Category: General

Q: What's so great about using the phone to record voice? Why not just use a microphone?

A: Microphones have their place, but they have a number of disadvantages compared with phones:

1.  Everybody knows how to use a phone.  Using a microphone on a computer can be confusing, even if you are comfortable with computers.

2.  Not all computers have microphones.

3.  These days, almost everybody carries a cell phone, so they can make voice recordings any time, any place – even when not anywhere near a computer.  Not only does this mean you can count on anybody being able to leave a recording, but you can also contemplate applications that don’t have anything to do with people sitting near computers.

4.  Typically, the quality of recordings from the phone is actually better than that from a computer microphone.  This may seem counterintuitive – in fact, we were a bit surprised by this one ourselves – but computer microphones are typically pretty cheap, and people don’t usually get close enough to them to produce good audio.  Phones are shaped so that voice gets picked up really well.  Our developers with applications that allow both phone and microphone input consistently report that the audio is a lot better from the phones than from microphone-based recording.

5.  Trying to access a microphone from Flash requires the user to see and accept an alert that can raise security concerns, and that adds one more step to the process of getting a voice recording made.

For all these reasons, the phone is a better option in 99% of cases where you want to get a voice recording made.