Apple Is Not Using Live Listen to Listen to You ⇥ sixcolors.com

Glenn Fleishman, Six Colors:

Live Listen is a valuable accessibility feature for people who need assistance hearing things around them. It can stream the sound from the microphone on an iPhone or iPad to Apple-compatible hearing aids, AirPods, or supported models of Beats headphones.

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This conspiracy appears to have started on X, the every-bad-theory app, but has spread. Sensible people I know are asking whether this is a risk. Let me break this down.

It is difficult to give conspiracy theories any credit, but, as Fleishman writes, it is understandable why this one took off. Apple does not explain it very well and it has recently announced features that are always listening.

But in the absence of privacy guarantees with legal muscle, and with poorly behaved peers, it is difficult for people to not make assumptions. Good accessibility feature like this one will always seem suspicious for as long as Apple needs to reassure people largely because privacy is currently a competitive advantage. It should simply be the law.