App for journalists: Pio Smart Recorder

What is it? An audio app that makes it easy to annotate recordings on the fly

Devices: iOS

Cost: Free, with some cheap in-app purchase options

How is it of use to journalists? Ever had to listen to a 20-minute interview to track down one soundbite? Or need to get bits of an interview back to the newsroom quickly?

Meet Pio. This simple recording app lets you mark interesting moments in audio files as you're recording them.

Users have to set up an account to record, the first of a few seemingly unnecessary hurdles to actually recording something, but registering does give the added bonus of linking your Dropbox or Google Drive accounts with a pro account ($0.99 or £0.79) to get files on other devices.

Recording

You can start recording from the homescreen and although the app prompts you to enter the interviewee name, age, gender, photo, location and other notes – these can be added later.

Once (finally) ready to record, you can see how this might be really useful in interview or press conference situations, allowing you to mark key quotes or moments in the recording for referral later.

Give the screen single taps to add start and stop markers or a double tap to mark two seconds either side of that moment.


Screenshot from the Pio app

Granted, this means you have to hold your phone throughout the interview but if out collecting vox pops around a story or at a busy news event this is often the best approach after shorthand, and definitely helps if you'll be using the audio itself.

When you've finished recording you can play the various annotations separately and add notes, or create new marks around moments you may not have picked up on at the time, and share them to your storage cloud of choice.

Again, if you're out on a story and need to get quotes and clips back to the newsroom at speed, this could be a great way of making sure the production team get what they need quickly.

Projects

As well as recording, you are given the option to 'view projects' from the app homescreen, where recordings can be organised.


Screenshot from the Pio app

Users are allowed three projects to name and colour code for free but you can get unlimited projects for another $0.99 if you need to store and sort more recordings.

You can also go to the recording stage from here by hitting the plus symbol, where you are prompted to add information and continue the process as above.

So all-in-all a simple app that helps you do one thing very well, offering a number of high-value use cases with a little imagination. Check out Hokusai if you want a bit more functionality (editing, for example) or Cogi for a good alternative on Android.

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