AppShopper

spacer Blog RSS
  • What's New
  • My Apps
  • Wish List
  • Top 200
  • Blog

Search

spacer

Sponsors

About AppShopper

For more information on Contacting Us, App Submissions, and Advertising, visit our About page

  • Archives

    • March 2015
    • October 2014
    • September 2014
    • June 2014
    • April 2014
    • March 2014
    • February 2014
    • January 2014
    • November 2013
    • October 2013
    • September 2013
    • August 2013
    • July 2013
    • June 2013
    • May 2013
    • April 2013
    • March 2013
    • February 2013
    • January 2013
    • December 2012
    • November 2012
    • October 2012
    • September 2012
    • August 2012
    • July 2012
    • June 2012
    • May 2012
    • April 2012
    • March 2012
    • February 2012
    • January 2012
    • December 2011
    • November 2011
    • October 2011
    • September 2011
    • August 2011
    • July 2011
    • June 2011
    • May 2011
    • April 2011
    • March 2011
    • February 2011
    • January 2011
    • December 2010
    • November 2010
    • October 2010
    • September 2010
    • August 2010
    • July 2010
    • June 2010
    • May 2010
    • April 2010
    • March 2010
    • February 2010
    • November 2009
    • October 2009
    • September 2009
    • August 2009
    • July 2009
    • June 2009
    • December 2008
    • November 2008
    • October 2008
  • Categories

    • App Store 70
    • iPad 626
    • iPhone 671
    • Mac 114
    • Site News 45
    • Uncategorized 8
26 APR

ChatterBlocker for iPhone Blocks Out Unwanted Conversations

by Marianne Schultz
 

spacer With my iPhone as my default MP3 player, it’s a handy tool to drown out other noises and focus on my work. However, there are situations where listening to music isn’t all that effective at blocking out other sounds and The Sound Guy has come to the rescue for those times with the release of ChatterBlocker for the iPhone, an app that masks the noise of conversations around you with background chatter and nature sounds.

Cubicle dwellers often have trouble hearing themselves think when surrounded by irrelevant conversations,” said Earl Vickers, CEO of The Sound Guy, Inc. “ChatterBlocker minimizes the intelligibility of nearby speech in a way that is more effective and less distracting than listening to music.”

ChatterBlocker presents you with several preset sound mixes on the main tab of voice and nature sounds and both combined. The Voices tab lets you select from voice chatter sounds, offering low, medium, and high pitch levels for male and female voices. The third tab offers nature sounds only like rain, birdsong and wind. You can also create your own mixes from the sounds provided.

The voice sounds offered are unintelligible chatter, as if you were standing near a crowd of people talking but not close enough to be able to hear exactly what they’re saying. The Sound Guy claims that these types of sounds can reduce the intelligibility of conversations near you, allowing you to ignore them more easily to focus on whatever you’re doing. In my brief tests with ChatterBlocker at a busy coffee shop, selecting the appropriate voice types of those closest to me and the nature sounds I preferred, I found this to work as claimed for the most part.

The Sound Guy has created a video overview of ChatterBlocker for the iPhone:


 
ChatterBlocker has been around for several years for both Windows and Mac and these desktop versions offer additional features not available in the iPhone version, such as the ability to use your own music files. However, having ChatterBlocker on your iPhone can be much more convenient, particularly if you’re reading or performing some other activity where you’re not using your computer but still want to block out conversations around you.

ChatterBlocker debuted in the App Store earlier this week and costs $2.99. It’s compatible with the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad and requires iOS 4.3 or higher.

  • $299Buy Now
    Productivity
    spacer

    ChatterBlocker

    Last Changed:
    40 months ago
    Rating:
    4.00 (22)
    Version:
    1.01
    iOS iPhone

    ChatterBlocker masks unwanted conversations so you can focus on your work, not your coworkers. ChatterBlocker blurs speech using a soothing blend of nature sounds and background chatter....

« Clear for iPhone Gets New Themes, Shake to Undo, More
Q’ed Offers Netflix DVD Queue Management on iPhone and iPad »

5 Comments

  1. spacer Adams Immersive
    3:28 pm, April 26th, 2012

    There are many “sound machines” for this kind of thing, but the top of the line has to be Ambiance. I use it every night, just about. Granted, it’s like the Microsoft Word of sound machines… the features are a little overkill sometimes! There’s a simpler version of Ambiance that I used to us, and I think it’s still available too.

  2. spacer Rob Duncan
    8:29 pm, April 27th, 2012

    I love video introductions that talk up a product but give zero demonstrations.

    Marketing skills 101 – customers won’t buy what they can’t try.

    Fail.

  3. spacer Earl Vickers
    1:51 pm, April 28th, 2012

    Rob,

    We farmed out the video press release and this is what they came up with. I wish we had the budget to do something fancier, and I wish there was an easy way to post demos for the App Store.

    You’re welcome to download the Mac or Windows version from chatterblocker.com/downloads.html to get an idea of what it does. The iPhone version is similar, but without the music tracks (due to download size constraints). People seem to love it, as you can see from our reviews & testimonials page, chatterblocker.com/reviews_testimonials.html . The reviews so far on the App Store are positive as well.

    I appreciate your marketing suggestions, though frankly the “Fail” seemed a little unnecessary and kind of hurt my feelings. spacer

    Earl

  4. spacer Norz
    10:23 am, April 29th, 2012

    Earl,

    Thanks for your answer. I also was disappointed by the video, as it merely shows screenshots of the app and web page. I wanted to get an idea (without downloading/buying the app) of how effective it was.

    As you suggested, trying the Mac version could achieve that too, thanks for the suggestion. spacer

    Norz

    PS: I hope your feelings are/will be healed by the positive feedback on the App. 😉

  5. spacer Earl Vickers
    7:40 am, April 30th, 2012

    You could also preview a sample preset at itunes.apple.com/us/album/chatterblocker-nature-sounds/id343062220 . This one is a mix of
    – Cave Wind
    – Creek
    – Spanish Banks
    – Male Chatter – Low
    – Male Chatter – High
    with the chatter voices mixed at a pretty low level.

Leave a comment

Copyright - 2000-2008 Normalkid, LLC
gipoco.com is neither affiliated with the authors of this page nor responsible for its contents. This is a safe-cache copy of the original web site.