The Google AI Edge Eloquent iPhone app debuted this week, albeit sans the usual fireworks for a new Google product. It’s an AI-powered solution to dictation that works even without internet access.
No one speaks as clearly and cleanly as they write, and making sense of off-the-cuff thoughts narrated aloud can be tricky even when it’s your own words spoken back to you.
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And there’s room for a surprising amount of customization. You can import names and your own jargon from Gmail, as well as add to a custom word list. And in case even the cleaned-up version of your dictation isn’t enough, you can get the app to rewrite the transcript as in “Key points,” “Formal,” “Short,” or “Long” styles.
These are all familiar features for those who have used Gemini or other AI tools, but they’re all packaged into a focused app.
Capturing and cleaning ideas
I turned on the app and did my usual brainstorming while on a walk, except instead of writing notes, I just spoke ideas into the app, with all the interruptions and digressions that usually makes me prefer writing things down by hand. I spouted off some future article ideas, some errands I need to run, and some thoughts on a nice dinner I want to make next week.
What I first said, according to the transcript was:
“Um, okay, so I kind of want to make like a really nice pasta next week, —something that feels a little fancy, but not, you know, too much and. I definitely want uh like a really good red sauce, something kind of rich. I definitely want to use garlic and maybe something to uh, soften it and make it feel silkier, uh and I don’t want to have to spend all day on it.”
Not terrible, but not exactly what would come out of a keyboard. Ten seconds later, the app polished it into:
“Okay, so I want to make a really nice pasta next week—something that feels a little fancy, but not too much. I definitely want a really good red sauce, something kind of rich. I definitely want to use garlic and maybe something to soften it and make it feel silkier. And I don’t want to have to spend all day on it.”
It wasn’t a huge change, but it certainly made it clearer. It’s like the difference between an auto-generated transcript and one that’s been edited, except the editing happened basically as I was talking.
Stylistic choices
I then turned to the list of style options. My note wasn’t too long, but the “key points” option condensed it into a couple of bullet points.
“A nice, somewhat fancy pasta dish featuring a rich red sauce with softened, silky garlic.
Requires quick preparation.”
The “short” and “long” options did what you might imagine, and weren’t very exciting, but the “formal” style option was at least amusing in how it rephrased my quick note to myself about a future dinner, turning it into:
“The intention is to prepare a sophisticated pasta dish next week, emphasizing elegance and manageability. A high-quality, robust red sauce is paramount, with garlic as an essential ingredient. Techniques to achieve a smoother, more refined texture for the sauce are desired. Moreover, the preparation process should be time-efficient.”
The “polishing” of your words can be surprising in how it will even add words when your speech seemed incomplete. As a test, I dictated a fake but realistic email that skipped out on grammatically complete sentences, but that would still make sense. I said:
“Hi, just wanted to follow up on this and see if next Tuesday still works on your end. Totally understand if the timeline has shifted a little. Happy to adjust.”
A little polishing and the app wrote:
“Hi, just wanted to follow up on this and see if next Tuesday still works on your end. I totally understand that the timeline has shifted a little, so I’m happy to adjust.”
Essentially the same, but now it looked like a more professional email, one that would be sent to a colleague and not texted to a friend. The “formal” style of it might as well have been in a suit:
“Hello, I wanted to follow up and confirm whether next Tuesday still works for your schedule. I completely understand if the timeline has changed and would be happy to accommodate any adjustments.”
Still, the appeal of the app, despite any oddness, is obvious. If you don’t need a perfect record, digressions and filler words included, it’s an ideal tool. You can easily get a more competent, less digressive, less verbally floppy version of your comments. In that sense, it’s like a tiny, pocket-sized editor whose main job is to pretend you spoke in complete thoughts.
You’ll find the The Google AI Edge Eloquent iPhone app on the Apple App Store, and it’s currently US-only.
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ESchwartzwrites@gmail.com (Eric Hal Schwartz)
