Captio AI vs UD Talk

Tap the Tap to talk button, speak, and tap again to stop; the words appear as text. UD Talk says it is built mainly for people who speak into it on purpose, such as a lecturer, and points listeners who just hold a phone to the iPhone's built-in Live Captions.

Sources: About UDTalk (English) (Shamrock Records), Live Captions and UD Talk (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records), What is UD Talk? (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records), Using UD Talk in schools (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records)

When each person speaks into their own phone, their lines carry the name set in that phone's UD Talk. Telling voices apart on one phone is not described; the developer suggests people say their name before they speak. The separate Subtitle Editor for files can label up to 10 speakers.

Sources: Can UD Talk tell who spoke? (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records), Subtitle Editor (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records)

A 2018 post said voice identification was not adopted. A later note on the same post says identification that needs advance registration has been added, without describing how it works.

Source: Can UD Talk tell who spoke? (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records)

UD Talk's pages don't describe showing which direction a voice comes from.

Source: What is UD Talk? (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records)

UD Talk's pages don't describe alerts for sounds such as a doorbell or an alarm.

Sources: What is UD Talk? (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records), App Store listing (Japan) (Apple App Store)

Words can be registered in the app or on a website, and public dictionaries can be switched per conversation. Registered words only work with the AmiVoice engine.

Sources: Five things few people know (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records), Public dictionaries and recording (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records), Word registration (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records)

Other phones and the Mac or Windows app can correct mistakes while captions run. For events, partner companies run UD Talk with editors and re-speakers, quoted individually.

Sources: Event partners (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records), Shared talks with editing (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records), Download page (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records)

Speech is sent to servers for recognition. In the free version, your voice and the text made from it are collected and reused to improve recognition; the Compact Plan, corporate plans and the App Introduction Program discard voice data. On iPhone, the Apple On Device engine keeps recognition on the phone.

Sources: Terms of use (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records), Plans for organisations (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records), Compact Plan (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records), Five things few people know (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records)

Individuals and companies can use the free version, also commercially. Government offices, local authorities, schools and public facilities may not use it for their work, except for disaster prevention and evacuation shelters. Its voice data is reused, and support is the online manual only.

Sources: UD Talk home page (Shamrock Records), Terms of use (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records), Plans for organisations (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records)

In-app Compact Plan on the Japanese App Store, November 2026; Google Play lists the same. Corporate plans, per year before tax: ¥117,600 (small organisations), ¥216,000 (schools), ¥324,000 (standard, one site) or ¥888,000 (premium, no site limit), plus a setup fee.

Sources: App Store listing (Japan) (Apple App Store), Google Play listing (Japan), Compact Plan (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records), Corporate plans (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records)

Not a government programme. Shamrock Records lends a free corporate account to government offices, local authorities, schools and public facilities that agree to be listed as users, and to sign language interpreters and summary writers registered with a local authority's dispatch service.

Sources: App Introduction Program (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records), Accounts for interpreters (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records)

Japanese uses the AmiVoice engine. In the free version, other languages use the phone's own speech recognition (Apple on iOS, Google on Android); paid plans use Google Cloud on both. A list of recognition and translation language settings published in December 2020 has 173 language and region entries; no newer count is published.

Sources: Technology (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records), Multilingual recognition on Android (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records), Language settings list (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records), Language list, 2020 (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records)

Speech can be recognised in many languages and translated live. Re-translation back into your own language lets you check the result before relying on it. The free app uses Google Translate.

Sources: What is UD Talk? (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records), Technology (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records), App Store listing (Japan) (Apple App Store)

On iOS, switching to the Apple On Device engine captions without internet. Its FAQ says recognition and translation otherwise run on servers and need a connection.

Sources: Five things few people know (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records), FAQ (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records)

Conversation logs stay in the app and older ones can be found by date. On iPhone, the audio can be saved with the talk and played back next to the text.

Sources: Conversation logs (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records), What is UD Talk? (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records), Saving the audio (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records), Public dictionaries and recording (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records)

Logs are sent by email or shared from the menu, as a list of text with timing information. A separate web tool turns them into subtitles.

Sources: Conversation logs (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records), App Store listing (Japan) (Apple App Store), Subtitle Editor (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records)

Readable UD fonts can be chosen, and the web view sets background colour, text size and whether speaker names show. Kanji a child has not learned yet can be shown in hiragana by school grade.

Sources: UD fonts (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records), Full-screen web view (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records), Technology (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records)

One device set up with Zoom's caption token sends the captions into the meeting, with the name of the phone that spoke. A phone next to the computer can also caption the meeting audio.

Sources: Zoom set-up (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records), UD Talk and Zoom (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records)

Apps for iPhone and iPad, Android and Amazon Kindle. The Mac and Windows apps show and correct captions but have no speech recognition of their own. The Japanese App Store also lists Apple Watch, Apple silicon Macs and Apple Vision.

Sources: App Store listing (Japan) (Apple App Store), Google Play listing (Japan), Download page (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records), FAQ (UD Talk) (Shamrock Records)