Apple Watch - Cleft

Cleft on Apple Watch is for the moments your phone isn’t in your hand. Mid-run, hands in the sink, kid on your hip, sat across from someone, raise your wrist, talk for thirty seconds, and the formatted note is waiting on your iPhone next time you check it.

Apple Watch Series 9

Apple Watch Ultra 2

Start fast

Three ways to begin a note without taking your phone out:

Watch face complication. Tap the Cleft icon on a customised face
App grid. Press the Digital Crown, tap Cleft
Action Button (Apple Watch Ultra). Set it to “Open App → Cleft” so a single press launches the app

A subtle haptic confirms the recording started. Pick a note style with the Digital Crown if you want this recording to use a different format, then talk, pause, and resume. When you’re done, the audio transfers to your iPhone in the background and Cleft transcribes and formats it there.

Record a note

Tap record

Open Cleft from the complication, app grid, or Action Button, choose a note style if needed, then tap the record button. A haptic tap confirms it’s running, the timer starts on screen, and a sphere pulses gently while you speak. The sphere stays still while you are paused, and whenever Reduce Motion is on.

Talk, pause if you need to

Pause and resume mid-recording without ending the note. A haptic tap confirms each transition. Tap stop when you’re done; the Ready screen confirms when the recording has been saved.

Pick it up on your phone

The audio syncs to your iPhone in the background. Cleft transcribes and formats it on the phone. The Watch keeps its recording until the phone confirms that it has saved it. Cleft returns to Ready so you can record again. Saved on Watch means the audio is waiting for delivery. Received by iPhone appears only after the phone confirms receipt; the transcript and summary can still be preparing.

For mic technique and language settings, see Recording Voice Notes.

What Apple Watch is best at

Phone-free capture

Record straight from your wrist when reaching for your phone would break the moment.

Pause and resume

Stop mid-thought when life interrupts, pick up where you left off without ending the note.

Note styles

Use the Digital Crown to choose Structured, Structured Prose, Clean Transcript, or a synced custom style before recording.

Ready for the next thought

Finish a recording, see its delivery status, and record again on the same screen.

Complications

Add Cleft to any watch face for one-tap access, inline, circular, or rectangular accessory styles. The New Voice Note complication shows the same voice mark as the app.

Background sync to iPhone

Recordings transfer automatically once the iPhone is in range. Transcription happens on the phone, not the watch.

Battery-friendly

Just audio capture on the wrist. The heavy work runs on your iPhone.

Wrist moments worth stealing

Mid-stride, mid-workout

You’re three miles into a run when an idea lands. Tap the complication, talk for fifteen seconds, drop your wrist. The recording syncs to your phone the next time it’s in range. By the time you’re stretching, the formatted note is sitting in your list. Pair with Writing Style to shape mid-run rambles into something you can act on.

Hands full at home

Kitchen, kids, dog, laundry. The moments your phone is in another room are exactly the moments thoughts arrive. Raise your wrist, talk for thirty seconds, get back to whatever you were doing. Pair with Daily Capture Routines for repeatable patterns.

Pause when life interrupts

Mid-recording, someone asks you a question. Tap pause, haptic confirms, answer them, tap resume, finish the thought. The note is still one note, not three fragments.

A daily note you append to from anywhere

Pin one note on your iPhone (a journal, a project log, a workout diary) and use the Continue Last Note widget on the phone to append to it. From the watch, start a fresh note; on iPhone, hit the Continue widget. Same vault, two surfaces. Setup: Appending to Notes · Daily Capture Routines.

Walking meetings

Step outside with a colleague, talk through a problem on the move. When something lands, tap the complication and capture the decision in your own words, without breaking the rhythm of the walk. Repeatable structure: Meeting Notes System.

Apple Watch Ultra at the desk

Set the Action Button on your Ultra to Open App → Cleft (in Settings → Action Button). One press launches Cleft on the watch. Tap record, talk, the note hits your iPhone. Combine with auto-copy to clipboard on iPhone and the transcribed text is ready to paste straight into the email or doc you’re working on.

Set up the complication

Install Cleft on your watch

Open the Watch app on iPhone, scroll to Available Apps, find Cleft, tap Install. The watch app needs the iPhone app installed first.

Add Cleft to a watch face

Press and hold your watch face → tap Edit → swipe to Complications → tap a slot → choose Cleft → press the Digital Crown to save.Cleft offers inline, circular, and rectangular accessory styles. The New Voice Note complication shows the voice mark, the same glyph you tap in the app and on the iPhone Lock Screen widget. In Cleft 1.15.0 or later, configure the complication with a writing style to start every note from that face in the same format.

Tap to launch

Tap the complication from any watch face to open Cleft straight to the recording screen.

Custom style names stay hidden on the watch face unless you turn on Show Custom Style Name while configuring the complication.

Existing Continue complications

An existing Continue complication now starts a fresh recording. Complications show the voice mark and optional writing style; they show no note titles. Old Continue links return to Ready.

One recording screen

Cleft on Watch creates new recordings. Ready shows your selected style, microphone, and latest delivery status. During capture, the timer, visualizer, Pause, and Stop fit the Watch screen at ordinary text sizes. Turn the Digital Crown to change the output style directly. Your choice carries into the next recording. For larger text, decoration yields to readable controls and a scroll fallback; tap the dial to use the style picker. Read, edit, share, and continue existing notes on your iPhone or Mac.

Languages on Apple Watch

Apple Watch records in every language you can choose in Cleft on your iPhone. Your iPhone transcribes the recording, so the Watch needs no model download. Choose your language in Settings → Recording on your iPhone. If you have not chosen one yet, the watch asks you to do that before it records. If your downloaded Whisper model cannot run when the phone receives the recording, Cleft keeps a readable Base transcript locally. Open Cleft on the iPhone to give that recording’s saved model choice one attempt before the cloud note is created. If the model cannot finish, the Base transcript remains and an eligible note offers Improve. Edits you make while it waits are preserved. For new Watch or CarPlay fallback recordings, Improve asks before replacing saved edits; finish saving your changes first. See Transcripts.

Note styles on Apple Watch

Cleft shows your note styles on the recording screen. Turn the Digital Crown to move between Structured, Structured Prose, Clean Transcript, and any custom styles from Cleft Plus. The selected style applies to that recording when it is processed on your iPhone.

Apple Watch Ultra Action Button

The Apple Watch Ultra’s customisable Action Button can launch Cleft directly:

Open Settings on your Ultra

Press the Digital Crown → Settings → Action Button.

Set Action to Open App

Choose Open App → select Cleft.

Press to launch

A single press of the Action Button now opens Cleft. Tap record to start a note.

The iPhone Action Button (iPhone 15 Pro and later) can be set to start recording on the phone directly, see Widgets and Action Button for that setup.

Audio

The watch microphone

The screen shows the active input reported by watchOS, including a connected Bluetooth microphone when it is selected. The built-in microphone is tuned for voice and works well outdoors and in mixed environments, but it sits at the wrist, not the mouth, so a quick lift of the arm helps in noisy spots.

Permissions

The first time you record on watch, watchOS asks for microphone access. If recording fails, open the Settings app on your watch → Privacy & Security → Microphone → make sure Cleft is enabled.

Tips for cleaner audio

Bring your wrist closer to your mouth in busy environments
Step away from blasting speakers when you can
For longer or more important recordings, capture on iPhone instead. The phone mic and processing are stronger

Sync and battery

How sync works

Recordings transfer from watch to iPhone via Apple’s wireless connection, Bluetooth or shared Wi-Fi, whichever is available. Transcription runs on the iPhone once the audio arrives. From the iPhone, notes sync to your other devices through your Cleft account.If a transfer stalls, it recovers on its own once your iPhone is back in reach, and you can tap the retry button beside the pending-recording count to re-send it. Recordings still waiting to transfer pick up again after Cleft relaunches or reconnects. Retrying a recording while your iPhone is already transcribing it keeps that transcription running instead of starting a second one.Pending recordings stay on Watch until the existing delivery protocol permits cleanup. Your next recording can start while older recordings wait. A duplicate or interrupted transfer still lands as one note on iPhone.

Recording offline

You can record on the watch even when your iPhone is out of range. The audio queues locally and transfers the next time the phone is nearby.

Battery

Recording on the watch uses local audio capture only, no transcription, no AI processing on the wrist. The heavy work runs on your iPhone, so battery impact on the watch is small.

Accessibility

Recording, microphone, permission, and delivery status appear as readable words. VoiceOver reads the same labels across the Watch app, its complications, the Watch widget, and the Live Activity for an active recording. The app and its complications keep their labels legible at the largest text size watchOS supports, and the recording controls reflow and stay scrollable with the Digital Crown at accessibility sizes.

Supported devices

Apple Watch Series 7 and later
Apple Watch SE (2nd generation and later)
Apple Watch Ultra and Ultra 2
watchOS 10 or later, paired with an iPhone running Cleft and signed in to the same account

Troubleshooting

Recording not syncing to iPhone? Open Cleft on both devices, make sure they’re connected (Bluetooth or the same Wi-Fi network), keep them close while sync completes. A stalled transfer recovers on its own once your iPhone is in reach, or tap the retry button beside the pending-recording count to re-send it.Cleft says it couldn’t start or save a recording? A failed start returns to Ready after you acknowledge the alert. Check microphone permission. A failed save keeps the finished recording and offers Retry save with the same recording choices.Seeing a storage warning? Free some storage, then restart Cleft. Recording stays disabled while durable storage is unavailable; existing on-disk recordings remain untouched.Watch shows Waiting for iPhone? Keep your iPhone nearby with Bluetooth on, and unlock it. The watch connects on its own for about three minutes; tap Try Again to ask right away or after it stops.Watch asks you to check your iPhone? Open Cleft on your iPhone and check you’re signed in, then tap Try Again on the watch. After your iPhone restarts, unlock it once first.Asked to choose a transcription language? Open Cleft on your iPhone and choose one in Settings → Recording → Transcription Language, then record again. The watch picks up the choice the next time you open Cleft on it.Can’t find Cleft on the watch? Install it from the Watch app on iPhone. The iPhone app needs to be installed first; check the Available Apps section.Complication not appearing? Remove and re-add the complication, or restart the watch.Microphone not working? Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone → make sure Cleft is enabled.Still stuck? Contact support.

Recording Voice Notes. Mic technique, languages, recording length
Syncing Notes. How notes move between devices
Widgets and Action Button. iPhone capture surfaces, including the iPhone Action Button
Writing Style. Shape how Cleft formats your notes
Daily Capture Routines. Repeatable patterns for everyday capture
iOS. The iPhone surface where wrist recordings get transcribed
macOS. The keyboard-first sibling