Apple has released a range of new functions with its recent software update, iOS17, including hearing accessibility features. Here are five of the most useful features that could help those with hearing loss.
- Live Voicemail is a new mainstream feature that allows you to automatically see a real-time transcription as someone leaves you a phone message. You’ll see the voicemail content displayed on your lock screen at the same time as the caller is speaking. If it’s something important, you can answer the call.
- The Live Speech function lets you type what you want to say and then have it spoken out loud when you’re making or taking phone calls or FaceTime calls. You can also use this when having a conversation in person.
- For clearer hearing, you can adjust various settings for phone features that are voice-based. For example, you can choose a voice and dialect or adjust the speaking rate, and you can adjust the pitch range for each of your preferred voices for VoiceOver and Spoken Content.
- Overcome issues understanding Siri, Apple’s voice activated personal assistant, by adjusting the Siri speaking rate. Now, you can customise the speed at which Siri speaks to you.
- Siri voices in VoiceOver have been improved so they sound even better at high rates of speech feedback. VoiceOver is a gesture-based screen reader that’s useful for people with vision impairments. It gives audible descriptions of what’s on your screen. Adjusting the speaking rate and pitch to suit your needs is useful for those with both hearing loss and vision impairment.
The iOS17 software is compatible with iPhone models released after 2018. Find out more about iPhone accessibility features at: https://www.apple.com/accessibility/
