The Voice Isolation feature iPhone users have become accustomed to in video chats will soon expand to regular phone calls. It will make participants in these voice calls easier to understand.
This will be one of the major new features in iOS 16.4, which is expected in late March.
Voice Isolation makes iPhone calls sound better
Remote meetings on FaceTime or Zoom got a lot easier to understand in iOS 15 thanks to a feature called Voice Isolation that blocks out background noise. And now that feature is coming to regular, cellular voice calls, too.
After it’s activated, an iPhone blocks out ambient sounds so that the other person or people on the call can better hear the speaker. But to be clear, it’s one way and only works on what the iPhone user says — it can’t remove background noise from the other participant(s) on the call.
Wide Spectrum for voice calls is not currently available. This does the opposite of Voice Isolation: it intentionally picks up the speaker as well as the sounds around them.
Coming in late March to iOS 16.4
Voice Isolation for phone calls is included in the iOS 16.4 release candidate that Apple seeded to developers on Tuesday. This operating system upgrade is expected to leave testing and be available to all on March 28.
Check the Cult of Mac roundup of changes in iOS 16.4 for a full list of what’s coming to iPhone.
