Is the iPhone mic able to pick the entire audible spectrum (and then some)? Does this mean companies like Neumann, Shure, Rode should feel someone is coming for their lunch?
My assumption is that we'll see the same development in the audio recording space as we saw it in the camera space. It's not 1:1 exactly the same - microphones have always been a lot more in the (semi-) professional area than cameras have been, and stage mics etc. aren't going anywhere. But for home recording, be that audio-only or the audio for your video, dedicated microphones (and audio interfaces) will see their market shrink significantly.
Guitar pedal and amp modelling of some real quality and portability hit the market over a decade ago, but in that time the boutique analogue market for effects and amplifiers has exploded.
It'll be hard to model the variations possible in microphone configuration. There are some techniques that will just plain require multiple dedicated microphones—no matter the environment.
But other solutions like Zoom handhelds will definitely diminish in number. I used to rent something like that to direct from the soundboard so a former band could record our live sets. Now all you need is a line-in to your phone.
Same with just being able to jot down ideas—I'm totally excited to have recordings to my phone not end up compressed garbled messes—even possibly usable? Yes please!
That said, if everyone is done with their Neumann's, you can kindly deposit them with me for free!
From what I have read, it is important to have a physically large condenser/diphragm for a mic to have high fidelity. Could you educate me a bit please?
At least for photography, I can tell you with certainty, an iphone camera is basically a toy when you are talking of challenging scenes being put on large fine art prints. It is nowhere near creating same "fidelity" images as even a micro 4/3rd camera, and there are medium format digital cameras out there.
However, if you look at the sales of consumer grade cameras as well as DSLRs, you'll see that smartphones ate a lot of their market. A quick Google gives you this continuously declining graph of DSLR sales, for example:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/799526/shipments-of-digi...
A phone will never replace a serious camera for large fine art prints. And the same is true for audio. But already, you have cases like Kanye claiming that 20% of the vocals from his last album were recorded in voice memos:
https://www.gq.com/story/inside-kanye-west-vision-for-the-fu...
Anyone looking for solid semi-pro audio quality from their iPhone/iPad can spend around $100 and get a quite nice audio capture card with traditional XLR / 1/4" cable support; allowing them to directly plug a guitar, amp; or microphone into the device.
I have had a lot of success with this method - I wouldn't really suggest recording with the internal microphones on the iPhone if you are looking for any sort of notable quality.
I'm not sure how you could even effectively sing into it with a sense of actual response from the mic like I get with even a basic Shure SM58.
Not really a comparable tool. More for whole room recording, maybe; but even then you'll of course be missing a lot of the bass frequencies and get a bunch of garbage you don't want.
For recording singing voice, the microphone itself is part of the instrument set up, and trained singers react to the behaviour of the mic instantly as they sing. I agree that it'll be borderline impossible to replace an SM58 for that.
That being said, room recordings are a very common use case. Tape It isn't designed to replace a professional recording environment; it's rather there to help you in the stages before you get to recording at professional quality.
Looking a bit into the future, though, I think it's reasonable to assume that the quality will steadily increase, and such will its applications. Just compare video capture on the iPhone today vs ten years ago.
The microphone is, as I understand it, optimized for voice communication, since its main original job is to be a telephone.
Admittedly, your comment made me curious - I think I might have to annoy my neighbours with some bass playing this evening. In my experience, recording with my iPhone Xs, the bass frequencies of my synth are picked up extremely well.
If the bass is indeed lacking, maybe we can recover some of it algorithmically. I'm not thinking about EQing, more like having a fantastic paper idea for some good academic work :-).
I'll take the version 1.0 excuse card if I may :D. All kidding aside, we know our instrument detection has room for improvement. But you gotta start somewhere :).