Aside from a non-disconnecting mobile hotspot, a better call recorder is one of the reasons why I keep an Android phone alongside my iPhone.
Here are five reasons why I think the native call recording feature in the stock Phone app on my inexpensive Android phone is more useful than the one on my iPhone.
No waiting nonsense
When I start recording a phone call on my iPhone, a 3-second timer starts, followed by a disclaimer, then the actual recording begins. All this can easily take more than 5 seconds, and because of that, I have to keep focusing on this entire recording thing instead of the call.
This forced waiting isn’t much of an issue when I’m calling customer support, as they usually have the whole ‘press 1 for this…’ pitch, and I can comfortably start the recording before getting to a human.
However, call recording on iPhone is terrible when I just want to record normal human-to-human calls, like the ones I have with my bank relationship manager.
My Android phone, in comparison, starts recording the moment I hit the button.
Option to play a tone instead of a long disclaimer
Another reason I don’t use my iPhone to record normal phone calls is the “This call will be recorded” prompt that plays compulsorily and is heard by the other side.
Now, I understand the legalities around call recording, but they vary by country and local laws. In some cases, you need to inform the other party that you’re recording the conversation, but in many cases, just being a participant gives you the right to record the call.
Apple has one solution for all, forcing the disclaimer without giving us the option in the Phone app settings to turn it off or replace it with a simple tone.
Android, on the other hand, gives me an easy option where, instead of playing the full ‘This call will be recorded,’ it just plays a very short tone. You can enable it in the Android Phone app > hamburger icon > Settings > Call recording > Play audio tone instead of disclaimer.
Note: There are laws around camera shutter sound as well, because of which you can’t take photos silently in countries like Japan and South Korea. But iPhones in other countries let you take photos without the shutter sound. A similar approach for call recording would have been great.
Automatic call recording
The Android Phone app gives me the option to automatically record all unknown calls or record all calls from specified contacts. iPhone has no such feature.
Android saves call recordings offline
All iPhone call recordings are saved in the Notes app and, by extension, in iCloud. There is no option to change this.
Now, even stock Android doesn’t offer an option to set another folder to store call recordings, but it automatically saves all call recordings locally on the device, which is what many prefer.
If you ask me, I like my iPhone saving call recordings to iCloud and making them accessible on all my devices, like iPad and Mac. Secondly, I have enabled Advanced Data Protection, which further ensures that nearly all of my iCloud data is end-to-end encrypted. But some people prefer saving their phone calls offline, and thus, I have included it here.
Option to delete call recordings automatically
Android phones let you keep things clean by automatically deleting call recordings that are 7, 14, or 30 days old. Of course, if a call recording is important, you can manually export it to the Files or other app before it’s auto-deleted.
3 reasons in favor of iPhone
Even though I use my secondary Android phone most of the time to record calls, there are undoubtedly some pros of using an iPhone.
iPhone recording has never failed me
My iPhone has saved the call recording file every time I have used it (though one time I didn’t even have the option to record the call).
In contrast, there have been a couple of instances on my Android phone where call recording failed to save. But note that this has only happened when the call recording was started automatically (I have this feature enabled) and there was a recent call recording for the same person.
Secondly, when I’m on a call on my Android phone and stop the recording and then restart it, the second recording is not saved for some reason. But my iPhone saves more than one call recording for the same call if I stop and re-initiate without hanging up, as seen in the screenshot below.
Call transcriptions
Apple Intelligence in the iPhone Notes app can transcribe and summarize the call recording. But the stock Phone app on my Android phone doesn’t have this.
Clearing call logs doesn’t delete the recordings
Since iPhone saves call recordings in the Notes app, emptying the call logs in the iOS Phone app doesn’t delete the recordings. But on Android phones, deleting a call log also removes its audio recording if one was present.
Also, check out: 10 Android features I miss on my iPhone