that was my first thought, big bump to their ad program

The perfect crime - easily detectable, reputation destroying, barely profitable compared to information people give up willingly. Only Apple could come up with something so clever and so easily defeated, thanks to their boundless evil.

I have a child who had an individualized education program due to a disability. I recorded many meetings with an iPhone in my front pocket while sitting. Crystal clear audio every time.

The new tech is likely just for noisy environments and/or to enable whispered voice control of the phone.

This isn't about capturing the audio, it is about transcribing it. Transcribing whispered/garbled speech in the background is really really really hard.

I agree, being able to transcribe low quality audio would be an amazing new feature. What I was disputing was the notion that even an old iPhone is incapable of capturing crystal clear audio from an entire room while in your pocket. It has been able to do that forever.