Best AI note taker for phone calls on iPhone and Android

TL;DR: Phone calls don't work the same way as video meetings, and most transcription tools aren't built for them. Granola lets you jot rough notes during calls, then enhances them with transcript context after the call ends. Audio is deleted once transcription completes, and iPhone phone call capture runs through a built-in dialer. Android users get in-person meeting capture only, as platform restrictions block third-party call recording on both platforms, including Granola. Notes sync to shared folders or push to HubSpot, Attio, and Affinity. You control what reaches your research repository. Tell participants their call is being transcribed before it starts.

Most AI note takers assume you're on a laptop in a Zoom meeting. Phone calls are different. Some participants prefer them over video, and some conversations happen outside a scheduled Zoom link.

When a call runs through your phone's dialer, the rules around capture, consent, and documentation change entirely. Consent laws vary by state and country, and managing disclosure on phone calls requires a different approach than video meetings.

Android's call recording restrictions break most tools, and iPhone's limitations create similar challenges. Android's call recording restrictions aren't a Granola limitation. They apply to every third-party app. This guide explains what works on each platform so you can choose the right tool for your setup.

What to look for in a phone call transcription tool

The best AI note taker for phone calls solves four problems that don't exist in video meetings: bot visibility, consent management, research capture quality, and platform reliability. Here's what matters.

How Granola captures calls and who handles disclosure

Some AI note takers join your call as a visible participant. On a video call, every attendee can see the bot in the participant list, so disclosure is automatic. On a phone call, there's no attendee list, so you need to handle disclosure yourself.

Granola is an AI notepad and doesn't join as a participant at all. It uses device audio capture to record audio directly from your device during the call, then transcribes after the call ends. Granola captures audio from your device, so disclosure is your responsibility rather than an automatic prompt.

The consent section below covers how to handle disclosure before the call starts, including platform-specific options for video and phone.

Consent handling that keeps you in control

Consent rules vary by state and country. Granola's position: tell participants their call is being transcribed before it starts. It protects them, it protects you.

Disclosure also becomes easier to make honestly when you can say what happens next. With Granola, audio doesn't persist after transcription, notes only reach your repository when you share them manually or through a connected folder rule, and participants can ask you to remove a section of the transcript without losing the rest of the conversation. For the full picture of what happens to audio after the call ends, see the deletion section below.

Streamlined research documentation

Manual research logging creates significant overhead. You're taking notes during the interview, then synthesizing them afterward, then reformatting findings for stakeholders, then copying them into Notion or pushing them to HubSpot contact records, then linking them to the right customer account or project folder. It's administrative overhead that doesn't surface insights or inform product decisions.

Granola syncs enhanced notes directly to shared folders, Notion, and Slack through native integrations. For teams that push notes into CRM contact records, Granola also connects to HubSpot, Attio, and Affinity. Notes sync to your repository when you share them manually or when you add them to a folder connected to an integration.

You jot rough notes during the call, Granola enhances them with transcript context, you edit, then share the note manually or add it to a connected folder to push it to your shared folder or a dedicated Granola database in Notion. Your research repository stays current without manual synthesis overhead.

Platform limitations and what to expect on iOS and Android

Android call recording is unreliable by design. Google removed the official call recording API with Android 6.0. Third-party apps resorted to using the Accessibility API as a workaround, until Google blocked that route too, with Google Play policy now stating the Accessibility API "cannot be requested for remote call audio recording". Native dialer apps on Samsung and Pixel phones still work because they're pre-loaded and hard-coded, but third-party apps face constant API restrictions.

iPhone is more consistent but still limited. Apple doesn't allow third-party apps to access the microphone during cellular calls unless the call runs through the app itself. That's why Granola's iPhone implementation uses a built-in dialer for one-on-one phone conversations. You initiate the call through Granola, it captures audio, transcribes after the call ends, and deletes the audio afterward.

For inbound calls or calls you receive outside the app, neither platform offers a clean third-party solution, though iOS 18.1 and later includes a built-in call recording feature in select regions that plays an automatic notice to both parties before recording begins. Bot-based tools work around this by joining the call as a participant, but that means the call has a visible participant, and the disclosure considerations covered earlier apply. Device-level capture works when you initiate the call through the app, which covers scheduled customer interviews and outbound discovery calls.

How Granola handles phone calls on mobile

Granola is built for people in back-to-back meetings, including phone calls. Here's how that works on mobile.

Mobile call capture on iPhone

The Granola iPhone app includes a built-in dialer for one-on-one phone calls. You open the app, tap the dialer, enter the number, and the call runs through Granola. It captures audio from the call and transcribes after the call ends.

During the call, you jot rough notes in the notepad, and Granola enhances them with transcript context.

After the call ends, Granola keeps your notes in black and shows AI additions in gray. You control what stays and what gets deleted. Then you can share the note, add it to a folder, or sync it to your CRM.

Android call capture limitations

Phone call capture is available on iOS only, and the Android app supports in-person meeting capture. Video call transcription requires the desktop app on Mac or Windows. If cellular phone calls are your primary channel, no third-party app records them directly on Android or iPhone. Fireflies and Otter support in-person conversations via mobile and can transcribe calls recorded separately and imported, but neither captures cellular calls directly.

Compliance and data security for phone call notes

Once you've handled disclosure and consent, the next question is what happens to the data after the call ends.

How SOC 2 protects call data

SOC 2 Type 2 certification means an independent auditor has verified that Granola's security controls meet the AICPA's Trust Services Criteria over a sustained period. Granola achieved this certification in July 2025.

For details on how audio is handled after the call ends, see the audio deletion section below. Granola also complies with GDPR.

Access controls and encryption

Granola encrypts data in transit and at rest. Enterprise plans add SSO/SAML authentication, SCIM provisioning for automated user management, and org-wide controls for sharing and API access. Folder-level permissions let you control who sees which conversations, and admin audit logs track access across your workspace.

Third-party AI providers are contractually prohibited from training models on your data. For Enterprise accounts, org-wide training opt-out is enforced by default. Your transcripts stay yours.

How audio deletion works

Once transcription completes, Granola deletes the audio file. There's no audio to replay, no file to store, and no recording to expose if your account is ever compromised. What remains is an encrypted text transcript and your enhanced notes.

Enterprise plans include org-wide auto-deletion periods for transcripts. Admins can set retention windows so transcripts older than a specified period are automatically deleted. Notes are not affected by auto-deletion and remain untouched. This is useful for teams subject to data minimization requirements or industry-specific retention rules.

You can also delete specific parts of a transcript while keeping the rest intact. If a customer shares sensitive information that shouldn't be stored, you can remove that section without losing the rest of the conversation. This gives you control over what's retained without forcing an all-or-nothing choice.

How to pick a transcription tool for remote calls

The right tool depends on your workflow, budget, and compliance requirements. Here's how to evaluate your options.

Manual vs. automated call notes

Manual note-taking keeps you in control but loses details. You're either present in the conversation or buried in typing, and you can't do both well. Automated tools capture everything and generate generic summaries, but they miss the nuance of what matters to you.

Granola's approach is human-in-the-loop enhancement. You jot rough notes during the call, Granola enhances them with transcript context afterward. Write "pricing concerns" and Granola finds every pricing discussion and adds relevant quotes. Leave the notepad blank and you get a generic summary. Jot rough notes and you get focused enhancement that captures exact customer language, validates roadmap decisions with direct quotes, and produces findings stakeholders can't dismiss as anecdotal.

For calls where your judgment matters, this works better than full automation. You're not trying to capture everything, you're capturing what matters and letting AI fill in the details. The result is notes that reflect your priorities, not a generic summary of the entire conversation.

Built-in vs. external transcription apps

Native dialer apps on Samsung and Pixel phones include call recording, but the audio isn't accessible to third-party apps. You can record the call, but Granola's phone call support covers calls made through the iPhone app's built-in dialer, and Granola's documentation doesn't confirm whether cellular call recordings made in a native dialer can be imported for transcription. For practical purposes, the recording stays in the dialer app.

As covered above, Google's API restrictions make third-party call recording on Android unreliable across all tools.

Bot-based tools like Fireflies and Otter join video calls as a visible participant, but they face the same cellular call restrictions as every other third-party app on Android and iPhone. Device-level capture works when you initiate the call through the app (Granola's iPhone dialer) or capture through speakerphone and microphone (in-person meeting mode), but neither is as clean as native call recording would be.

The practical answer is that Android phone call capture is inconsistent across all tools due to platform restrictions. iPhone users running customer interviews and discovery calls get reliable capture with Granola's built-in dialer, while Android users should evaluate whether in-person meeting transcription (which Granola handles) meets their needs, or whether importing separately recorded calls into a bot-based tool is worth the trade-off.

Pricing for mobile call transcription

Here's how the major tools compare on pricing and mobile support:

Granola's Basic plan is free and includes AI meeting notes, AI chat, shared folders, and custom templates. Business at $14 per user per month adds unlimited history, advanced AI models, and CRM integrations. Enterprise starts at $35 per user per month and adds SSO, SCIM, and org-wide controls.

Try Granola for free. Download the Mac or Windows app, or get the iPhone app, connect your calendar, and run your next call to see it in action.

FAQs

Does Granola work on both Android and iPhone?

Yes. Phone call capture is available on iOS only due to platform restrictions, but Android users can capture in-person meetings. Video call transcription requires the desktop app on Mac or Windows.

Do participants know the call is being transcribed?

Granola recommends telling participants their call is being transcribed before it starts. Granola captures device audio without joining as a bot, so there's no automatic announcement you can rely on.

For video calls, Granola can send an in-chat notification or display a watermark on your video throughout the call. For phone calls, disclosure is verbal: make it part of how you open the conversation. Consent requirements vary by location, so check Granola's consent guidance for the rules that apply to your participants.

How does Granola sync with my CRM?

CRM sync connects Granola directly to HubSpot, Attio, and Affinity through native integrations. Product managers can also push notes to shared folders, Notion, or Slack for team-wide research access. All CRM integrations require the Business plan at $14 per user per month.

HubSpot and Slack integrations also require a Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 account and do not support personal Gmail or Outlook.com accounts. Notes reach HubSpot through manual sharing or by adding them to a connected folder. Slack sharing works via one-click or a folder rule. Notion export is manual by default.

What happens to the audio after the call?

Granola deletes audio once transcription completes. See the audio deletion section above for full details on what remains and how retention controls work.

What's the difference between Granola Basic and Business?

See the pricing table above for a full breakdown of what each plan includes.

Key terms glossary

AI notepad: A note-taking tool that combines manual input with AI enhancement. You jot rough notes during a conversation, and the AI fills in context from the transcript afterward.

Device audio capture: Capturing audio directly from your device's microphone rather than joining the call as a third-party participant. This avoids bot visibility but requires platform-level access to audio.

Enhanced notes: The output after Granola processes your rough notes and the full transcript. Your notes stay in black, AI additions appear in gray, and you control what stays and what gets deleted.

SOC 2 Type 2: An independent audit certification that verifies a company's security controls meet the AICPA's Trust Services Criteria over a sustained period. Granola achieved certification in July 2025.

CRM sync: The process of pushing meeting notes and transcripts directly to customer relationship management software like HubSpot, Attio, or Affinity. Granola pushes notes to CRM contact records through manual sharing or by adding notes to a connected folder. HubSpot and Slack require a Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 account.