Speech

Person in motorized wheelchair looking at a Mac computer on a desk

If you have a speech disability or prefer to connect without using your voice, these innovations give you more ways to communicate, your way.

UpdatedLive Speech

Takes your typed words and speaks them out loud.

Available on:

iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch

Type what you want to say, and your device will speak it out loud. If you are unable to speak, have a speech disability or prefer to communicate through text, you can use Live Speech to stay connected during Phone and FaceTime calls as well as in-person conversations. You can also save commonly used phrases to help you easily respond during daily interactions and conversations. For example, you can create a “Coffee Shop” category to group phrases you frequently use, like “I’d like to order a tea” or “May I have cream and sugar with that?”

Set up Live Speech on:

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Categories for Live Speech. Live Speech offers the ability to group phrases into categories like Saved or Recent, or user-generated categories like Food or School.

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UpdatedPersonal Voice

Create a voice that sounds like you.

Available on:

iPhone, iPad, Mac

Those who are at risk of voice loss now have a simple and secure way to create a voice that sounds like them.1 Personal Voice guides you through a series of randomised text prompts to record 15 minutes of audio that can be used to generate a voice that sounds like you.2 If you have difficulty pronouncing or reading full sentences, you can even create your Personal Voice using short, three-word phrases. This feature uses on-device machine learning to keep your information private and secure. And you have the option to sync Personal Voice with end-to-end encryption on iCloud to use your voice on other Apple devices. It integrates seamlessly with Live Speech, so you can type what you want to say and have your iPhone, iPad, Mac or Apple Watch speak it aloud in your Personal Voice.

Set up Personal Voice on:

Updates:

New language available. Personal Voice now supports Mandarin Chinese.

Create with short phrases. People who have difficulty pronouncing or reading full sentences can create a Personal Voice using short, three-word phrases.

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NewVocal Shortcuts

Ask Siri to complete tasks by creating custom phrases.

Available on:

iPhone, iPad, Mac

If you have atypical speech, you can train Siri with unique pronunciations and utterances to activate shortcuts and complete complex tasks. Use a customised phrase to run automations at home like turning off the lights and locking your doors all at once. Up to 50 commands can be saved on your device. Vocal Shortcuts uses on-device machine learning to recognise your speech patterns. This occurs entirely and securely on your device and isn’t shared with Apple.

Set up Vocal Shortcuts on:

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Spoken Content

Reads any text on your screen aloud, including letters and words as you type.

Available on:

iPhone, iPad, Mac

Spoken Content

Spoken Content includes a collection of features that enable your devices to read text out loud. Use Speak Screen if you want to hear the content of your entire screen. Or try Speak Selection if you want to select and hear a specific range of text. During speech playback, you can control the pace of the reading more precisely with Speech Controller. And Typing Feedback speaks every letter you type. Spoken Content is available in more than 60 languages and locales, with more options to customise settings such as pitch range for your preferred built-in voices.3

Set up Spoken Content on:

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UpdatedFaceTime

Recognises and highlights you when you’re using sign language in group calls.

Available on:

iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV

FaceTime is a great way to stay connected to family and friends, especially if you rely on facial expressions, gestures or sign language to communicate. And with Sign Language Prominence, your tile will be highlighted as you sign during a Group FaceTime call. FaceTime uses high-quality video and a fast frame rate to ensure that you never miss a moment. On iPhone, iPad and Mac, Live Speech integrates seamlessly into FaceTime — just type your responses and your device speaks them out loud to others on the call. Or quickly chime in with your favourite saved phrases during animated conversations. FaceTime makes it easy to be even more expressive without a word. Use simple hand gestures to add a reaction that fills the camera frame with 3D augmented reality effects like hearts or confetti.4

Set up FaceTime on:

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UpdatedAccessibility Shortcut

Add, organise and customise shortcuts for the tools and settings you use most.

Available on:

iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Apple TV

Easily add, organise and customise the features you use the most in Control Centre or System Settings with the Accessibility Shortcut. You can triple-click the side button, Digital Crown or power button to quickly access your favourite features — like Live Speech or Spoken Content — without needing to leave the app you’re using.

Set up Accessibility Shortcut on:

Update:

Redesigned Control Centre. The redesigned Control Centre features new groups of controls, which you can access more fluidly with a single, continuous swipe down on the Home Screen. Add more controls from the Controls gallery, which shows all of your options in one place, including new controls from your favourite apps.

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UpdatedSiri

Type to activate Siri and adjust how long it takes Siri to respond.

Available on:

iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Apple TV, HomePod, AirPods, CarPlay

Siri can help you with the things you do every day without your needing to speak a word. Use Type to Siri to ask questions, set up reminders, issue commands and more.5 With Siri Pause Time, you can also adjust the amount of time Siri waits before responding, so you can speak comfortably at your own pace without worrying about Siri interrupting you. And now Siri can listen for atypical speech.

Set up Siri on:

Updates:

Atypical speech recognition. Listen for Atypical Speech helps Siri understand and work better for people with atypical speech.

Type to Siri launch gesture. With a double-tap on the bottom of your iPhone or iPad screen, you can Type to Siri from anywhere in the system when you don’t want to speak out loud.

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Back Tap

Double- or triple-tap the back of your iPhone to perform custom tasks.

Available on:

iPhone

Back Tap lets you double‑tap or triple‑tap the back of your iPhone to perform a range of custom tasks automatically.6 You can use Back Tap to start using your favourite speech features, like Live Speech or Speak Screen, even faster.

Set up Back Tap on:

iPhone

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UpdatedSwitch Control

Control your devices using mouth sounds like a click or a pop.

Available on:

iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV

Switch Control makes it easy and efficient to control your device with a variety of adaptive switch hardware, wireless game controllers or even sounds. You can use item, point and manual scanning to navigate sequentially through onscreen keyboards, menus and the Dock. Sound actions for Switch Control let you use simple mouth sounds — like a click, a pop or “ee” — to navigate sequentially and perform actions onscreen. And the same switch or sound actions you use to navigate and control your iPhone and iPad can be turned into a game controller.7

Set up Switch Control on:

Update:

Finger-tap gestures. Switch Control will include the option to use the cameras in iPhone and iPad to recognise finger-tap gestures as switches.

Go deeper with videos from Apple.

Learn tips, tricks and how-tos for speech features from Apple Support on YouTube.

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Make yours. showing Speak Selection feature.

Discover more about Apple accessibility features.

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