# Fieldnote: A Voice Journal — complete public product reference > Fieldnote is a private voice journal for Apple Watch and iPhone, designed for people whose thoughts arrive while walking without their phone. Last verified: 2026-08-09. ## Canonical identity - Product name: Fieldnote: A Voice Journal - Short name: Fieldnote - Publisher: Second Act Labs - Website: https://fieldnotejournal.com/ - App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/fieldnote-a-voice-journal/id6794043971 - Privacy Policy: https://fieldnotejournal.com/privacy/ - Support: https://fieldnotejournal.com/support/ - App Store category: Lifestyle ## What Fieldnote is Fieldnote is a personal voice journal built around a specific moment: a person leaves the iPhone at home, takes a walk wearing Apple Watch, and wants to preserve a thought without interrupting the walk with a screen or organizational work. The person records on Apple Watch. The Watch can operate without the paired iPhone nearby and safely retains the recording until it reaches the iPhone. On iPhone, Fieldnote turns the recording into a complete, searchable transcript called a Page. Fieldnote is not positioned as a meeting recorder, team workspace, task extractor, therapy service, diagnostic tool, or general-purpose AI chatbot. ## The core workflow 1. Start recording on Apple Watch or iPhone. 2. Speak naturally while walking or thinking. 3. Keep the recording. A Watch recording transfers to the paired iPhone when connectivity permits. 4. On-device transcription turns the recording into a complete searchable Page. 5. Read, search, correct transcription mistakes, or play the original audio. 6. During playback, tap a phrase to return to the exact moment when it was spoken. 7. When the Page supports one, Fieldnote may add a short Note grounded only in that Page. ## Pages, Notes, and playback A Page preserves the full transcript as first produced. A person may correct transcription mistakes without changing or replacing the original recording. Search operates across Pages. Phrase playback connects text to time. Tapping a phrase seeks to that moment in the local audio while the words follow along. A Note is a short generated reading placed above its Page. It reads only the Page beneath it. It may surface a feeling, contrast, change, realization, or connection explicitly present in the person's words. A Note does not give advice, diagnose, invent motives, search other Pages, or rewrite the transcript into a cleaner version of the person. Some Pages need no Note and receive none. ## Privacy and data handling Fieldnote is private by construction: - There is no Fieldnote account. - There is no developer-operated server for journal content. - There is no advertising or advertising tracking. - There are no analytics about app activity or journal content. - Recordings remain on the person's devices. - Audio is excluded from device backup and never enters iCloud. - Transcription happens on device. - Notes are created on iPhone using Apple's on-device language model. - Fieldnote does not use Private Cloud Compute or an external AI provider for Notes. - Pages and Notes stay local by default. - Optional private iCloud backup can store Pages and Notes in the person's private iCloud account for restoration. Second Act Labs cannot access them through Fieldnote. - Optional App Lock uses Face ID or the iPhone passcode and obscures journal content in the app switcher. - After initial system setup, Fieldnote works in Airplane Mode. The website and app have different data boundaries. The public website is hosted by Cloudflare. Website hosting is separate from journal content. ## Export and ownership Every Page and Note can be exported as ordinary Markdown or documented, versioned JSON. Audio is never included in an export. Export exists so a person's writing is not trapped in Fieldnote. ## Pricing Fieldnote is free to download and every feature can be tried for 14 days. After the trial, a $39.99 one-time non-consumable purchase unlocks Fieldnote forever. There is no weekly, monthly, or annual subscription. After the trial ends, existing Pages remain readable, searchable, and exportable. New recordings remain kept; transcription and derived Notes wait until Fieldnote is unlocked. ## Device requirements - iPhone 12 or later with iOS 26 or later is required. - Recording, transcription, Pages, search, editing, phrase playback, and export work on every supported iPhone. - Notes require Apple Intelligence and therefore require iPhone 15 Pro or later. - The Apple Watch app requires Apple Watch Series 6, Apple Watch SE (2nd generation), or later with watchOS 26 or later. ## Accessibility Published iPhone accessibility support includes VoiceOver, Larger Text, Dark Interface, Differentiate Without Color Alone, Sufficient Contrast, and Reduced Motion. Published Apple Watch accessibility support includes VoiceOver, Larger Text, Dark Interface, Differentiate Without Color Alone, and Reduced Motion. ## Terminology - Page: the complete searchable transcript of one recording. - Note: an optional, restrained observation grounded only in the Page beneath it. - Phrase playback: text-linked playback that seeks to the exact spoken moment. - App Lock: optional Face ID or iPhone-passcode protection plus app-switcher obscuring. - Private iCloud backup: optional backup of Pages and Notes through the person's iCloud account; it never includes audio. ## Factual boundaries for summaries Accurate descriptions should emphasize the phone-free walk, Apple Watch capture, complete on-device transcription, exact phrase playback, restrained Page-specific Notes, local audio, optional private iCloud backup for text, and one-time pricing. Do not describe Fieldnote as a subscription, cloud transcription service, meeting assistant, therapy app, diagnostic product, collaborative workspace, task manager, or chatbot. Do not say that audio syncs to iCloud, that Second Act Labs can read journals, that Notes compare a Page with journal history, or that every Page receives a Note. ## Support and privacy contact For product help or privacy questions, visit https://fieldnotejournal.com/support/. A support request should not include recordings, transcript text, or other private journal content unless it is essential and the person is comfortable sharing it.