David Grissam's Made for iPhone hearing aids have made it possible to continue in his job as a 911 dispatcher. Grissam had steadily been losing his hearing, which was a serious problem for the 911 dispatcher based in Norman, Oklahoma. It had gotten to the point where normal hearing aids didn't work anymore. But then Grissam -- who has been legally deaf since the age of six -- got the Cochlear Baha 5 Sound Processor, a hearing device that's implanted in his skull. Connecting the Baha to his iPhone via Bluetooth lets the 44-year-old stream emergency calls directly to his ears, cutting out background noise and giving him crystal-clear sound.
"With head in the clouds iphone case me missing the audio coming in, I was really concerned I was going to miss one of my friends screaming for help because he was shot," Grissam said, But now, "I'm able to hear more than others in the room because of that direct link."The Baha is one of a crop of hearing devices that follow Apple's "Made for iPhone" program, which employ Bluetooth and a special protocol technology from Apple to better connect to iPhones and iPads, That lets users stream audio directly to their ears, much as you would with regular wireless Bluetooth headphones such as Apple's AirPods, Users pair one of 44 compatible, audiologist-issued hearing aids with their iPhones, allowing them to take phone calls or listen to apps like YouTube or Pandora..
For people like Grissam, these hearing aids are the difference between adequately doing a job and not. Grissam certainly isn't alone. More than 360 million people, or about 5 percent of the world's population, have disabling hearing loss, according to the World Health Organization. In the US alone, one in six Americans experience hearing issues, but about 80 percent do nothing about it, according to hearing aid maker Starkey. As the US baby boomer population ages, hearing loss will become an even bigger issue in the country.
The Made for iPhone-compatible hearing aids cut out the need for intermediary devices called streamers that connect hearing aids to phones, And it makes the use of hearing aids less obvious, helping remove the social stigma associated with them, "When people think about hearing technology, they don't think about small and stylish and wireless and superhigh quality audio," said Chris McCormick, Starkey's marketing chief, "When they hear about this tech, they say, 'I wish I'd done this five years ago.'"Apple's push into making its devices more accessible to the hearing impaired began with 2013's launch of iOS 7, which also introduced the Made for iPhone hearing aid program, They started working with 2011's iPhone 4S, 2012's head in the clouds iphone case fourth-generation iPad and 2013's fifth-generation iPod, Users can also control their hearing aids through an Apple Watch connected to an iPhone..
It's part of a broader initiative by Apple, which kicked off last week's MacBook Pro event with a video on accessibility and the launch of a new site dedicated to the issue. Apple's Made for iPhone technology lets people control hearing aids through an iOS device. "When we created the Made for iPhone hearing aid program, the key question was 'how do we improve the ability for someone with hearing loss to use an iOS device to do all the things everyone else does, from making phone calls to FaceTime to listening to music and watching movies?'" said Sarah Herrlinger, Apple's senior manager for global accessibility policy and initiatives.
