Heliotype press kit

Boilerplate

About Heliotype

Heliotype is a macOS menu-bar app that records meetings without a bot joining the call. It captures system audio through a CoreAudio process tap and the user's microphone, names each recording after the meeting on the user's calendar, and writes a speaker-labeled transcript beside the recording. Transcription runs on AssemblyAI under the user's own API key. Heliotype does not summarize meetings or extract action items — it hands clean, diarized text to whatever the user already uses for that, typically Claude or ChatGPT. There is no account, no telemetry, and no cloud dashboard: recordings and transcripts stay in a folder on the user's own Mac. Heliotype is a one-time purchase ($29 launch, $39 list) with a 14-day trial, requires an Apple Silicon Mac, and is available as a direct download at heliotype.app.

132 words. A shorter, one-sentence version: "Heliotype is a macOS menu-bar app that records meetings without a bot in the call and turns each one into a named, speaker-labeled transcript on your own disk."

Fact sheet

Quick facts

• Maker: independently built and published. Attribution details and interviews on request.
• Platform: macOS, Apple Silicon only. Requires macOS 13+ to transcribe files, macOS 15+ to record meetings.
• Distribution: direct-download signed DMG. Not on the Mac App Store — the CoreAudio process tap and helper binary are incompatible with the App Sandbox.
• Price: $29 launch / $39 list, one-time license, 14-day full trial. Bring-your-own AssemblyAI key — no subscription, no per-minute meter from Heliotype.
• Privacy: no account, no telemetry, no analytics, no crash reporting, and nothing that reports on the user. Every request the app makes is one the user set in motion — by an action, or by switching on a feature that needs it. Three kinds of outbound request exist in total, and only the first carries any user content: the extracted audio track, sent to AssemblyAI at transcription time under the user's own key; a one-off download of ffmpeg from its official host, the first time one is needed; and Settings → Check for Updates…, which fetches a static version file from heliotype.app the moment it is clicked, with no query string, install identifier, counter or cookie. The same three are itemised at heliotype.app/limits.
• What it isn't: no bot joins the call, no screen recording, no summarization or action-item extraction built in, no Windows/iOS/web version.
• Launched: July 2026.

Assets

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Cleared for editorial use with attribution to Heliotype.

Contact

Get in touch

For interview requests, review copies, or questions about how Heliotype works, email hello@heliotype.app directly — press enquiries are answered, not filtered.