Dictation shuts up cooling fans!

[204353]

I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed this, but I've just discovered that activating Dictation while my MacBook Pro's fans are running at high speed causes them to suddenly go quiet, then speed up again once deactivated.

If you've got iStat Menus or another app that control the fan speed, you can test it out.

I thought that was pretty cool and wanted to share.

 

[cocacolakid]

Neat.

 

[ivnj]

indeed

 

[saxon48]

I can confirm this as well. Pretty sweet.

 

[Pompiliu]

Bad idea. The fans run high for a reason. I don't want my components to stay hot!

Bad idea, Apple!

 

[3bs]

Bad idea. The fans run high for a reason. I don't want my components to stay hot!

Bad idea, Apple!

You are right but they slow down for a reason, so it can listen to what you say without the loud fans interfering.

 

[CyBeRino]

Nice touch.

I wonder if it'll give up once a certain threshold of heat (or time) is reached.

 

[Nicklaus]

That is cool. I have a Mercedes that does the same thing when the A/C is on Max and you start voice recognition.

 

[eagandale4114]

I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed this, but I've just discovered that activating Dictation while my MacBook Pro's fans are running at high speed causes them to suddenly go quiet, then speed up again once deactivated.

If you've got iStat Menus or another app that control the fan speed, you can test it out.

I thought that was pretty cool and wanted to share.

I was testing dictation out while I reinstalled iLife from a disk and it will also spin down the disk drive then start to listen for commands.

 

[mentaluproar]

Bad idea. The fans run high for a reason. I don't want my components to stay hot!

Bad idea, Apple!

A CPU can just lower its clock frequency temporarily to compensate for the slower fan speed. When you are dictating, you don't need that extra power anyway.

This is a very apple idea. Does this happen on the minis as well?

 

[rpungello]

Unless I'm missing something, this doesn't work for me.
Fans are currently at 6,000rpm and bringing up dictation doesn't cause them to drop at all.

 

[eagandale4114]

Unless I'm missing something, this doesn't work for me.
Fans are currently at 6,000rpm and bringing up dictation doesn't cause them to drop at all.

At that speed it would probably assume that the system needs the cooling more than the noise cancelation.

 

[204353]

Unless I'm missing something, this doesn't work for me.
Fans are currently at 6,000rpm and bringing up dictation doesn't cause them to drop at all.

What model Mac do you have? It may be that this little feature is only supported on certain Macs; I'm guessing those that have an ability to temporarily clock down the CPU, as mentaluproar suggested.