With the iPhone 7 came the death of the headphone jack and the birth of the AirPod . The wireless earbuds are good enough, we suppose, but their reception has been a largely mixed bag . The iPhone X has a Live Listen feature right on the front screen (if you swipe down, it’s the ear icon) and again we have to wonder whether its inclusion is a good thing.
What is Live Listen?
Live Listen allows for iPhone users with hearing impairment to hear people across a room, in a noisy environment, or even tune into a TV without having to crank up the volume. All they need to do is enable the Live Listen feature on their iPhone and sync it to their hearing aid (or AirPod) and their iPhone turns into a directional mic .
In Apple’s own words, “with Live Listen, your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch becomes a remote microphone that sends sound to your Made for iPhone hearing aid. Live Listen can help you hear a conversation in a noisy room or hear someone speaking across the room.”
Will people with hearing issues really be able to use this tech to help in their daily lives? Apparently, they already have . Apple has always been known for their intuitive, user-friendly gadgetry and the Live Listen feature is no exception. There’s even an option to adjust volume on the fly, and set it as a preferred Accessibility Shortcut like we mentioned earlier.
No good deed goes unpunished, however, and for all the help that this feature is giving to the hearing-impaired, it’s also creating some more questionable uses.
The problem with Live Listen
Live Listen works well – maybe too well. Users have discovered that if you leave your iPhone in another room, it still transmits sounds straight to your AirPods. The result is that you can now use Live Listen to pick up conversations you wouldn’t normally be a part of: Eavesdropping.
If u have AirPods
