Here are some of the top stories from the world of Apple today:
- Third-party Apple Watch accessories are starting to appear in Apple Stores
- The first promotional poster for the upcoming movie Steve Jobs is out. Steve might approve…
- A patent troll gets slapped down for trying lawsuits over older technology in new products
- Pocket gets an upgrade and recommendations
Apple says that, currently, a number of consumer electronic devices are adapted to receive speech via microphone ports or headsets. While the typical example is an iPhone, with the advent of Voice over IP (VoIP), desktop computers, laptop computers (such as MacBooks, MacBook Airs, and MacBook Pros) and tablet computers (iPads, obviously) may also be used to perform voice communications.
When using these electronic devices, you have the option of using the speakerphone mode or a wired headset to receive your speech. However, Apple says that a common complaint with these hands-free modes of operation is that the speech captured by the microphone port or the headset includes environmental noise such as secondary speakers in the background or other background noises. This environmental noise often renders the user’s speech unintelligible and thus, degrades the quality of the voice communication.
Another hands-free option includes wireless headsets to receive user’s speech as well as perform playback to the user. However, the current wireless headsets also suffer from environmental noise, battery constraints, and uplink and downlink bandwidth limitations. Apple’s invention is intended to overcome these limitations.
