I've got an iPhone 4 (running iOS 4.3.5) and iTunes (v10.4.1) on a Mac running OS X (10.6.8).
When connected to iTunes, I've got the Music -> Sync Music -> Include voice memos option unchecked, but that seems to have no effect. Each time I sync the phone, all the new voice memos are pulled down to iTunes and dropped in my library.
So, the question is: How can I prevent iTunes from pulling down the voice memos and just leave them on my iPhone?
Best Answer
Currently, there doesn't seem to be a way to prevent iTunes from pulling in the voice memos. The closest I've been able to figure would be to have a script or launchd item that simply removes anything that it sees. Preferable copying them to another directory for storage.
Update: October, 2017
I've switched to using Just Press Record which is dedicated to voice memos. It's fast to start and also creates transcripts. They're pretty good most of the time, but sometimes they get pretty far off. It's a nice feature, regardless.
The app costs a few bucks, but it's well worth it. (And, I like to support developers so they can keep working on software I like.)