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Soon, iPhone will speak in your own voice

Soon, iPhone will speak in your own voice

Apple's new accessibility feature looks promising.

Leander Kahney
May 16, 2023

Today, Apple announced a bundle of new features for better accessibility — including Personal Voice, which trains your device to speak in your voice with 15 minutes of training.

It’s designed for folks who may lose their ability to speak, but the possibilities for everyone seem intriguing.

In addition, Apple added new features to its Music and Maps apps that make it easier to find live music in your area.

We're only a few weeks from WWDC, and Apple continues to drop news before the big show, and that can only mean one thing: Everything Apple announces at WWDC is going to get drowned out by the big reveal — a groundbreaking VR/AR headset.

Also in today’s newsletter:

One of the things I like about our how-tos is that I learn something new with just about every post. Take today’s how-to for adjusting blur after you’ve taken the shot — a feature I’d completely forgotten about.
Photomator is a low-cost Photoshop rival that launched on iOS and iPadOS. Now it’s coming to the Mac.
This hybrid charger/travel case from Momax looks perfect for summer travel.
Today’s the day that Apple launched the PowerBook 540c, dubbed Apple's best laptop yet. Nearly 30 years later, the design still sets the basic template for notebooks.

— Leander Kahney, EIC.

Apple promises Live Speech, Personal Voice and Point and Speak are coming to iOS

New features will boost cognitive, speech and vision accessibility in the near future.

Find live music with new features on Apple Maps and Apple Music

New concert-discovery capabilities in Apple Maps and Apple Music will help fans and artists connect.

Photomator for Mac launches as a low-cost rival to Photoshop

You can get the powerful image-editing app at a very affordable price.

^{A message from the Cult of Mac Store}

Wireless car charger automatically clamps onto iPhone

What could be safer while driving than a wireless charger mount that senses and grabs onto your iPhone for you?

Get 14 powerful Mac apps for one low price

The Mac Madness App Bundle gives you 14 apps especially suited for various tasks, from exporting photo data to batch-converting audio files.

Eve updates Flare portable lamp with Thread support

Eve Systems rolled out its upgraded Eve Flare portable smart LED lamp Tuesday, adding Thread networking support.

^{A message from Momax}

This wireless charging case for iPhone, AirPods and Apple Watch is perfect for travelers

A clamshell case that charges and protects your gadgets on the go, the Momax Airbox might be the ultimate companion for your Apple devices. The company calls it the first foldable power bank. So it not only charges your gadgets fast with a 10,000mAh battery, it stores them on the go, too -- including iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods 2/Pro. It'll top up your iPad, as well, and there's a special, non-charging slot to store your Apple Pencil. And Momax is offering a special discount for Cult of Mac readers.

iMessage comes to Windows via Microsoft Phone Link for iOS [Updated]

Windows users can now send and receive messages and calls via an iPhone, courtesy of Microsoft's new Phone Link for iOS software.

‘Swagger’ season 2 might ruin everything for basketball hopefuls

The young players' NBA hopes might come crashing down when they're accused of a crime.

Today in Apple history: PowerBook 540c is the best Mac laptop to date

On May 16, 1994, Apple launched the PowerBook 540c, one of the best laptops in the company's history.

Pro Tip: Adjust portrait blur after you take the shot

You can adjust the Portrait mode blur on iPhone and Mac — even after you’ve taken the picture. Your iPhone stores the depth data that it uses to make the blur effect along with the picture.

Tweetz o’ the day

Macintosh with Monitor Portrait.
— Dana Sibera (@NanoRaptor)
9:22 AM • May 15, 2023

When I was a teenager I emailed him, because back then the student discounts on products used to be mail-in rebates. Mine got lost in the mail. Steve had a VP at Apple personally call me. Steve told him to apologize, and that the iPod was on them. Free iPod. Pretty awesome day!
— Evan Sims (@evansims)
1:17 AM • May 16, 2023

This is honestly one of the hardest albums of all time. And they made this shit in GarageBand.
— lil uzi perf (@ken_wheeler)
12:47 PM • May 15, 2023

One more thing ...

❝

People say sometimes, ‘You work in the fastest-moving industry in the world.’ I don’t feel that way. I think I work in one of the slowest. It seems to take forever to get anything done. All of the graphical-user interface stuff that we did with the Macintosh was pioneered at Xerox PARC [Silicon Valley’s legendary Palo Alto Research Center] and with Doug Engelbart at SRI [the Stanford Research Institute think tank] in the mid-’70s. And here we are, just about the mid-’90s, and it’s kind of commonplace now. But it’s about a 10-to-20-year lag. That’s a long time.

— Steve Jobs, 2008.

Today’s poll

Do you use any of Apple’s accessibility features?

Results from yesterday’s poll: Are you actually excited about Apple's AR/VR headset?

Best reader comment from ‘capiendo’

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