Accessibility - hearing and speech
Live Captions
Most people call this automatic subtitles for any audio on the phone.
Live Captions transcribes audio on your iPhone in real time, including calls, FaceTime, videos and sound around you.
Whether you see this depends on your country and carrier.
- Language availability varies by country
- We have this path on file but have not yet confirmed it against an official source.
Where to find it - iOS 16 and later
- Settings
- Accessibility
- Live Captions
What it does
Transcription runs on the device, so nothing is sent anywhere. It works across apps, and in FaceTime it attributes speech to each participant.
What changes
When it is on
A caption window appears and transcribes audio.
When it is off
No captions appear.
Should you turn it on?
Good reasons to turn it on
- Calls and videos become readable.
- Everything is processed on the device.
- Useful in a loud environment, not only for hearing loss.
Good reasons to turn it off
- The caption window covers part of the screen.
- Accuracy varies with accent and background noise.
- It uses noticeable battery.
Battery
Costs you something
Privacy
Helps
Performance
No real change
Cellular data
No real change
Storage
Costs you something
Out of the box: Off. Availability depends on language and model.
What your iPhone needs
- Needs iOS 16 or later
- Language availability varies by country
Questions people actually ask
- Can my iPhone add subtitles to a phone call?
- Yes, with Live Captions, where the language and your model are supported. It runs on the device.
If it is not working
- Availability varies by language. If the option is missing, your language may not be supported yet.
- Captions in Calls is a separate switch on the same screen.
- The first use downloads a language model, so allow a moment.