Apple uses the personal story of Tristram Ingham, a New Zealander with facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD), to illustrate how the iPhone can preserve his voice content and, through training neural network technology, use text-to-speech to enable people who have difficulty speaking due to physical or mental disabilities to communicate with others through technology.
This technology uses the new accessibility feature "Personal Voice" added by Apple in iOS 17, iPadOS 17 and macOS 14 Sonoma. Through relevant prompts, you can record your personal voice for 15 minutes in a quiet environment. You can then learn your personal speaking tone through training neural network technology, and then "speak" through text-to-speech.
This function will enable technology to assist people who have difficulty speaking due to physical or mental problems, or who may gradually lose their ability to speak due to illness. They can communicate through text-to-speech and interpret the content of their speech in their own voice, giving them more autonomy over their speech.
Tristram Ingham's condition is due to facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy, which causes the muscles in the face, shoulders and arms to gradually degenerate, eventually leading to an inability to speak and eat smoothly. Some people with this disease may even be unable to blink.
Tristram Ingham used the iPhone's "Personal Voice" assistive feature to record 15 minutes of his own voice while still being able to speak normally, and let the system learn. Then, with the help of text-to-speech technology, he could communicate with others through his own voice, rather than through mechanical simulated voice or other people's accents.
In the video "The Lost Voice" created by Apple for the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, Tristram Ingham used the "Personal Voice" feature to complete the video narration. He even read a new children's book of the same name created for the International Day of Persons with Disabilities in the video. The voice used is Tristram Ingham's personal voice, rather than the voice of others or an imitation.
