Developer built ReadAlong with Claude Code for offline audiobook transcription
AI summary
A developer on Reddit said Claude Code wrote most of ReadAlong, a free app that transcribes audiobooks offline on Android and highlights sentences during playback. The Kotlin-based Android app runs a 17 MB Cactus Whisper model in background chunks, while a desktop version uses whisper.cpp on a GPU and syncs transcripts to the phone; adding an EPUB lets the app follow the book’s original text.
In-depth insight
ReadAlong provides a concrete example of Claude Code contributing to a working cross-platform app, including debugging media errors and preserving crash-fix history across development sessions.
| I built ReadAlong so I could read along while I listen. It transcribes the whole audiobook on your phone, offline, and highlights each sentence as it plays. Add the book's EPUB and it follows the real text instead. How it's built: The Android app is Kotlin and runs a 17 MB Cactus Whisper model on the phone, a chunk at a time in the background. There's also a desktop app that uses whisper.cpp on the GPU (about 4 minutes per book) and syncs transcripts to the phone. How Claude helped: Claude Code wrote most of the code. I tested on real books and gave it the errors. It found root causes I wouldn't have, like one MP3 whose header lied about its length and stopped a book at Chapter 35. I also had it keep a log of every crash and fix, so new sessions didn't redo old work. It's free on Android, Windows, Mac and Linux: Download ReadAlong submitted by /u/Gotyournosey [link] [comments] |