I didn't realize they had the extra speaker there to reduce ambient noise. Very cool.

I hope somebody can write about the noise cancellation issue: If your voice is picked up by the back microphone (they say there are three) it will be cancelled as noise and MUTED. (the other person can't hear you)

It's ridiculous that KNOWING the system fails by e.g. talking while watching the screen, and HAVING a proximity sensor that could tell the phone is NOT against your ear, Apple has yet done nothing about it.

I had a call back from Apple Support, from the ingeneers (or designers, or whatever the customer svce rep called them) and their answer is: "for every time I want to speak while reading the screen, or rotating the phone upwards to talk confortably, or when my ear burns under the sun (where any other phone works) : I should activate the speaker mode, or use a bluetooth or the earphones"

So it's helping me the 1% of times I call from a noisy place (actually, it helps my caller, not me) and ruined 99% of my calls. It hasn't been ONE single person that hasn't told me that can't hear me since I got this phone.

Do the test: Look at the phone, and speak to your calling party. The voice gets cut. Even worse if there's some object reflecting your voice to the back-mic (next to the camera). Any position that makes your voice to reach the back of the phone will mute you.

I saw that ad last night while watching TV with my brother-in-law (who has an Android phone).  His reaction was "why are they acting like that's a big deal; phones have had that feature for years."  Is he right?  Do Samsung and HTC phones do this too?

Quote:

Originally Posted by socialblogsite 

I had a call back from Apple Support, from the ingeneers (or designers, or whatever the customer svce rep called them) and their answer is: "for every time I want to speak while reading the screen, or rotating the phone upwards to talk confortably, or when my ear burns under the sun (where any other phone works) : I should activate the speaker mode, or use a bluetooth or the earphones"

If you want to use your phone like a speaker phone, put it in speaker phone mode.  If you are looking at the screen how can you hear the person on the call?  I agree with you that Apple could do something based on the proximity sensor, but I don't see this as a defect, and I've never been impacted by it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by malax 

I saw that ad last night while watching TV with my brother-in-law (who has an Android phone).  His reaction was "why are they acting like that's a big deal; phones have had that feature for years."  Is he right?  Do Samsung and HTC phones do this too?

I don't know about years, but looking at my iPhone 4 and GS3, the iPhone 4 lacks such a sensor, but the GS3 has it. Now, does Samsung know how to use the sensor as well as Apple, it's a wild guess. I'm much more happy with my Apple gear.