From Jott to reQall

Good things will go away, and when they do, they are replaced with better things. That's a principle I am seeing play out time and time again in the world of technology. It's also a principle that we see demonstrated in many areas of life. In this series of posts, we will examine some of the tools which served me well...until they ceased to exist. The over-arching theme is that what is good gets replaces by something that is better.

In December 2007, I posted "Who Do You Want to Jott?" It was a service that let me call a phone number I had stored my phone's contacts as a speed dial, leave a voice message, and have that message show up in my email with everything I had said transcribed into text. When I handled my email, I would also handle the message.

Like the other posts you will read in this thread, I found myself without Jott. Well...not exactly. Jott was still there, but it was no longer free. I started searching the Internet to see if there was something else that did the same thing. I found the answer in this post.

reQall has been serving as an alternative ever since. This video gives you an idea of some practical applicationsl:





If you visit the reQall site today, you will see that they are now transitioning to be more of a Siri-like service. The site shows them to accepting beta testers for the new service they will unveil:





Voice input is something that began for me with Jott. When the service was no longer free for me and others, it was a disappointment. But the disappointment did not last long. Probably nothing has come further in the last several years than the concept of voice input on our mobile devices. An upcoming post on Google Now will illustrate what I mean. Check back in a couple of weeks for that one

Good things will go away, and when they do, they are replaced with better things.