FollowUps

FollowUps is a local-first iOS app that helps you turn spoken call or meeting notes into actionable follow-ups.

You explicitly start recording, FollowUps processes the finished audio with OpenAI, extracts a concise list of tasks, and lets you selectively sync those tasks to Apple Reminders.

Highlights

• One-tap recording flow from the app.
• Quick entry points via Widget and App Shortcuts.
• Live Activity for visible recording state.
• OpenAI-based multilingual transcription + task extraction.
• Session-level task review with editable due dates and reminder selection.
• Reminders sync that can create, update, and remove reminders based on current task selection.
• Local persistence for sessions, settings, and audio files.

What FollowUps Does

• Records audio from the microphone after explicit user action.
• Uploads finished recordings to OpenAI for transcription and task extraction.
• Generates a short session headline plus task list.
• Saves sessions locally and shows them in a browsable Sessions tab.
• Lets users replay recordings and review transcript text.
• Optionally syncs selected tasks to Apple Reminders.
• Supports optional retention cleanup of old sessions and corresponding audio files.

What FollowUps Does Not Do

• It cannot monitor or intercept all incoming calls from Phone, FaceTime, WhatsApp, Teams, Zoom, or similar apps.
• It cannot capture another app’s private call stream directly.
• It does not auto-start recording.
• It does not guarantee exact-time background execution (iOS schedules background work opportunistically).

Product Constraints (iOS-Compliant)

FollowUps is intentionally built around Apple platform constraints:

• Recording starts only after explicit user interaction.
• Recording status is always visible in UI (and Live Activity when active).
• Background processing is best-effort, not guaranteed realtime automation.
• Reminders are only created/updated after explicit user confirmation.

Tech Stack

• Swift 5.10+
• SwiftUI
• AVFoundation / AVAudioSession
• App Intents / App Shortcuts
• WidgetKit
• ActivityKit
• UserNotifications
• EventKit (Apple Reminders)
• BackgroundTasks

Architecture

• Pattern: MVVM + service layer
• Main app tabs: Record, Sessions, Settings
• Core service boundaries:
  • AudioCaptureService
  • TranscriptionService
  • ActionItemExtractionService
  • ReminderService
  • CompletionNotificationService
  • BackgroundTaskService
  • PersistenceService

Repository Structure

• App/ app entry point, dependency container, root navigation
• Features/Recording/ capture UX, active recording, processing state
• Features/Sessions/ session list/detail, task review, transcript playback
• Features/Settings/ API key, extraction preferences, storage policy
• Services/ protocol-driven implementation of app side effects
• Models/ domain models (CallSession, ActionItem, transcript models, states)
• Widgets/ quick-start widget UI
• LiveActivity/ recording live activity UI
• Shortcuts/ App Intents / App Shortcuts
• Tests/ unit and UI tests
• project.yml XcodeGen project definition
• Resources/ Info.plist + asset catalogs

Getting Started

Requirements

• Xcode 16+
• iOS 18 deployment target
• Homebrew (recommended for XcodeGen install)

Setup

1. Clone the repo:

   git clone https://github.com/thomasgregg/FollowUps.git
   cd FollowUps

2. Install XcodeGen:

   brew install xcodegen

3. Generate the project:

   xcodegen generate

4. Open FollowUps.xcodeproj in Xcode.
5. Configure Signing & Capabilities with your Apple Developer team.
6. Run on Simulator or real device.

OpenAI Configuration

• Open the app → Settings → OpenAI API Key.
• Paste your key (for example: sk-...).
• FollowUps requires a valid key for transcription and task extraction.

Reminders Behavior

• Tasks are extracted first.
• You choose which tasks are selected.
• Create Apple Reminders creates reminders for selected tasks.
• Update Apple Reminders reconciles existing reminders with the current task selection:
  • selected tasks are created/updated
  • deselected previously-linked tasks are removed

Permissions

FollowUps uses:

• Microphone permission (NSMicrophoneUsageDescription)
• Reminders permission (NSRemindersFullAccessUsageDescription)
• Notifications permission (processing completion notifications)

Privacy

• Recording starts only when you explicitly tap record.
• Audio is stored locally first, then sent to OpenAI only after user action and cloud-processing consent.
• No automatic interception of third-party call audio.
• Reminders are created only after user review/confirmation.

Privacy policy: https://thomasgregg.github.io/FollowUps/privacy.html Support: https://thomasgregg.github.io/FollowUps/support.html

Testing

• Unit tests: Tests/Unit
• UI tests: Tests/UI

Run tests in Xcode or via CLI:

xcodebuild test -scheme FollowUps -destination 'platform=iOS Simulator,name=iPhone 17 Pro'

Known Limitations

• Task quality depends on transcription quality and model output quality.
• Long recordings can take noticeable processing time.
• Background continuation is limited by iOS process and task policies.
• Bluetooth/headset routing can impact captured audio characteristics.

Roadmap Ideas

• Better processing telemetry and error diagnostics
• Richer task controls (owner/date confidence tuning)
• Additional export targets beyond Apple Reminders
• Improved offline UX around deferred processing states