[willed]

I've been working for a year as a newspaper reporter, and in that time I've used my phone to record interviews or quotes. It works reasonably well and does the job, but has many shortcomings.

Most dictaphones seem to be only PC compatible or record in WMA; is there anything Mac friendly out there? So many journalists use Macs, I imagine there must be some solution!

Frankly the iPod should have had line-in recording added years ago. It wouldn't have cost Apple anything but would have solved a headache for thousands of users.

[willed]

*BUMP*... Just in case.

[richwig83]

Whats wrong with using garage band???? I sure if you only need basic recording facilities GB will do.

Also FYI it is possible to make 'some' ipod lrecord thru the headphone jack. Not sure exactly how but my brother used to do it on his "pre photo" ipod. Not sure if you can with a photo ipod or better!

[brettcamp]

The iPod has had line in capacity for years. Journalists have used Belkin's TuneTalk, ExtremeMac's MicroMemo and Griffin's iTalk Pro to record interviews. Griffin also makes the iMic, which allows you to plug just about any microhpone into your Mac if the built in one isn't sufficient.

[willed]

Unfortunately I have only an iPod 3G, which can only record (using Griffin iTalk etc) in Mono, and pretty low quality. Neither does my iBook G3 have a Mic line-in or the ability to use Garageband (it's only 500MHz). Sadly i can't simply upgrade my iPod, as without USB2.0 these days, I can barely use an iPod video. So instead of buying a new Mac, iPod and iTalkPro, I thought I'd get a dictaphone... if there are any that work with OSX.

[Tee]

Marginalization such as this makes me sad.

[walkerjs]

How about audacity? It's available for the Mac, records .wav, .mp3, .aiff, or whatever you want. I got my wife using it with her Macbook for recording memiors with the built-in microphone. I have an external mic that I've used for ages. It'll record as long as you have space on the HDD, you can edit tracks fairly easily, and it's multi-track.

Oh, and it's free. Google will find it for you.

Oh, one irritating thing I've found with the Mac version: it doesn't like long file names, so you have to export to files like Interview1.aiff or something like that. I go into Finder after I've exported a track to rename it to something more meaningful such as "Rants about stupid people at the checkout counter.aiff" immediately. Also it doesn't seem to like shift-scrolling to scroll sideways or any scrolling with any wheel/mighty mouse. But it's still free, and straightforward to use even if it's UI doesn't follow the 'Mac way'.

[Railroader]

We use Amadeus II at our church to record services on an old iMac. It works very well. And it is only $30.

EDIT: Amadeus Pro is $40 and Amadeus II is $30

Link to Pro:
HairerSoft - Amadeus Pro

Link to II:
HairerSoft

Here's a testimonial from a MacNN reviewer:

"Amadeus Pro takes an already excellent program to a whole new level. With a completely revamped interface, large file editing capabilities, and multi-track functionality, amongst many other new features, Amadeus Pro an incredible sound editor."
Joshua Wachs, Macintosh News Network