Life Wrapped
A private audio journal for iPhone and iPad. Record your day, get it transcribed on your device, read a summary of every recording and every month, and look back with a Year Wrap.
Download on the App Store · Website · Privacy policy · Support · Terms of service
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| Platform | iOS and iPadOS 18.0 or later |
| App version in this repo | 1.3 (build number set by Xcode Cloud) |
| Language | Swift 6 (language mode 6.0, strict concurrency) |
| UI | SwiftUI |
| Toolchain | Xcode 26.1 or later |
| Bundle ID | com.jsayram.lifewrapped (widget: com.jsayram.lifewrapped.widget) |
| License | MIT |
What the app does
Recording
- One-tap recording on the Record tab, tagged as Work or Personal
- The Record tab shows what was recorded today (count and minutes) with the latest recording one tap away
- Recordings are split into parts automatically so they transcribe quickly. The part length is adjustable from 30 to 300 seconds in steps of 30 (default 30 seconds) in Settings, then Recording
- Background audio is enabled, so recording continues when the screen locks
- Deep links:
lifewrapped://record, lifewrapped://home, lifewrapped://history, lifewrapped://overview, lifewrapped://settings (record links accept a category query parameter)
Transcription
- Apple's Speech framework with
requiresOnDeviceRecognition = true, so audio is never sent off the device
- Up to 3 parts are transcribed at the same time
- Handles pauses by keeping utterances that the recognizer abandons without marking them final
- Language detection is limited to the languages turned on in Settings, then Recording, then Languages. Nine are available: English, Spanish, Hindi, Bangla, French, Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean and Turkish (English and Spanish are on by default)
- Transcripts can be edited in a full-screen editor, and edited parts are marked Edited
- Each recording can have a title, notes, a favorite star and a category. Notes are saved as you type and kept separate from the summary
- Changing a recording between Work and Personal after it's saved marks the summaries that include it as out of date
- A recording where the microphone heard no voice is flagged after saving, with an offer to delete it
Summaries
Four summary qualities. The app falls back automatically when the chosen one is not available.
| Quality | Engine | Where it runs | Fallback order |
|---|
| Key Sentences | BasicEngine: extractive summaries with TF-IDF ranking and Apple's NaturalLanguage framework (NLEmbedding, NLTokenizer, NLTagger) | On device | Key Sentences |
| Offline AI | LocalEngine: Qwen3 4B Instruct 2507, 4-bit (mlx-community/Qwen3-4B-Instruct-2507-4bit, pinned to one commit) run with MLX. One-time download of about 2.3 GB from Hugging Face. Devices with 4 GB of memory (iPhone 12, 12 mini, 13, 13 mini, SE 3rd gen) get Qwen3 1.7B, 4-bit (mlx-community/Qwen3-1.7B-4bit, about 1.0 GB, thinking turned off) instead, and devices with 3 GB don't offer Offline AI. The app checks free memory before loading the model and falls back instead of crashing. Updating from a version that used Phi-3.5, or that downloaded the other Qwen3 size, deletes the old model | On device | Offline AI, then Key Sentences |
| Apple Intelligence | AppleEngine: Apple Intelligence through the Foundation Models framework, always SystemLanguageModel.default (the on-device model). Needs iOS 26 or later on a device with Apple Intelligence turned on | On device | Apple Intelligence, then Offline AI, then Key Sentences |
| Cloud AI | ExternalAPIEngine: OpenAI (Chat Completions API) or Anthropic (Messages API) with the user's own API key. The model ID is free text; defaults are gpt-6-luna and claude-sonnet-5 | Cloud | Cloud AI, then Offline AI, then Key Sentences |
- Cloud AI is unlocked with a one-time in-app purchase ($2.99 in the US, product ID
com.jsayram.lifewrapped.smartestai). There is no subscription: the user pays their provider directly through their own key
- API keys are stored in the iOS Keychain (
kSecAttrAccessibleAfterFirstUnlock)
- The Test button sends a small request with the typed model ID to confirm the key and model work
- Each recording gets a summary and a short title. Overview lists the summaries for today and yesterday, and builds a digest for each month (per journal, rebuilt when its recordings change). A month that has ended is finished in the background when the app opens, and by a background processing task (
com.jsayram.lifewrapped.finalize-months) that iOS runs while the device charges
- Key Sentences always writes a summary and a usable title, even for a recording of a few seconds. If any engine returns an empty summary, the opening of the transcript is stored instead
- Engines are ranked Cloud AI, Apple Intelligence, Offline AI, Key Sentences. The app never rewrites a summary, month or Year Wrap with a lower-ranked engine on its own. Regenerate, Rebuild and a Year Wrap with a weaker engine ask first, and a month rebuilt by a weaker engine keeps its story and only refreshes its items and numbers
- Every rewrite keeps the text it replaced (up to ten earlier versions per summary, in the
summary_versions table, schema v4). Recordings, months and the Year Wrap have an Earlier versions sheet that restores one, and restoring keeps the replaced text too
- When a stronger engine is chosen and ready, Settings, then AI & Summaries offers to upgrade the recordings a weaker engine summarized. It lists which recordings it would rewrite before anything runs, and puts the earlier summary back if a weaker engine had to step in
Year Wrap
- A year in review with a title, a summary, major arcs, wins, losses, challenges, finished and unfinished projects, top topics, valuable actions, missed opportunities, people and places
- Generated with any summary quality, as All, Work only or Personal only. Cloud AI and Apple Intelligence write the fullest story. Offline AI writes one on the device with one compact request per journal. Key Sentences needs no model and builds the wrap instantly from the month digests (numbers, people, places, topics and the most-mentioned items, without a written story)
- The Update button on an out-of-date wrap rebuilds it with the engine that wrote it, and says which one
- People and places can be redacted before exporting it as a PDF
Overview, history and statistics
- History with search across titles, notes and transcripts, Work and Personal filters, and favorites
- Overview by yesterday, today, month and year, for All, Work or Personal, with a button to copy the visible summaries
- Statistics: longest recording, most active month, recordings by time of day and day of week, and most used words (with an editable excluded-words list)
- Daily streak and longest streak. A day counts when a recording started on it, and the streak refreshes when a recording stops and when the app returns to the foreground
Data
- Export as JSON (recording times, transcripts, and summaries with their engine and earlier versions; format 1.1), Markdown (Year Wrap, month digests and each recording's summary with its date, journal and title) or PDF (summaries only), for everything or for one year. No export includes audio, and the JSON leaves out titles, notes, favorites and Work or Personal labels
- Import from a JSON export, including exports made before 1.3
- Delete all data, or one year of data
- Storage breakdown for audio, database and the Offline AI model
Widgets
- Quick Record (small, medium, circular): start a Work or Personal recording, see the streak and today's recordings
- Today's Recordings (small, circular, inline): today's recording count and streak
Design
Graphite design language: warm off-white and near-black surfaces, ink as the only accent, serif (New York) titles, SF Symbols, hairline borders and no gradients. Light and dark mode are supported. Colors live in App/Constants/AppTheme.swift.
On iPad, screens keep their content in a centered, readable column instead of stretching across the display. History shows the list and the chosen recording side by side, and a recording, the Overview's Today and Yesterday cards and the Year Wrap sections switch to two columns when there's room. The helpers (readableColumn, readableMargins, AppTheme.twoColumnWidth) are in AppTheme.swift.
Privacy
- Audio never leaves the device.
- Transcription always runs on the device.
- Key Sentences, Offline AI and Apple Intelligence summaries run on the device.
- Cloud AI sends text, never audio, to OpenAI or Anthropic using the user's own key: for a recording's summary, its transcript and Work or Personal label; for its title, the first 400 characters of its summary; for a month, that month's recording summaries, dates, labels and the user's notes; for Year Wrap, the month summaries (and the inputs of any month rebuilt first). Titling untitled recordings and finishing ended months also run in the background when the app opens, and ended months can also be finished while the device charges. Upgrading earlier summaries in Settings sends each listed recording's transcript again. Cloud AI is only used when it's the chosen summary quality, or when picked for a Year Wrap.
- Connectivity check: when an API key is saved, the app loads
https://www.apple.com before using Cloud AI. With no key saved it makes no request.
- Network use is limited to: the Offline AI model download from Hugging Face, App Store purchases, Cloud AI requests and the connectivity check above.
- No analytics, crash reporting, advertising or tracking. No account.
- Storage: SQLite database and audio files live in the App Group container
group.com.jsayram.lifewrapped. The database directory uses FileProtectionType.completeUntilFirstUserAuthentication. The widget only receives a few numbers: the streak, and today's recording count, words, minutes and last recording time.
The full policy is at jsayram.github.io/life-wrapped/privacy.
Getting started
Requirements
- macOS with Xcode 26.1 or later
- An iOS 18 simulator or device (an iOS 26 device with Apple Intelligence is needed to try Apple Intelligence)
Setup
# 1. Clone
git clone https://github.com/jsayram/life-wrapped.git
cd life-wrapped
# 2. Create the local secrets file (required: Config/Debug.xcconfig includes it)
cp Config/Secrets.example.xcconfig Config/Secrets.xcconfig
# 3. Open the workspace
open LifeWrapped.xcworkspace
Select the LifeWrapped scheme and an iPhone simulator, then Run. Swift packages (MLX, swift-transformers and their dependencies) resolve automatically on first open.
The LifeWrapped scheme uses Config/StoreKitConfiguration.storekit, so the Cloud AI purchase can be tested in the simulator without a real payment.
Running tests
Tests use Swift Testing, except LocalLLM, which uses XCTest. Xcode creates a scheme for each local package. Select a package scheme (for example Summarization or Storage) and choose Product, then Test.
| Package | Test files |
|---|
| AudioCapture | AudioCaptureTests.swift |
| InsightsRollup | InsightsRollupTests.swift |
| LocalLLM | LocalLLMTests.swift |
| SharedModels | SharedModelsTests.swift, JournalDigestsTests.swift, MonthDigestTextTests.swift, YearWrapDataTests.swift |
| Storage | StorageTests.swift, PDFExportPreviewTests.swift (writes sample PDFs to TestResults/pdf-preview/, which git ignores) |
| Summarization | SummarizationTests.swift, EngineRoutingTests.swift, ExternalModelSettingsTests.swift, FidelityProtectionTests.swift, BasicEngineShortTranscriptTests.swift, SessionTitlerTests.swift, MonthDigestTests.swift, YearWrapBuilderTests.swift, AppleIntelligenceLiveTests.swift (skips itself where Apple Intelligence is unavailable) |
| Transcription | TranscriptionTests.swift |
| WidgetCore | WidgetCoreTests.swift |
Project structure
life-wrapped/
├── App/ # iOS app target (SwiftUI)
│ ├── LifeWrappedApp.swift # Entry point, deep links, appearance
│ ├── ContentView.swift # Tab bar: Record, History, Overview, Settings
│ ├── Components/ # Reusable views: AI, Cards, Layouts, Loading, Recording, Rows, Shared
│ ├── Constants/ # AppTheme (design tokens and shared components), StopWords
│ ├── Coordinators/ # AppCoordinator, DataCoordinator, LocalModelCoordinator,
│ │ # PermissionsCoordinator, RecordingCoordinator, SummaryCoordinator,
│ │ # TranscriptionCoordinator, WidgetCoordinator
│ ├── Helpers/ # Extensions, KeychainHelper and other utilities
│ ├── Models/ # View-level models such as TimeRange
│ ├── Resources/ # Info.plist, entitlements, asset catalog (app icon)
│ ├── Settings/ # Settings screens (AI & Summaries, Recording, Statistics, Data, Privacy)
│ ├── Store/ # StoreKit purchase handling
│ ├── Views/ # Tabs, Details, Overview, Insights, AI, Components, Utility,
│ │ # onboarding (PermissionsView) and data management
│ └── appDocs/ # Internal notes (architecture, App Store, Xcode Cloud, testing)
├── WidgetExtension/ # WidgetKit extension (Quick Record, Today's Sessions)
├── Packages/ # Local Swift packages (swift-tools-version 6.0)
│ ├── SharedModels/ # Data models, constants, feature flags, logging
│ ├── Storage/ # SQLite (SQLite3) persistence, repositories, migrations,
│ │ # JSON/Markdown/PDF export, JSON import
│ ├── AudioCapture/ # Recording, part splitting, file management, playback
│ ├── Transcription/ # On-device speech recognition and language detection
│ ├── Summarization/ # Key Sentences, Offline AI, Apple Intelligence and Cloud AI engines, routing and fallback
│ ├── LocalLLM/ # MLX model loading and Hugging Face download for Offline AI
│ ├── InsightsRollup/ # Streaks, goals, insights
│ └── WidgetCore/ # Data shared with the widget through the App Group
├── Config/ # Debug/Release xcconfig, secrets template, StoreKit configuration
├── Scripts/ # Shell helpers (see below)
├── docs/ # GitHub Pages site: home, privacy, support, terms
├── Images/ # App Store and marketing screenshots
├── Logo/ # Logo source files
├── LifeWrapped.xcodeproj
├── LifeWrapped.xcworkspace # Open this
└── project.yml # XcodeGen spec (version 1.3, but it doesn't list the LocalLLM package; build from the .xcodeproj)
Third-party dependencies
Resolved versions from LifeWrapped.xcworkspace/xcshareddata/swiftpm/Package.resolved:
All are used only by the LocalLLM package for the Offline AI engine.
Scripts
| Script | What it does |
|---|
Scripts/build.sh packages | Runs swift build in each local package |
Scripts/build.sh ios | Builds the LifeWrapped scheme with xcodebuild |
Scripts/build.sh clean | Removes build output and package .build folders |
Scripts/lint.sh [--fix] | SwiftLint and swift-format checks (uses .swiftlint.yml and .swift-format) |
Scripts/format.sh [path] | Formats Swift files with swift-format |
Scripts/verify-privacy.sh | Lists network and cloud API usage in the source so it can be reviewed |
Some script options (watch, widgets, and the integration, ui and performance test targets) refer to schemes that do not exist in this project.
Deployment
main is production. Pushing to main starts the Xcode Cloud workflow, which builds, archives and uploads to TestFlight and App Store Connect.dev is the integration branch. Feature branches start from dev.- App Store releases are submitted from App Store Connect.
More detail is in App/appDocs/XCODE_CLOUD_BUILD.md and App/appDocs/WORKFLOW.md.
Documentation
| Document | Contents |
|---|
docs/ | Public website, privacy policy, support and terms (served at jsayram.github.io/life-wrapped) |
App/appDocs/ | Internal notes on the AI architecture, local AI, App Store submission, privacy labels, in-app purchases, StoreKit testing, widgets and Xcode Cloud |
Support
Questions, bugs and feature requests: open an issue.
License
The source code in this repository is released under the MIT License. Copyright (c) 2025-2026 Jose Ramirez-Villa.
The MIT License covers the code. Use of the Life Wrapped app from the App Store is governed by the terms of service. The Life Wrapped name and app icon are not licensed for use as your own branding.
