AppleInsider StaffA pair of commercials featuring the iPhone 5 was posted to Apple's YouTube channel on Tuesday, with one focusing on the upcoming U.S. Thanksgiving holiday while another showcased the handset's noise-canceling rear microphone.
The first ad, aptly titled "Turkey" for the traditional dish served on Thanksgiving, is done in the style of recent Apple TV spots for the iPhone 5, with an upbeat narrator explaining Photo Stream. The spot begins with a user browsing pictures of a Thanksgiving feast on his iPhone 5, and moves quickly into the photo-sharing feature built into iOS 6.
Apple's second commercial, titled "Orchestra," is more hardware-centric and looks at the iPhone 5's noise canceling capabilities. The ad is unique in that it gives a rare, if not extremely brief, description of how an Apple feature functions, as the narrator points out the handset's rear-facing mic that samples sound from a user's surroundings and "helps turn them down." While not an in-depth look at the technology, the spotlight on the noise-canceling method is something not often seen by Apple, which traditionally keeps such minutiae far from consumers in the company's trademark "it just works" sales approach.
Both ads can be viewed by following the YouTube links above, or on Apple's iPhone videos page.
Andrew Orr
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5 Comments
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?
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.
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.