I Tried Google's New On-Device AI Transcription App for iPhone, and It Was Surprisingly Accurate

Google is back with yet another AI service—this time, an offline dictation program using its "Gemma" architecture. But rather than include it within the Gemini app, or as a Gemini function, the company has decided to roll it out into a dedicated iPhone app, with the very catchy name of " Google AI Edge Eloquent ." I decided to give the app a shot on release day, though the privacy policy gave me pause. Google says that your location, contacts, identifiers, device diagnostics, contact info, user content, usage data, and "other" data can be linked to you, while purchases and other diagnostics can be collected but not linked to you. That's a lot of data, especially for an app that advertises that "audio, confidential conversations, and personal data never leave your device," and I'm not sure I'd be keen on downloading the app otherwise. But, as the saying goes, if a service is free, you are the product. I've reached out to Google for clarification here, and will update this story if I hear back. How to try Google's new AI transcription app Once you download the app, setup is easy—you record a sample example phrase the app tells you to say, then make a choice: "On-device mode," which is fully offline, and stores your conversations on your device online; or "Enhanced text polishing," which keeps the audio on your device, but does use Gemini to "polish" your text, which requires you to send data to the cloud (and is presumably where all that aforementioned privacy polic…