Over years, the iPhone has evolved into something that is more than just a smartphone; it’s a necessity and a brand symbol that defines you. However, as with all technology (even the good one), there can always be faults and loopholes, even if minor ones, and like all technology, they can usually be fixed through simple workarounds. Here’s one just like that.

You must’ve had that one painful conversation on your smartphone (read: iPhone) where you were in a night-club like environment (at least one with the same decibel levels) and had to take a call, only to realize that the other party cannot make heads or tails of what you were trying to say thanks to the background disturbance. These days, almost all modern smartphones carry a noise cancellation microphone in the form of a second on-board option to address this very common problem. With the iPhone on iOS 7, there is a new option that allows active noise cancellation to be activated at a much larger level than you’d normally have had on precious versions of iOS.

The option is basically meant for people that require hearing assistance, but should work for others as well. It is available as part of the accessibility options on iPhone 5 and above running iOS 7 or later, and here’s how you can activate it:

Step 1: On your iPhone, go to the Settings app and navigate to General.

Step 2: Scroll down and locate Accessibility options, which contain a lot more useful stuff than we give it credit for.

Step 3: Under Hearing, you’ll see an option for Phone Noise Cancellation. Enable that.

Step 4: Reboot your iPhone for good measure.

That’s it for the whole procedure itself. Your second mic for noise cancellation should work at a higher sensitivity rate as compared to before, and will most likely drown as much background noise as possible even in really loud environments. This isn’t a fix and is definitely not what Apple intended this setting for, but it is a workaround as we discussed earlier, and you might just be thankful at some point when it manages to save you from an embarrassing conversation.

If this workaround work for you, then be sure to let us know in the comments section below.

(Source: Michael Lauf [Twitter])

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