We know that Apple has pushed a noise cancellation mic on the iPhone 4 and it matches up with what Google did on the Nexus One. But it seems that Apple really wants to go a step further with this and make the most of the extra hardware, guess how? Well the iOS would get smarter with time to handle background noise much more smartly. According to this patent filing by Apple Inc, your iPod or iPhone would automatically adjust the volume of your audio / video playback as per background noise. So if you are travelling by a train and suddenly you end up in a situation where a kid is crying near you or another train passing by, you wouldn’t have to trouble increasing the volume manually. This thing can also automatically trigger subtitles in such situations. Pretty neat idea I say!
This also opens up the possibility of noise sampling for training the software on how to handle background noise in the future. So you can expect the iOS to get smart audio controls and get smarter with time as it learns your usage / noise patterns.