Show HN: Bible Note Journal – AI transcription and study tools for sermons (iOS)
biblenotejournal.comI got back into church a couple years ago and would try taking notes with Apple Notes. It was a struggle trying to type notes while focusing on the sermon. Honestly, it would have been easier to write it in a notebook but in the end I built this iOS app to solve that problem.
You can record audio during a sermon (or upload files), and it transcribes using Whisper, then generates summaries, flashcards, and reflection questions tailored to Christian content.
The backend is Spring Boot + Kotlin calling OpenAI's API. Instead of deploying the backend through one of the cloud providers directly I decided to go with Railway. Users are notified with push notifications when their transcription and summary are completed. The iOS app uses SwiftUI and out-of-the-box SwiftUI components.
I worked with Spring Boot + Java a few years back when in fintech so it was cool to try writing something in Kotlin. I'm also a full-time Flutter dev that has been trying to get into Native iOS development and felt like I found a good use case for an app.
Currently only available in the US/Canada App Store. There is a free 3-day trial that you can use to give the app a go.
The goal was helping Christians retain more from sermons and build stronger biblical literacy.
Happy to answer questions about the architecture, AI prompting approach for Christian content, or anything else.
App Store link: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bible-note-journal/id675227330...
Honestly, after years of various physical notebooks full of sermon notes that get lost, digital notes that got left behind in old unused android phones that have their own flavor of a note taking app (yet another reason why I switched to iOS too) I like the idea of having a unified app like this one to store recorded sermons, the summaries seem nice, I did notice there's also things like Flash Cards, Journaling for bits and pieces and even just an all around notes section.
The UI might need some touching up, but its pretty obvious what things are for and where they go, its not ultra bad. Still pretty nice for a product launch. I love finding new unique Bible apps. There's one for the iPad I really enjoy called Pencil Bible, lets you write all over your translation via Apple Pen its really neat.
Disclaimer: I know the app developer, but I always do my best to give the most honest review of something I can, even if I have to be critical.