Apple's UI for trimming a voice memo on your iPhone is garbage. It's utterly impossible to do it, especially for audios that are over an hour long (which are great contenders for trimming). The key interactions expect my fingertip to be a pixel-wide.

this sounds like a job for audacity my friend

I've not used Audacity on an iPhone and the reviews there don't warrant it. I managed to somewhat do it on QuickTime Player on macOS. But yea, it looks like in this case, Apple pretty much wants you to look for other apps on the App Store to do things well.

What really represents my frustration best is that I need not just multiple apps, but also multiple devices to get a simple task done. Followed by transferring it between devices for any downstream use cases (sending a trimmed recording to a contact on WhatsApp).

I'm pretty much gonna roll my eyes next time when someone says "Apple are a user-obsessed or user-centred design company".

I think we're alluding to the same thing, but there's a nuance here that I want to be clear about. I'm okay if user features are satisfied by apps from the store, but basic usability gaps in Apple's own native apps are still Apple's responsibility.

Hey man at least the job's done, and you'll know better for next time. Is the Voice Memos app any better in iOS 18?

Haven't tried iOS 18 but I'm not holding my breath. As trivial as it may be, what I ask for doesn't move the needle for Apple as a business, so we're unlikely to see improvements to any of Apple's utility apps.