Apple announces Live Speech, Personal Audio, and more accessibility features

Apple presented this Tuesday (16), new accessibility features coming to iPhone, iPad and Mac later this year. The tools target cognitive accessibility (for example, for people with autism), vision, hearing, mobility and speech impairments.

will be one of the innovations Assistive Access, which allows non-speaking users to type to make the device speak for example during calls. Assistive Access includes a personalized experience for Phone and FaceTime combined with Messages, Camera, Photos and Music, and a single Calling app.

Starting with the new system, devices will have high contrast buttons and text labels. For example, those who prefer to communicate visually can use the Messages app with only the emoji keyboard and the option to record video messages.

Live Talk was another announcement made by Apple. It will be a system available for iPhone, iPad and Mac where users can type what they want to say to say it aloud during phone calls, FaceTime and even personal conversations.

one of the possibilities Live Talk records frequently used phrases to be said during interactions with family, friends and colleagues. The system has been designed with support in mind for people who have lost the ability to speak.

Personal Voice & Point & Speak

It will also launch on Apple devices later this year. Personal Voice that creates a synthesized sound. Targeting people at risk of losing the ability to speak, such as patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), the innovation enables the creation of a personal voice with the support of machine learning.

Personal Voice will be released for iPhone, iPad, and Mac and will initially be available in English only. It will also have Live Talk integration.

For the visually impaired, Show and Talk (Point and Speak Portuguese). The tool, available on iPhone and iPad, uses the LiDAR Scanner to read what’s written on physical objects.

The novelty can be used, for example, for the device to read aloud to a person all the text options typed in a household appliance such as a microwave oven. In addition to text detection, person detection, door detection and image identification are possible.

Point and Speak will start with support for English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, PortugueseChinese, Cantonese, Korean, Japanese and Ukrainian.