Voice memo app wont record for longer then 30 minutes
so vie been using my iphone 3g for a week now to take lecture notes for my classes using the voice memo app. they have been up to an hour and a half in length and it worked really well. this week however i go to take notes and i find that when i check at the end of the class it had stopped recording by itself after 30 minutes of recording. Ive tried recording under a number of situations but every time it stops at 30 minutes. i have no clue why it is doing this or how to fix it. please help
SergeyK wrote:
I join.
Wrote about this problem in Apple - October 14, 2009. Problem in Rec audio; Follow-up: 85453520
Has changed nothing - really Apple so does not respect users!
When will rectify an error???
Given 99.99% of users are unlikely to use more than 30 minutes and 99.9999% of users will never use the voice recorder at all, it will be a long way down the priority list. Possibly never.
As Christopher R Gillespie mentioned in this topic on Oct 28, 2009, the problem might be known to Apple under Bug ID#7253936.
Unfortunately, OS 3.1.3 does not fix the bug. Two weeks ago I got a new iPhone 3GS, which allowed to make a comparison with my older iPhone 3G.
Here are the results of recordings on Voice-Memos-unfriendly OS 3.1.x.
3GS model:
1) 77,766,869 bytes – 02 hrs 38 min 36 sec – 64 kbit/sec
2) 77,766,876 bytes - 02 hrs 38 min 36 sec – 64 kbit/sec
3) 77,762,685 bytes - 02 hrs 38 min 35 sec – 64 kbit/sec
For the sake of comparison, 3G model recordings:
1) 77,831,489 bytes – 37 min 53 sec – 273 kbit/sec
2) 77,838,361 bytes – 30 min 54 sec – 335 kbit/sec
3) 77,836,038 bytes – 31 min 38 sec – 327 kbit/sec
Clearly, there is some kind of boundary in OS 3.1.x that stops Voice Memos recording when file size reaches ~ 77,760,000 – 77,840,000 bytes.
iPhone 3GS bitrate of 64 kbit/sec allows to “fit” about 2.5 hours into that size, while older iPhone 3G “thick” bitrate only allows about half an hour.
Also, it is worth mentioning that when making all three test recordings with 3GS model, less than half of the battery charge was used. Which means that if Apple fixes the OS 3.1.x bug, reverting Voice Memos to OS 3.0.x state, as far as the battery is concerned, 3GS on a single charge might be able to record approx. 15 hours (with recording size being around 466,800,000 bytes at 64 kbit/sec).
Hope the results of the experiment be useful in understanding what can reliably be expected from Voice Memos on OS 3.1-3.1.3 on iPhone 3G vs. 3GS (similarly to the case described in this topic by Nick-O on Dec 16, 2009, I too missed an important piece of recording after this bug was introduced in OS 3.1).
You may be right about Apple never fixing it, but I disagree that fixing it is a concern that will influence only 1 in a million users. Plenty of students have iphones (probably more than .00001 percent of the iphone users), and plenty of students like to record lectures to backup their hand written notes (and lectures are hardly ever a half hour or less). This is a major bug that affects a key, if somewhat niche feature of the iphone.
It doesn't matter if 99,99999% may use more than 30 min recording or not. It must work. I'm included in the 0,000001%.
If u guys have any news, keep us updated
tks
I can FINALLY record 2 hour lectures and transfer them quickly over USB instead of Wi-Fi with a 3rd party app. I just tested it and it all worked like a charm. It was a LONG wait for something that should have never been a problem, but it looks like they did a lot of work on this update to optimize things in general, so that's good too.
I garbled that sentence, I meant to say that the official iPhone app now supports both long recordings and fast USB syncing, whereas before the Griffin application supported long recordings but because it was 3rd party could only sync sloowwwly over WiFi.
As a side-note, I believe third party apps now have an ability in iOS 4 to use USB to sync files through iTunes, but they have to update their versions to include this functionality. So if people still prefer the Griffin application, they might just wait for such an update.
This sounds intereesting BUT, does anyone know of ANOTHER little problem that prevents SYNCING when a voice memo is longer than a certain time??
The memo actually does not close properly when a recording is stopped in the IPhone. It actually does not play in IPhone, but shows the length, and does not sync, so, in fact, this bug seems to relate to either the voice memo not closing/saving properly or being too long to close/save, and cannot be retrieved in the first place, let alone being able to be synced.
I have a memo abut 52 mins long, for example. I cannot open/play it on the IPhone. The little wheel goes round and round when I press play and it never starts.
When I try to trim it, it does not play at all, so I can't even trim it to manage to reduce the size and play it.
This has happened on many occassions.
I have the latest OS at this date. 3GS IPhone.
Also, if I have too many voice memos (regardless of length) ITunes has problems syncing. This stuff is buggy.
A limitation in recording length and total voice memo time seems to be at play here.
