As part of its patent application, Apple has submitted a patent that will allow iMessages to be read aloud by the sender’s own voice, which would be an improvement over existing methods of delivering audible messages such as sending a recording or using Siri to speak the text. According to the patent application, the patent is entitled “Personalized Voice for Text Messages”. In the patent, which was filed on October 25, 2022, the author describes a voice model that can then be used by another electronic device to communicate with the user.
The patent notes that the user of the second electronic device may send a message to the respective user of the first electronic device as part of the process.
As a result of this system, when an iMessage user sends a text to someone, he or she could choose to attach a voice file to the text which would then be stored on the device. It is possible for the sender to choose whether the recipient will hear the voice of the sender read aloud in the message if he/she chooses to do so. In accordance with the patent, an audio output corresponding to the received message is provided based on the voice model used to generate the audio output.
When the iPhone receives a message from a person, it can create a profile of the person’s voice and simulate it while reading the message and all subsequent correspondence from the same person. You might even think about sending your voice model before sending your first message, as a way of preparing your message to be read in sound before sending it.
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Although hearing a sender’s voice in a message may not seem like the most pressing technological advancement, it may prove to be very valuable for older family members and partners/spouses who want to hear a message read aloud by their loved ones as if they were in the same room with them.
Amongst the inventors of the patent are Qiong Hu, who worked on Siri, Jiangchuan Li, Apple’s senior Siri software engineer for machine learning, and David A. Winarsky, Apple’s director of text-to-speech technology. Apple’s recent voice AI-related acquisitions and efforts suggest that it will become a reality if this patent eventually becomes a feature, but as with all patents, there is no guarantee that it will become a reality.
A patent was revealed shortly after Apple announced its plan to use a voiceover powered by artificial intelligence (AI) to sell audiobooks for the first time. In response to the release of the Cupertino audiobook program, audiobook distribution company Findaway Voices caused outrage among voice actors by allowing Apple to train its machine learning model on audiobook files it obtained from Findaway Voices.
