AirPods Live Listen: Hearing Aid or Spy Tool?

If you wanted to record a conversation there are many ways to do it more discreetly that don’t require you leaving a $700+ device with all your personal data away from you.

We're sure no MacRumors readers are going to use this feature for nefarious purposes,

*EVIL LAUGH*

...

Ohh noo... absolutely not a chance. :)

George is getting curious!

Sorry, folks, but as someone who has been hearing-impaired since birth and who has been using various hearing aids since age six (which was a long time ago) I am a little taken-aback and maybe even a little offended at the terminology here in this thread, both in the title and the posts. I think some clarification is needed.

IMO it is really inaccurate and incorrect, not to mention misuse, of the term "hearing aid" when used to describe someone's phone, Air Pods or any other device being set to pick up sounds and perhaps verbal conversations when the owner (an individual who presumably in fact has normal hearing) is elsewhere. As already indicated in the thread, such use of a digital device is actually just with the intent of hearing something that was not meant for one's ears at all, whether intentionally so or not. That is very different from a hearing-impaired individual who needs some assistance even just to hear everyday sounds with any clarity at all. A "hearing aid" has traditionally been a physical device worn on the head/in the ears specifically designed to assist someone who is hearing-impaired to be able to hear with whatever residual hearing they might have, perhaps even to be able to discern and interpret the spoken word. There are different types of hearing loss and different degrees of it, of course. People who are profoundly deaf do not usually benefit from standard hearing aids, while those who have hearing loss in varying degrees, whether congenital or developed later in life, may benefit to some extent, depending upon the cause of the hearing loss in the first place.

This "live listen" feature that Apple offers can indeed be very useful to those who wear actual hearing aids, but please don't refer to it -- that particular feature -- as a "hearing aid," because it is not. It can work with actual physical digital hearing aids, as mentioned in the thread, but in and of itself it is not a "hearing aid" per se, especially when considering those who are not hearing-impaired, who don't need such assistance. With the use of Air Pods and a strategically placed iPhone, this is indeed merely a way of listening in on something -- i.e., a fancy new way for anyone with normal hearing (or with hearing assisted by actual hearing aids) to listen to things which may or may not be intended for them to hear at all.

Leave your $1000 alone on a table so you can eavesdrop on someones conversation deserves to jacked.

Only a $1,000 ?
You must be talking about that 6Plus



now I'm wondering ..... How much does my car cost that I leave sitting outside of my house or in a parking lot unattended?
****, I have to run and make sure my house is still where I left it this morning!! What was I thinking leaving it all by itself?!



the /sarcasm
the /troofthough

The sound you're hearing while eavesdropping on me when you leave the room? That's me "accidentally" knocking your unattended iPhone onto the concrete floor. :D

If you are going to leave a phone in the room, I don’t see what difference this makes compared to just using an audio recorder, pressing record and walking away which you’ve always been able to do. Unless it is something like the bathroom/keeping up with conversation case use mentioned above. But I would find it strange to wear Airpods with a group of friends like that. Still, interesting though.

Hmmmm I wonder how well this would have worked in the noisy restaurant we were in last night where our party of 6 couldn't hear each other with all the background noise?

Not well. I tried this exact scenario since I have trouble hearing in noisy environments. It picked up all of the noise and transmitted it with a slight delay to the noise I was getting directly to my ear. I quickly gave up.

We should ONLY use this for nefarious purposes.

This was my first thought the second this feature was added to the iPhone. Surprised it has taken this long to become a news article. I’ve actually left friends gatherings to go the bathroom during a conversation, while continuing to be part of the conversation! :D