The cost of TapeACall, the occasionally glitchy app used by many journalists to record interviews, is set to increase significantly in less than a month. I found this out via a pop-up notification when I opened the app, which reminded me that my annual subscription would be increasing from $29.99 to $79.99 per year on April 16th.
The price increase appears to be a result of new ownership. In January, IAC sold its Mosaic Group mobile apps, including TapeACall, editing app PDF Hero and spam-blocking app Robokiller, to Italian tech company Bending Spoons.Every BloombergAs part of the deal, all 330 Mosaic employees were laid off.
Bending Spoons spokesperson Christy Keenan said edge in an email The annual TapeACall subscription price for unlimited recordings actually went from $59.99 to $79.99 — the $29.99 price I got was “terminated by previous ownership a long time ago.” Keenan added that some users may “experience slightly different pricing on our test configurations.”
“For this product, the short-term focus is on improving stability,” Keenan added. “Longer term, we intend to leverage our AI expertise to improve transcription capabilities, among other improvements.”
Some reporters think TapeACall is unlikely to malfunction, but the price is affordable enough that it’s worth paying for anyway. “I once called a millionaire professional athlete and TapeACall failed,” sportswriter Bradford William Davis told me. “But at least this app is cheap. I guarantee it won’t be three times better.”
Others jumped ship long ago and are now encouraging their colleagues to do the same. “I’ve used TapeACall and similar apps in the past, but occasional software issues (and the occasional lost recording) eventually led me to a physical recorder,” says investigative journalist Paris Martineau. information. Martino now uses a Philips recorder equipped with a pickup microphone that allows her to record calls while wearing headphones.
“I’ve been using this setup for the past four years and haven’t lost a single call yet!” she said. Unlike TapeACall and other apps, Voice Recorder is a one-time fee.