“Live Speech” is actually an iOS 17 accessibility feature that was announced a couple weeks before WWDC. Using AI the feature allows you input text & iOS will then speak that text out loud IN the voice of the person you set the feature up with!
When the beta dropped for iOS 17 this was one of the features, I tested out first as when I first read about it the technology behind it just blew my mind away.
What’s Live Speech Like?
On my iPhone I’ve set-up 2 voices. First, I tested it out on myself. It did okay with this however if I wrote more than a sentence it would start to go a bit washy and that didn’t sound too much like me.
I then tested the feature with a friend & set up his voice to on my phone as well (You can pick and choose the voices in settings after set up) and for him it has performed incredibly well! It sounded just like him even when I wrote a paragraph it was like he was there inside my phone sending an audio message.
Setting Up Live Speech
The set-up process for the feature is also worth talking about. To find it Live Speech is in the accessibility section of the settings app. (Which I actually think is starting to become a bit cluttered, especially for the more buried settings)
After giving your voice a name, the iPhone will get you to read 1 sentence out this is to test out your audio quality and following that you have to read out loud to your phone range of random sentences. This process can be lengthy and over the two times it was completed on my phone I would say that it takes an average of around 13 minutes to complete. the good news is you do not have to do that all in one sitting it is very easy to pause it at any point and recording in the settings app again.
Once everything has been recorded, the app will ask to allow notifications. This is because the phone now needs to compile all those recordings into a file. This can ONLY be done with the iPhone plugged in and it takes a few hours. Your best bet with this is to plug your phone in when you go to bed and leave it alone. (You can also export the recordings easily to your Mac via AirDrop where they are, then all contained in a zip file)
If you want to read a little more about Live Speech or other new iOS 17 accessibility features I recommend checking out this official article from Apple’s Newsroom site - https://www.apple.com/uk/newsroom/2023/05/apple-previews-live-speech-personal-voice-and-more-new-accessibility-features/ or check out my own personal FULL review on iOS 17 here -> https://kylewilkinson53.wixsite.com/kylewilkinsononline/post/one-month-into-ios-17-time-for-the-review
Thanks for reading,
Kyle Wilkinson
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