Spellar iOS App is Officially Live

Spellar for iOS is now available on the App Store. After four months of beta testing with over 2,000 users, the app is ready for everyone.

This post covers what the iOS app does, what changed between beta and launch, and why we think mobile meeting capture is more important than most people realize.

Why Mobile Matters for Meeting Capture

Most AI meeting tools are desktop-only. That makes sense for scheduled video calls — you're sitting at your computer anyway. But a significant number of important conversations happen away from your desk.

Phone calls with clients while commuting. Impromptu discussions at a coffee shop. Conference hallway conversations. In-person meetings in a room where you only have your phone. Walking 1:1s. These are often the most valuable conversations of the day, and they're the ones that never get captured.

With Spellar on iOS, your phone becomes a meeting recorder. Tap to start, have your conversation, and get a structured summary with action items when you're done.

What the iOS App Does

The core experience mirrors the desktop app:

Local recording. Spellar records audio directly on your device. No bot joins any call. For phone calls, the app captures both sides of the conversation through your device's audio system. For in-person meetings, it uses your iPhone's microphone.

AI-powered summaries. After recording, Spellar generates a structured summary: key discussion points, decisions made, and action items with owners. Processing takes about 15 seconds for a typical meeting.

Full transcript. Beyond the summary, you get a complete searchable transcript. Useful when you need the exact wording of something that was discussed.

Cross-device sync. Meetings recorded on iOS appear in your Spellar account alongside desktop recordings. Your meeting history is unified regardless of where the conversation happened.

Integrations. Push summaries and action items to Notion, Linear, Jira, or Slack directly from the iOS app — the same integrations available on desktop.

What Changed Since Beta

We shipped the first beta in October 2024 and learned a lot from real-world usage. The major improvements between beta and launch:

Transcription accuracy

This was the biggest area of improvement. Beta users reported issues with speaker identification in noisy environments and accuracy drops with non-English accents. We retrained our transcription models with a broader dataset, resulting in an 87% improvement in accuracy benchmarks across our test suite.

The biggest gains were in phone call recording, where audio quality is inherently lower than video calls. We added noise cancellation preprocessing that significantly improves transcript quality for mobile calls.

Summary quality

Early summaries were either too detailed (basically a compressed transcript) or too sparse (missing important context). We rebuilt the summarization pipeline to better identify what matters: decisions are highlighted, action items include owner and context, and discussion points are organized by topic rather than chronologically.

Performance

The beta was too slow. Users reported waiting 30-45 seconds for summaries after short meetings. We optimized the processing pipeline — summaries now generate in about 15 seconds for a 30-minute meeting, and under 10 seconds for shorter calls.

Battery and storage

Early versions were too aggressive with battery usage during recording. We rearchitected the recording engine to reduce CPU usage during capture, resulting in roughly 40% less battery drain. Audio files are also compressed more efficiently, using about 1MB per 10 minutes of recording.

Use Cases We Didn't Expect

During beta, users found workflows we hadn't anticipated:

Voice memos with structure. Several users started recording themselves thinking through a problem — essentially voice journaling — and using the AI summary as structured notes. Not a meeting, but the same capture-and-summarize workflow.

Interview recording. Job candidates using Spellar to record and review their interviews afterward, identifying areas to improve for next time.

Doctor and advisor appointments. Recording medical consultations or meetings with accountants and lawyers, then having a clear written summary of what was discussed and what actions to take.

These use cases reinforced something we already believed: the value of AI meeting capture extends far beyond scheduled Zoom calls.

How It Works Technically

For those curious about the implementation:

Recording uses iOS's audio session APIs to capture both microphone input and system audio output. For phone calls, this means both sides of the conversation are recorded. For in-person meetings, the device microphone captures ambient audio.

Processing happens partly on-device (audio preprocessing, noise cancellation) and partly in the cloud (transcription, speaker identification, summarization). We use end-to-end encryption for audio transmitted to our servers, and audio files are deleted after processing unless you explicitly choose to retain them.

Background recording is supported — you can switch to other apps while recording continues. A subtle indicator shows that recording is active, and you can stop recording from the notification shade or lock screen.

What's Next for Mobile

The iOS launch is the starting point, not the finish line. We're working on several improvements for upcoming releases:

Apple Watch companion. Start and stop recording from your wrist. Especially useful for in-person meetings where pulling out your phone might be awkward.

Calendar integration. Automatic recording suggestions based on your calendar — Spellar notices you have a meeting starting and asks if you'd like to record.

Offline processing. Currently, summarization requires an internet connection. We're exploring on-device models for basic summarization when you're offline, with full processing when you reconnect.

Getting Started

Spellar for iOS requires iOS 16 or later and works on iPhone and iPad. Download from the App Store, sign in with your Spellar account (or create one), and you're ready to record your first meeting.

If you're already a Spellar desktop user, your account syncs automatically. Meetings recorded on any device appear in your unified meeting history.