Thanks to the iPhone’s little-known Personal Voice feature, you can preserve your voice forever. To activate this feature, you will only need to read a few queries for 15 minutes and then you will always be able to hear your voice as it is at that moment.
Although this function may seem fun for some technology lovers, it has a much different value for some who have lost the ability to speak for various reasons.
Apple actually offers the Personal Voice feature not for fun, but precisely for this reason. This feature was first shown before WWDC 2023 but was an iOS 17 function. Apple says this feature was developed to help people who are at risk of losing their voice.
As the company explains: “Users can create a Personal Voice by reading a random series of text prompts to record 15 minutes of audio on iPhone or iPad. “This speech accessibility feature uses on-device machine learning to keep users’ information private and secure, and integrates seamlessly with Live Speech so users can speak with their Personal Voice while connecting with loved ones.”
Live Voice, for example, allows users to type what they want to say and then have it spoken for them on a phone or FaceTime call. If you use Personal Voice, even if you just typed a reply, the person on the other end of the call can hear that reply in your real voice.
To record your Personal Voice, you can follow the steps below:
- Open the Settings app. Tap Accessibility, then tap Personal Audio.
- Tap Create Personal Voice.
- Follow the on-screen instructions to record your voice.
Tap Done or close the Settings app to pause your recording session. Your progress will be saved. To resume a recording session:
- Go to Settings > Accessibility > Personal Audio.
- Tap the Personal Voice you want to continue creating.
- Tap Continue Recording and then follow the on-screen instructions.
You can then use Live Audio as follows:
- Open the Settings app. Tap Accessibility, then tap Live Speech.
- Open Live Chat.
- Under Sounds, tap your keyboard language and then choose a voice to use. (You may need to tap the Download button to download a sound before you can select it.)
- To adjust the pitch or speed of a sound, tap the Sound Settings button next to the sound.
To show how powerful this feature is, Apple even released a video on how this function works, showing the story of a father who lost the ability to speak but still reads fairy tales to his daughter.
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