Field journal
Eve of departure · YaoundéBertoua, East, Cameroon
I'm at the hotel, suitcase half-packed, and for once I don't have that blank-page dread before a trip. I open a Mission, type “Bertoua,” and nTilia hands me a short briefing: geography, context, recent news still to verify once I'm there. Tomorrow the network will probably drop. But I'll already have something to write from.
Scenario. The screenshots are genuinely nTilia's, but the briefing facts are invented for the example — a real background briefing gets built on the ground, not from an article headline.
D−1 · still online
I create the Mission and just type “Bertoua.” Within seconds, nTilia hands me a short briefing: the region's geography, a few notes on local society, recent news flagged “to verify.” I read it, cross-check the sensitive points against my own sources, then enable it — it stays open in a corner, ready to help me write. But it never slips into my notes on its own.
The briefing informs me. The story is mine to write.
Day 1 · 6:40 a.m. · market
It's barely 7 a.m. and trucks are already rumbling across the square. I jot notes, take two photos, record a clip — no live dictation, the network here is too unreliable for that. Every take saves its GPS position on its own. Anything that needs to stay private goes in the encrypted vault. Nothing leaves the phone.
What I capture here belongs to no one but me, for now.
Day 1 · 8 a.m. · under the awning
I sit down in the shade for a moment. Whisper's already downloaded from last night, so I run the transcription right on the device. It takes a few seconds. I read it back, fix a couple of words the model got wrong — the audio itself never left the phone.
My voice stays on my phone. The cloud doesn't need it.
Day 3 · signal returns
The network snaps back the moment I reach the edge of town. I could dictate live now, but mostly I need help tightening a paragraph. I open the / menu: ask it to expand, check a phrase — with the reviewed briefing as context. nTilia proposes a version, I compare it against mine, Before against After. Nothing replaces my text unless I click Accept.
I accept. Or I discard. Never the other way around.
Back at the desk
Back at the desk, I export the whole Mission as a ZIP: my notes, the raw audio, the background briefing. Or I publish straight to my bilingual journal, once the text is ready to be read. Nothing changed shape between the market in Bertoua and this screen.
One thread, from departure to publication.
Why nTilia
A Markdown editor opens a file. nTilia opens a Mission: the place at hand, offline that keeps its promises, AI that never decides in my place. The background briefing informs on the place's context, sources included.
Free to write and capture. Pro for on-device Whisper. Pro+ for the background briefing — 8 credits, one Mission.
No credit card. Your files stay files.