Mahipal

I build Clarive, an iOS app that turns an iPhone and any headphones into a real-time listening device: audio amplification plus live captions, processed entirely on the device. I also write the articles on this site.

Why there's a name on these articles

Hearing is close enough to health that it matters who's telling you things. So: I'm a software engineer, not a clinician. What I can speak to with any authority is how iPhone audio actually behaves: how the microphone, headphone routing, and Apple's on-device speech recognition perform in real rooms, because I've spent a lot of time shipping against them and watching them fail in specific ways.

What I can't speak to is anything clinical. I can't tell you what your symptoms mean, whether you need a hearing aid, or how to interpret a hearing test. When an article gets near that line, it says so and points you to someone qualified. Anything about how hearing works cites a real source, usually the NIDCD or the WHO, rather than my own say-so.

How I write these

Every article starts from a question people actually search for, and answers it in the first few lines instead of making you scroll. Anything I say about Clarive is checked against what the app really does. Where I compare it to other apps, I say up front that I built one of them, and I point out where the others are better.

One thing to be clear about

Clarive is a sound amplification app, not a hearing aid or medical device. It doesn't diagnose or treat hearing loss. If you're having trouble hearing, see an audiologist or your doctor.