Podagogy

As a educational podcasting enthusiast I am always looking for easy, effective methods for recording conversations, lectures, or even personal reflections. In an earlier post I reviewed the Bias iProRecorder for the iPhone. In this post I review a competitor to iProRecorder - Griffin’s iTalk. iTalk is available for the iPhone, iPhone 3G, and iPod Touch 2nd-generation.

I actually purchased iTalk before I purchased iProRecorder. I reviewed iProRecorder first because I was so impressed with the user interface. However, upon reflection I have concluded that the functional differences provided by the interface are not as great as I imagined. That said, I still think iProRecorder’s interface is sexier. On balance however, the comparative simplicity of the iTalk interface is one of its strengths.

When you start the iTalk app you immediately know what to do to begin recording. The big red “Press to Record” button makes it intuitively obvious. In fact, the big red button just begs to be pressed. The recording process is so easy. Just press the big red button and start talking! You can choose to name the recording before you start, but it is not required. Like the iProRecorder you have your choice of 3 levels of recording quality: Good, Better, Best.

Once you the recording begins the big red button turns green, and a basic recording level display appears below the big button indicating relative audio levels. To Stop/Pause recording, press the big green button. If you want to keep the recording, simply give it a name and press the “Done” button.

iTalk allows you to append additional recording to an existing recording, which can come in pretty handy if you want to use it as a personal voice memo tool.

Transferring iTalk recordings from the iPhone is, like the iProRecorder, a wireless task. When Apple finally gets around to enabling file transfer from the iPhone via USB connection a lot of iPhone users will breath a collective sigh of relief. Griffin provides a FREE second application that runs on your Mac or PC called iTalkSync. To transfer iTalk recordings you need to fire up iTlakSync on your Mac/PC, and iTalk on your iPhone. The 2 devices connect via WiFi. You may then drag and drop files from your iPhone to your computer.

In summary, the overall simplicity of iTalk appeals to me. But, there is no clear winner between iProRecord and iTalk. The recording quality of each is better than one would expect, and both apps are drop-dead easy to use. If you are able to record in a place with little or no distracting ambient noises, this app could produce very high quality podcasts.