I’m sitting here on the morning train and it is surprisingly quiet. So much so that other than the hum of the train on the rails there’s not much background noise to block out conversation. So when someone picks up their mobile and has a quick chat it’s audible from several seats away. Especially people like me with loud speaking voices to start with.

Yet for all the money and RD spent on new phones designs the basic problem of being overheard hasn’t been addressed.

Sure you can wear headphones, even those inner ear things like the ones that come with your iPhone but you still have to speak out loud.  They can make the voice recognition better every year but they can’t fix the fact that if you talk out loud you’re considered annoying at the least and out-and-out crazy in the extreme.  I want to use Siri a lot more but it’s still not ‘normal’ to talk to your phone.

Or your cat I suppose.