Live Speech On iPhone, iPad And Mac (iOS 17 Feature)
Live Speech on iPhone, iPad and Mac is coming alongside iOS 17, iPadOS 17 and macOS 14 later this year! Apple has announced a series of new Cognitive Accessibility features including the option of type to speak!
Live Speech Feature
This new Accessibility tool allows users to type what they want to say and have the text spoken out loud during phone or FaceTime calls.
The option also works for in-person conversations and will help users with speaking impairments to have their voices literally heard.
More: According to Apple, “users can also save commonly used phrases to chime in quickly during lively conversation with family, friends, and colleagues”.
Usability: Live Speech comes to support millions of people worldwide who were never able to speak or who have lost their speech over time.
Personal Voice For Live Speech
Another new feature that works hand-in-hand with Live Speech is Personal Voice!
It’s particularly useful for users at risk of losing their voice because of conditions like ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) or other conditions that can lead to speaking impairments!
How To Create Personal Voice iOS 17
Personal Voice uses machine learning to recreate the user’s voice! You only need to read out loud a randomized set of texts, that show up on your iPhone, iPad or Mac!
You have to read out 150 phrases including:
“Grabbing a cup of coffee this afternoon sounds great.”
A total of 15 minutes of audio will be recorded by your device and stored in a private and secure way. This data will be used by iOS 17 to create a voice that sounds like you.
Fact: You can use your artificial voice with Live Speech and actually use your Personal Voice when engaging with your contacts!
Personal Voice Not Available?
You can create your artificial voice on an iPhone, iPad, and Mac (equipped with Apple silicon).
Important: Personal Voice will be initially only available for the English language!
We will continue to update this article as more information becomes available. We expect more data about Live Speech and Personal Voice during the WWDC 2024 keynote scheduled for Monday, June 5!
What do you think about these new features upcoming in iOS 17, iPadOS 17 and macOS 14? Share your feedback in the comments!
Related: Apple has also announced Detection Mode for the Magnifier app that brings a new Point and Speak feature for iPhone users with visual impairments!
