iOS 16.4 Adds Voice Isolation for Cellular Phone Calls

[antiprotest]

wow thanks for explaining nothing.. they are both the same thing but one of them recognizes your voice and lets it pass through

Um, you just refuted yourself. You repeated part of the explanation showing that it's not nothing.

Voice isolation uses AI. Noise Cancellation does not. It's more complicated than that, but even just this point means that they are different technologies and the explanation tells you that.

 

[CarAnalogy]

wow thanks for explaining nothing.. they are both the same thing but one of them recognizes your voice and lets it pass through

This is very confusing with the removal of the feature in Accessibility and this as its replacement. I’m not sure what exactly the accessibility setting did, it seems Voice Isolation is its successor and for whatever reason they pulled it from the 13 before its replacement was ready.

I believe noise canceling is always active. Test this by calling yourself and leaving a voicemail while driving in your car with the window down or similar. You should hear very little wind noise if you’re using it in handset mode and not speakerphone.

Voice Isolation just seems to be an ML enhancement to take that already noise canceled audio and further cut down background noise.

 

[Ursadorable]

Can they add a feature where you get punched in the face each time someone inappropriately uses speakerphone like say in a restaurant?

 

[antiprotest]

This is very confusing with the removal of the feature in Accessibility and this as its replacement. I’m not sure what exactly the accessibility setting did, it seems Voice Isolation is its successor and for whatever reason they pulled it from the 13 before its replacement was ready.

I believe noise canceling is always active. Test this by calling yourself and leaving a voicemail while driving in your car with the window down or similar. You should hear very little wind noise if you’re using it in handset mode and not speakerphone.

Voice Isolation just seems to be an ML enhancement to take that already noise canceled audio and further cut down background noise.

I think you have it exactly right. (1) Even in "normal" mode there is some noise cancellation. Maybe too little if you are outside with traffic. (2) But voice isolation would eliminate almost all the noise.

This video demonstrates both of these points.

 

[CarAnalogy]

nahh that won't happen due to legal reasons in many countries...

I’ve heard this argument but I don’t understand it. Android has many call recording apps. Apple simply doesn’t allow any app but Phone to access anything to do with cellular calls.

Apple is so slow to add any useful functionality at all to the Phone app that I think this is just more apathy on their part than any legal issue. There are many countries and US states where phone call recording is perfectly legal, many of them “one party” states where you don’t even have to inform the other person on the call.

The iPhone can be used to do all sorts of things that aren’t legal everywhere. Apple is not liable for that.

 

[Chazak]

This was a feature previous to the iPhone 13. There were even articles about how the noise cancelation option disappearing for the newest phones.

The iPhone 13's noise cancellation is gone and not coming back

Apple confirms the removal of the Phone Noise Cancellation accessibility feature on its newest phones.

www.macworld.com

Apple may have dropped built-in noise cancellation on the iPhone 13

Apple's "Noise Cancellation" accessibility feature has been a staple on past iPhones, but may have been permanently removed from the iPhone 13.

www.engadget.com

Apple confirms iPhone 13 series lacks noise cancellation during phone calls

The feature was available on previous generation iPhones for over a decade. Apple Support officially confirmed iPhone 13 series lacks call noise...

www.gsmarena.com

I doubt this is the same version.

That's a lousy reason to not implement it. I should be allowed to record a call if I want to and face any consequences of that recording myself.

It feels so stupid to have to use another device and speakerphone to record a call for legal reasons, when there is no technical reason the iPhone couldn't do this directly.

It has nothing to do with technical reasons. Primarily, it is legal reasons. And yes, it is an invasion of privacy unless one or more parties on the call has an exemption. People in states where it requires mutual consent should be grateful.

 

[Robert.Walter]

 Cone Of Silence

 

[smoking monkey]

This is a really big deal. I can't believe the difference it's made on FT and other voice calling apps when you talk to people with fans on in their location or droning background noise. It really is a game changer.

 

[M5RahuL]

You're opening up a whole new debate with this comment, I remember having this as an option on my Nokia N80 and N95, these days you'd have the whole privacy arguement before anything else.

I'm going to dig out my old N Series phones now, they were brilliant.

Man, I miss my N95-4 !.. N and E series S60 devices were awesome!

 

[Nermal]

Exactly why / for what purpose would you want this?

Think of the number of companies where "customer service" promises something, then never does it and claims that it was never promised. Those types of calls often begin with a "this call may be recorded" statement too.

 

[tothemoonsands]

This, to me, seems like a way for Apple to strengthen analytics on voice separation for use in Siri. It coincides nicely with rumors that they are going to remove “Hey” from the equation so you can just say “Siri, [command]”.

 

[Osxguy]

The phone portion of the iPhone is honestly the worse element of it. From dropped calls, wifi calling not working 100%, voicemail is still a mess (try taking notes on a voice mail it stops playing?!?) the only thing that finally happened was getting Lists aka groups a feature ten years in the making yet a simple feature that should have come out years ago.

 

[segfaultdotorg]

Isn't this iPhoneOS 16.4? Or did they go back to having a single iOS for iPad and iPhone?

 

[genovelle]

Finally!!! It irked the hell out of me that voice isolation is supported for every other form of voice calls besides cellular. Which I use the most, and I am sure others do to. I don't get why they didn't release this support at launch of the voice isolation feature.

This will greatly increase the clarity of calls between iphone users overall. This update should also dramatically increase voice clarity while using airpods!

That’s really odd because I thought this was already happening. Since the beginning at least when on my headset background noise including music playing in the car from my device was being filtered out.

 

[svish]

Great feature. Will definitely try this out.

 

[FelixDerKater]

This is a useful feature. Make more of them.

 

[Jdizzle188]

The phone portion of the iPhone is honestly the worse element of it. From dropped calls, wifi calling not working 100%, voicemail is still a mess (try taking notes on a voice mail it stops playing?!?) the only thing that finally happened was getting Lists aka groups a feature ten years in the making yet a simple feature that should have come out years ago.

You've just got me thinking of another feature that I've never seen, iCloud voicemail transcripts was it called? I've never ever seen that work, is it still a US or carrier supported option?

 

[hippopotamusglorypig]

Do Hold for Me and Call Screening next! I'm thinking of switching back to an iPhone soon.

Clear Calling on the Pixel 7 is like noise cancellation for hard-to-hear phone calls

A helpful new feature for Pixel 7 and 7 Pro owners

www.theverge.com

 

[AirlancerMZ]

You can indeed activate the feature during a phone call in the control menu (swipe down) , just like you can for FaceTime calls. You don’t have to activate it every time, it remembers the setting. I have not yet made a call so i don’t know if it makes a different (I am on the 16.4 RC)

 

[mattman4244]

Samsung phones have had excellent voice isolation for a long time now.

That may be the case but they don't have iOS!

 

[kiranmk2]

That voice isolation feature is going to be very useful. I hope this is available to all iPhone models, including my iPhone 8, and not just the latest ones.

Maybe this was the reason they removed the noise cancellation feature from the iPhone 13 and 14… or this is a different feature?

I've got a bad feeling this will require an A12 chip so no include the iPhone 8 and X models - lots of other AI-based features have set the A12 as the cut-off.

 

[alexandr]

I guess this means no one will hear me subtly playing Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" in the background when I answer phone calls anymore. 😢

You don't have to enable the feature — keep the funk)

 

[ss2cire]

Wow! such a useful feature. This should have been released a long time ago. We also need Cellular Phone Call Recording Feature.

I agree, I wish the feature would have been released long ago, but I guess better late than never? Regarding phone call recording, some jurisdictions require all parties to be notified and agree to being recorded. And that's just in the USA.

Can you imagine every time some one calls and iPhone "This call may be monitored or recorded" 😅 automated message? Though maybe that would potentially cut down on spam 🧐

 

[ss2cire]

Then why can the companies record my call when I phone them? Apple itself does that. On my last call to their support number they told me they were recording my phone call. Honestly I think it’s fair for me to be able to record them as well.

They can because they let you know. If you don't want them to, you have the option to hang up. Not ideal for customers, but that's the way it works.

 

[wolfshades]

About time! I get so damned tired hearing my daughter complain that she can't hear me very well when we're chatting. Looking forward to this update.