Magic Notes
Tonight,
you can do magic.
No cards, no set-up, no practice. Just you and your phone. And a lot of people who want to know how you did that.
iPhone · iOS 26 or newer · numbers recognised in English and German
How it goes
That was the whole manual. Nothing to shuffle, nothing to practise, nothing you have to keep hidden in your hand.
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Open a note
Type a number into it. Any one.
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Face down
Put the phone down flat.
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“Say a number. Out loud.”
They say it. They are allowed to change their mind, too.
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Turn it over
The correct number is in the note.
Who it is for
For the evening when somebody says: “Go on, show us something.”
For kids
Who will think you are magic afterwards and will want to see it forty more times. And yes, you will show it forty more times.
For in between
The queue, dinner, the bar, the lunch break. Everything you need is already in your pocket.
For magicians
A prop that looks like nothing at all. No gimmick in your hand, no card up your sleeve, no set-up.
What your audience sees
A notes app. A list, a date line, an edit bar, a keyboard. And a number that is simply there. No flash, no animation, no wand.
Screenshots show the app in German. The language switch in settings changes the whole app, independently of your iPhone’s language.
Questions
Do I have to practise anything?
No. You type something into a note, put the phone face down and say one sentence. The rest happens by itself.
What if somebody corrects themselves?
The last number wins. “Three hundred, no, make it 321” ends as 321. The screen was face down; nobody saw the in-between.
Why does the screen have to be face down?
Two reasons, the same one twice: nobody sees the number appear, and the recording indicator stays out of sight. In any other position the app does not listen at all.
Does it work in English?
Yes. Numbers are recognised in English and in German, and the language switch in the app is independent of your iPhone’s language.
Can I actually use the notes?
No. They are scenery. Typed text disappears with the performance. Use your notes app for real notes.
What does the app need?
An iPhone running iOS 26 or newer and permission for microphone and speech recognition. No internet, nothing to carry, nothing to prepare.
Is the phone listening the whole time?
No. The microphone only runs while the app is open and in the foreground, a note is open, and the screen is face down. If any of that is missing, the app records nothing. In the background it does not listen at all.
Is anything that is said stored?
Nothing is stored: no audio, no text, no notes. Speech recognition runs on the device, and nothing is transmitted.
Account, advertising, tracking?
None of it. No sign-in, no advertising, no tracking, no network connection. The details are in the privacy policy.
Write. Flip. Magic.
Five pictures, the ones on the App Store product page. Their captions are in German.
