WTF are you guys talking about? Why would anyone that doesn't need a hearing aid wear one? That could actually damage your ear more than it helps. PLUS what would the advantage of having an iAid over every other existing hearing aids?
Did your search and found this:
http://thehearingblog.com/archives/1348#.Ub2HcNhhuSo
Yes, I got this a long time ago, a clear sales pitch to buy, buy, buy now. I didn't consider that post useful.
Would the hearing aids be more dangerous than earbuds or headphones when they are used the same way? Actually they could turn the volume down if you found yourself in a room with a bad, but loud band.
Thinking about it, parents could set the maximum loudness on the app so that the kids can't crank it up like they sometimes do now, really hurting their ears.
The advantage is that your phone and music could play through high quality little speakers in your ear, pretty much invisible, and of course if your hearing was shot you could live a better life. Many even young people have had their hearing damaged in battle, in loud shops, in bands and many are born with varying levels of hearing disabilities. Many of them refuse to wear aids now because they are not cool, but this would change.
Your phone app would adjust the sound, much like an equalizer for a stereo. There could be pre-sets for noisy bars, for quiet nature walks, for conversation, etc. Audiologist now have no choice but to come up with settings that fit average use, often not ideal for certain situations.
What could be interesting is to combine this with GPS. If you walk into a bar your settings would change automatically, then change again when you go to the chess club.
Those with particular problems could focus narrowly on the person they are talking to. High end aids now use various auditory schemes to isolate subjects, but imagine being able to just totally concentrate on one person in a noisy place.
Right now quality hearing aids cost from $6000 to $9000! Medicare, insurance...almost no plan of any sort covers these. That is one hell of a lot of money to pay out and one reason that only a fraction of the population who needs these has them.
Audiologists are very worried that there will be internet sales of hearing aids that the buyers would then adjust themselves on their phones, with the help of apps perhaps, and even they agree many people could do a good job of this and they would fine tune it over time. Consumer Reports found that some huge percentage of hearing aids were not adjusted properly by audiologists, something like 60%! So, we could do just as well in most cases. Can you hear, does it sound natural...not that hard with the help of what we expect would be good apps.
In any case, the hope is that competition from direct sales would bring down the costs significantly.
This post was too long and I did not cover all the benefits that iAids would bring. It is a big deal.
BTW, just to be clear, Apple would not make the aids. They would just work with manufacturers, and it seems the big ones are on board for this, to make sure the iPhone app and the aids would work properly (this is important due to messing around with medical stuff).
