Walt's Corner

I’ve seen this everywhere. Even coming down through “official channels” at work. The warning begins as some form of warning that Apple is actively listening in on your personal conversations, and directs you to look at a particular setting on your iPhone/iPad/iWatch/Mac settings for proof. And there it is. And, there it is! Sho’ ‘nuff, Live Listen is “on” and something about transcripts in the description! Not only this, but since the OS upgrade, it has been set to on by default across all devices!

I’m not going to retype what someone has already written out with an abridged version so I’ll just link to sixcolors article right here. The best description I’ve seen yet.

The gist? Our first clue is that it is in the accessibility area. For folks who have certain disabilities that an added accessibility can assist with. In this case, hearing. Your devices will be used to help cancel out unwanted noise in an environment, and even provide you with a written transcript if you choose. Just like those phone commercials you see where hard-of-hearing grandma is able to read what her grandchildren are saying to her, right on her phone screen.

So do you need this feature? No? Turn that shit off. Should Apple have set that on by default with the new upgrade? I’d say no. But they probably had their reasons. What people need to be worried about is how Facebook manages to use your iPhone’s mic to listen to what you are saying and start showing you advertisements for what you were talking about just 5 minutes ago. That’s the real conspiracy theory, yo. frfr. And that has nothing to do with your Live Listen setting. But folks keep on spreading the conspiracy on the very platform that is the conspiracy. I hate to break this to everyone, but your phone is the listening device, and it is always listening. We choose to accept it or get rid of it. This why I have always named my phones WIRETAP.

So who is getting rid of their phone? What’s that? No one? That’s what I thought.

Which brings me to a variation of my favorite meme: