My second method of taking notes is the Livescribe pen. I did a review of it if you go back in the blog a few articles. Here is a photo of the page I hand wrote.
And here is a photo of the actual pen and notebook. Notice that the App runs on your iPad so you have to use it as a pair. The iPad needs to be in bluetooth range so you can place it in the middle of a meeting table, meeting room etc for best sound pick up.
And here is the text that Livescribe translated;
"Taking Note 102-Livescribe This
Livescribe 3 smart pen system. It's an unusual situation as
You wouldn't norma
at a meeting is saying, you Would make summary notes, rather than a word for word transcript. And it's even harder to read the notes at the same time as I write
them with the pen in the book."
I recorded audio of me saying the exact words (as per my hand writing) at the same time as I wrote with the pen. (I felt like I was juggling or performing a circus trick.) That simulates a meeting where you want to record the audio and take written notes at the same time. My voice is a bit scratchy so I won't bother to share the audio with you. But the recording quality is as good as you can get with the iPad microphone, more than good enough for meetings.
The recognised text is certainly good enough to search on. So, for example, if you are looking for the staff meeting about xyz then you can search for that and probably find it. But an exact 100% accurate transcription it is not. My biggest complaint is that it is so variable, one day great 100%, next day crap. But then that description also describes my handwriting.