I don’t use voice memos myself, but I tested it and it functions well. I really appreciate the extra effort to make a smooth animation when sliding up to activate the lock.

One critique of voice memos is the coloring. I’ve always been surprised that red is used for all of the voice memo colors (red is “warning!” in my mind). Maybe that’s intentional, but I would have expected blue with red for “cancel” only.

I think the pop up dialog is an ok reminder.

(Again, I don’t use voice memos, so maybe ignore my opinion here: But I’ve always found it a little anxiety inducing that I might press the mic button and send a voice memo on accident. … would defaulting to the ‘hold’ UI such that users tap the “mic” icon to start recording and then have to press “send” or “cancel” add too much friction for voice memo users? I know people would complain, since people complain about everything, but that seems like a good option too–reduces likelihood of accidental sends, removes that dialog pop up that people mentioned above, & simplifies UI for usability.) (Update: A UI like mocked up at Beta feedback for the upcoming iOS 2.36 release could then be used for a super simple UI.)