iOS 17 with Personal Voice & Live Speech now available

[lgelb]

You can go to Software Update on your iOS device to download it. Personal Voice is the new app that does sort of accelerated voice banking and Live Speech is an app that reads text using that voice. The early reviews are positive.

Once you have downloaded/installed iOS 17, the path to record your voice is Settings → Accessibility → Personal Voice (Under Speech). Live Speech is in the same place.

There will be more apps that use your voice in the future as developers have access to the API.

 

[Nikki J]

If you have an iphone 10 or earlier it won’t be supported. It may be time to upgrade

 

[lgelb]

Yes, the list of Personal Voice supported devices (not every mobile device that runs iOS17 is compatible) is:

• iPhone 12 or later
• iPad Air (5th generation)
• iPad Pro 11-inch (3rd generation) or later
• iPad Pro 12.9-inch (5th generation) or later
• Also, a Mac with Apple Silicon running Sonoma (scheduled for release Sept. 26).

Upgrading to a device with the TrueDepth camera also gives you more options in terms of head/eye control.

I should have also noted that the new Apple TV OS, which also dropped today, adds the ability to Facetime using your Apple TV screen, which may be less awkward for some PALS.

 

[BobbyRayC]

It should be noted that personal voice will only work on ipads with the A14 and later chipset. This also requires at least an iphone 12. The update will install on all supported devices, but personal voice will not install on these earlier chipsets. My ipad updated but does not have personal voice. If you're in the market for one of these to get personal voice keep this in mind.

 

[lgelb]

Thank you for pointing that out, Bobby Ray. Evidently the updated list was only released after the iOS. I have updated my post above accordingly, with the addition of certain Macs for which the same features will be available as of 9/26..

 

[Nikki J]

Does anyone know if this will use a lot of storage space? I am one of the people who needs to upgrade ( I was getting ready to anyway I have a 7) and I was planning on getting the least storage as I don’t use very much now

 

[Wilson2009]

Both the 14s and 15s start with 128 GB as the minimum. Given you are upgrading from a 7, I don't think you will have a memory problem.

 

[Nikki J]

I have 256 now but only using 50ish. Thanks.

 

[lgelb]

Reportedly, iOS 17 itself takes 8-10 GB after settling in/indexing. Of course, I would envision the voice stuff taking a few more. I am running iOS 17, with Personal Voice, with a 64GB SE.

 

[Buglaw]

For those of us with severely degraded speech but not using an eye gaze, is there any way to use our banked voice to upload it? This seems great, but it’s about four months too late for me to realistically voice bank again.

 

[Nikki J]

I am able to do this on my ipad and started today. It is very straightforward. You have to read 150 sentences I don’t think they would be easy if speech is affected. Mine isn’t but I only got through 19 because I tire easily. So if you want to do it don’t wait. I will let you know how it turns out. Also I tried to create a second voice ( which is completely possible) and switched my ipad to French. I still got English sentences even though the directions were in French. Hopefully they will update for all languages the ipad supports