When using earphones, it can be particularly dangerous when outside noise is blocked out. This is even more the case when using earphones that isolate noise.
The Awareness app has been built for the iPhone and is designed to work in the background of your iOS 4 device. What it does is use the microphone to track ambient noise levels. When you first load up the app, you are presented with a meter. The iPhone app measures the surrounding noise and sets a default level for the environment you are in.
When you are walking down the street for example and a loud noise occurs above the standard level, such as a truck passing or a car horn, the application lets the noise through to the earphones so you can hear the external noise.
For those walking around listening to music this can be ideal and a safety measure to let you be aware of your surroundings.
There are a few options such as a Ducking mode that actually lowers the volume of your music when noise levels increase. Unfortunately, this feature doesn’t work at the moment due to a bug in iOS. However, Apple [AAPL] is aware of this bug and as soon as a patch is released the ducking feature will work.
Other options include the ability to manually set the volume levels.
One example shared over at MacWorld
talks about using the app on a subway where a lot of noise is had. If calibrated on your journey the rumbles wont trigger and let sound through, but when the conductor announces the next stop, this will take it over the threshold and let the sound through.
It’s quite a unique app and one that’s well worth grabbing if you use your earphones for walking and running in areas where cars/trucks might be.
Price wise, it costs $5 and requires that the iPhone or iPod touch is running iOS 4.1 or later. It is available now on iTunes.
Speak Your Mind
You must be logged in to post a comment.