Heirloom
Everybody means to record them. Almost nobody does.
The formal interview never gets scheduled. The voice notes go unlabelled. Then it is too late, and the sentence is always the same: I wish I had recorded her.
The method
One question a week. That is the whole thing.
Record your life story is paralysing. Tell me about your first job is answerable in six minutes. Heirloom hands over one question at a time and keeps every answer in their own voice. Every story adds a ring.
Where it lives
On this phone, and nowhere else.
There is no account and no cloud. Heirloom cannot open a network connection at all. Recordings stay in this app until you export them, and the export is a normal folder of audio files you can copy anywhere, or bring back into Heirloom on another phone.
Set up
Who are we going to listen to?
The year and the place only change which questions come up. A 1947 childhood gets asked about the wireless, not about cartoons.
Sunday after lunch works better than any other slot. You can change it later.
Archive
Ask
This week's question, and the ones the family wants answered.
Family
Who is telling, who is listening, and how this phone behaves.
Keepsake
What the archive adds up to, and how to get it off this phone.
Before we start.
0:00
Recording
Kept.
The microphone did not start.