PresencePresence, the free iPhone and iPad speaking coach from Zatech, is now available on the App Store, and the most useful first recording is a short, unpolished one: record about a minute, read only the one or two lowest scores, change one thing, and record again. A delivery score is best used to compare your own takes against each other, not as a verdict on whether you’re a good speaker. If you pre-ordered, Apple installs the app on your device automatically on its release day, September 22, 2026.
Record something you haven’t polished
The instinct with a first take is to prepare, and that defeats the point. A rehearsed, perfect-on-the-second-try take tells you how you speak when you’re being careful, not how you speak when you’re actually talking. If nothing’s prepared, use one of the built-in practice scripts and read it aloud, or pick a curated question and answer it on the spot in your own words. A minute or two is plenty.
Use the camera if you’re comfortable with it. At launch it adds seven body language measures, eye contact, blink rate, expressiveness, fidgeting, gestures, posture and stability, that a voice-only take can’t see. People who start watching their own recordings often report the same surprise: the habits that stood out most, filler words, shoulders creeping forward, looking away while thinking, were invisible in the moment and obvious on playback.
Read the lowest one or two scores, not all 21
Presence launches with 21 measures, which is a lot for a first take, and trying to fix everything at once is how a rehearsal turns into discouragement. Look at whichever one or two scored lowest, read the sentence explaining each, and try the one suggestion attached to it on the next take. Presence also recommends Learn entries matched to your lowest score, so the reading follows the recording instead of being a separate list to browse.
Then tap through to the transcript. Fillers, pauses and the like are pinned to the exact second, so you can jump straight to a moment and hear it. Hearing it is the part a number can’t do for you.
Compare takes, don’t chase a number
A fair concern people raise about any speaking score is whether it only measures what’s easy to count, such as fillers and pace, rather than whether you communicated well. That’s a real limit, not a hypothetical one. Presence measures delivery: how fast, how flat, how hedged, how steady. It doesn’t judge whether your argument was sound or your point clear.
That’s why the score works best as a comparison against your own previous take. Recording the same talk twice, changing one thing, and seeing whether that one measure moved tells you something real. Optimizing a single number in isolation can absolutely turn into gaming it, for example by speaking so slowly that pace scores well and the take drags. If a score improves but the recording sounds worse, trust your ears over the number and use the transcript to check.
Where to look if the first score is low
A low first score is the normal starting point, not a bad result. Most people have never heard their own pace, their own filler rate or how often a sentence trails off, so the first take is mostly a baseline. The useful question isn’t “is this number good” but “which one thing would make the next take noticeably better,” and that’s the one the app points to.
When this isn’t the right tool
Presence works on recordings, so it can’t help during a live conversation, only in the rehearsals before one. It scores delivery, not content, so it won’t tell you whether your talk is persuasive or well structured. At launch, everything stays on the device, which means nothing is backed up elsewhere and a deleted recording is gone for good, and it runs on iPhone and iPad with iOS 26.0 or later.
FAQ
How long should my first recording be? About a minute or two is long enough to hear your habits and short enough to review in one sitting. There’s no required length, so a longer take is fine once you’re comfortable.
Should I use a practice script or my own material? Either works. A script is good for practicing delivery when nothing is prepared, and your own material shows how you sound on the talk you actually have to give.
Is a low first score a bad sign? No. The first take is a baseline, and improvement shows up when you compare it to your second or third.
Does Presence upload my recording to score it? No. Analysis runs on the device and your recordings are never sent to a server. There is no account.