Apple AirPods let people SPY on you: Live Listen tool designed to help the hearing impaired can eavesdrop on you from another room
- Live Listen was rolled out with iOS 12 to assist the hearing impaired
- It works over almost 50 feet , through walls and is controlled from the iPhone
- People have grown concerned it may be used to spy and eavesdrop on people
An Apple update designed to help hearing impaired people is being heralded as a new dawn for eavesdropping.
Live Listen was rolled out with iOS 12 and allows people to pick up sounds detected by the microphone of their iPhone and hear it through their AirPods.
It works over almost 50 feet (15 metres), through walls and is controlled from the phone.
Apple customers have raised concerns over the ease with which this feature could be used to listen in on private conversations.
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Live Listen was rolled out with iOS 12 and allows people to pick up sounds detected by the microphone of their iPhone and hear it through their AirPods. It works over almost 50 feet (15 metres), through walls and is controlled from the phone
Live Listen appears, when AiPods are connected, as an ear symbol in the same drop down menu as the flashlight, screen record and calculator
Live Listen appears, when AiPods are connected, as an ear symbol in the same drop down menu as the flashlight, screen record and calculator.
When it has been turned on the user can increase or decrease the sensitivity of their phone's microphone to pick up as much or as little as they wish.
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People are worried that if a person was to stealthily place their phone in one room, leave Live Listen on, put i their AirPods and then go to another room it would allow them to hear private discussions as clear as day via their hidden phone.
Twitter users have pointed out that love rats, liars and other questionable characters may be caught out if they say something after the person leaves the room.
When Live Listen has been turned on the user can increase or decrease the sensitivity of their phone's microphone to pick up as much or as little as they wish
Twitter users have pointed out that love rats, liars and other questionable characters may be caught out if they say something after the person leaves the room (file photo)
The feature can be controlled by Apple Watch in the same way as the iPhone.
A tweet from @arnoldcrndo went viral when he pointed this out to his followers.
It read: 'If u have AirPods, u can press 'Live Listen' to 'On' and leave your phone in the room with someone and u can hear what they saying, thank me later'
Another social media users said: 'Stay woke, fellas”, one person wrote on Twitter.
'Now they can eavesdrop without being in the room.'
ARE APPLE'S AIRPODS WORTH THE MONEY?
We've always been largely unimpressed with the quality of Apple's EarPods headphones, and were hoping to see a dramatic improvement in their standard following Apple's acquisition of Beats in 2014.
As a result, we are relieved the new lightning EarPods are so much better than their predecessors.
With the AirPods, Apple has created a bold new kind of wireless headphone, removing the annoyances of struggling to pair and remembering to turn them off to avoid battery drain.
They're surprisingly good at staying put within your ear, and the battery life is commendable.
£159 ($159) may seem expensive for earphones but the demand for the product has seen huge demand which lead to worldwide shortages
Again, the price is steep enough to put some people off, but we would argue $159 (£159) is not entirely unreasonable for high quality wireless headphones - AirPods are roughly in line with their rivals.
The likelihood of losing them is real, but this fault lies in the hands of the consumer, rather than the manufacturer.
We would, however, welcome a set of small buttons on one or both of the AirPods' stems to skip or replay tracks and change the volume while exercising, as Siri voice commands are just not suitable during exercise.
Overall, the audio standard and brilliant pairing and charging technologies make AirPods an attractive prospect for Apple fans looking to invest in new wireless headphones for use across the entire product range.
They're not perfect, but for a first generation product, they're pretty good.
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