Here's How You Can Mend Muffled Phone Calls On An iPhone

Photo Credit: Macworld When you're on a call, the iPhone has always done a respectable job of filtering out background noise, but Apple has unlocked a new feature in iOS 16.4 that uses machine learning to elevate this to a whole new level. Conventional noise cancellation works well to block out known background noises like the hum of city traffic or the air conditioner, but it struggles to block out unpredictable noises like dogs barking, kids playing, or babies screaming. Since more people are working from home these days, filtering out those kinds of sounds is crucial, and — happily — that's exactly what is being done. Photo Credit: News Track Live, Newstrack

How to activate voice isolation during a call?

Unfortunately, Apple hasn't been as clear about the Voice Isolation setting as it could have been; it's so well-hidden that many people might not even be aware that it exists. The good news is that, once you know where it is, you can flip it on in a matter of seconds. Once toggled on, it won't turn off until you do. Here's the guide:

• Launch the Phone app and make a call as the first step. Only once a call is active will the Voice Isolation option be visible.
• To launch the Control Center, swipe down from the top-right corner of your screen (or up from the bottom if you're using an iPhone SE).
• Above the standard Control Center panels for Airplane Mode and audio playback, you should see two additional buttons for Video Effects and Mic Mode. Decide on Mic Mode.
• From the pop-up menu that opens, choose Vocal Isolation.
• To shut the pop-up dialog and return to the main Control Center screen, select a location outside of it. Next, slide up (or down on the iPhone SE) to hide the Control Center and pick up your call again.

Also Read: 3 Simple Tips to Enhance Your Facetime Calls Once you've activated Voice Isolation, it should stay enabled for all subsequent conversations — both incoming and outgoing — until you deliberately toggle it off. This is because the Mic Mode will remember whichever option was last used. The Mic Mode, however, is a global setting, so adjustments made in other applications like FaceTime or Zoom can also effect your mobile conversations.

How to make a FaceTime call with voice isolation enabled?

The process for turning on Voice Isolation in FaceTime is the same as for a cellular call, with the exception that iOS 16.4 is not required; Voice Isolation is available in FaceTime on any supported iPhone running iOS 15 or later. Photo Credit: MacRumors You can alter the Mic Mode as soon as you start the FaceTime app, just like you can blur the background of your video; you don't need to make an outgoing call first. The same holds true for various VoIP and video applications, like Zoom and Skype. The Mic Mode setting, in contrast to the Video Effect setting, will be applied to all applications that support that mode. Apple also provides a second Wide Spectrum option for FaceTime and other VoIP apps that works in opposition to Voice Isolation by raising the sensitivity of the microphone so that callers can hear all the sounds around you. Unfortunately, it is not currently possible to make cellular calls using that feature, which is useful if you're in a big conference room or at a concert. Aslo Read: The voice isolation feature will be available with recent updates of iOS 16.4

Which iPhone models are Voice Isolation compatible?

Voice Isolation is only available on devices with at least Apple's A12 Bionic chip, the first one to include an eight-core Neural Engine made specifically for this kind of labor-intensive work, because it uses sophisticated machine learning technology to analyze the audio from your microphone and isolate your voice from the rest. Thankfully, that list of iPhone models, which includes the iPhone XS, iPhone XR, and later-released iPhone SE models, is still very long. This indicates that only the iPhone X, iPhone 8, and iPhone 8 Plus are excluded from the list of iPhones that can run iOS 16.4 in the first place.