Apple introduces voice aids: you can use iPhone to keep your voice

CTOnews.com, December 1 (Xinhua)-- Apple today issued a press release introducing two new assistive features, "real-time voice" and "personal voice," from the perspective of Tristram Ingham, a physician and disability rights advocate.

Real-time voice, another language aid introduced by Apple this fall, helps users enter what they want to say and say it out loud either through personal voice or through the system's built-in voice. Users with physical, mobile and language disorders can combine real-time voice with switching control and auxiliary touch to communicate in the most natural and comfortable way.

CTOnews.com Note: personal Voice is Apple's new feature in iOS 17, iPadOS 17 and macOS Sonoma this fall.

Users at risk of aphasia can use personal voice features to record 15 minutes of audio according to a series of text prompts to create sounds similar to their voices. For a long time, Apple has been in a leading position in the field of text-to-speech technology based on neural network. Through the personal voice function, Apple can completely train the neural network on the device side, thus improving the language assistance function while protecting the privacy of users.

Ingham created his personal voice for Apple's lost Voice and used iPhone to read aloud a new children's book of the same name for the International Day of disabled Persons. When Ingham first tried this feature, he was pleasantly surprised to find that it was easy to create a personal voice, and the effect sounded very similar to his voice.

Sarah Herrlinger, senior director of Apple for global accessibility policy and action, said:

At Apple, we design products for everyone, including people with disabilities.

Communication is an important part of human life, and we are committed to providing support to aphasia users and users at risk of aphasia.