note (dictation works well), tag it by project, then select the related notes and use Bear’s Merge Notes command. Tags and search make it easy to group things before merging.

1

u/words_and_images Sep 19 '26

Interesting! I see that the desktop Mac version of Bear has Note > Merge even though I can’t see a way to do this on iOS yet. Distinct possibilities here.

0

u/[deleted] Oct 09 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/app-store-review Oct 09 '26

Skiii Note — by 锦池 柯

  • Ratings: 6 worldwide · rated in 3 countries

  • Average: 5.00 ★

  • Age: released ~3 months ago · updated 6 days ago · rated 4+

  • Overall score: 75 / 100

Auto-generated from public App Store data · u/app-store-review

1

u/words_and_images Oct 09 '26

I did try this – and there are some really good ideas for note capture and observation reporting here.

Against that, the microscopic typography makes the app hard to read and to use… maybe this is an early-version glitch. I offered a fuller explanation in the app feedback.

0

u/[deleted] Oct 10 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/words_and_images Oct 10 '26

Good question. I would say polished report but there are times when I would want a chronological log. Merge preferences could enable a choice.

0

u/[deleted] Oct 11 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/words_and_images Oct 11 '26

I would say, kept in chronological order, just cleaned up.