Audience, the company behind the EarSmart technology used to power Siri in the iPhone 4S, has issued a statement insisting it is “unlikely” Apple will use its technology in the iPhone 5. It helped Apple develop part of the A5 chip that enables the iPhone to filter out background noise while you’re using Siri, but it seems Apple no longer needs its help.
Without Audience’s technology in your iPhone, there’s a good chance Siri wouldn’t function at all unless you used it in a quiet room. Its digital signal processor cleverly ignores background noise and other voices around you to enable your iPhone to understand you. But the technology won’t be integrated into the iPhone 5.
Audience explained:
Audience sells processors and licenses its processor IP to Apple Inc. and certain of its subsidiaries (collectively, OEM) for inclusion in the OEM’s mobile phones pursuant to a Master Development and Supply Agreement (MDSA). Pursuant to a statement of work under the MDSA, amended in March 2012, Audience developed and licensed a new generation of processor IP for use in the OEM’s devices…
Audience now believes that it is unlikely that the OEM will enable Audience’s processor IP in its next generation mobile phone. Audience is not aware of any intended changes by this OEM to its use of Audience’s processors or processor IP in prior generations of the OEM’s mobile phones.
It seems incredibly unlikely that Apple would have given up on Siri, and so the only explanation for this could be that the Cupertino company has developed its own sound processing technology for future devices. Given the fact that it has done this in the past, ditching services like Google Maps in favor of its own, this certainly seems like a feasible scenario.
We’re sure to find out more come September 12.
Source: Audience
Via: Gizmodo
