Apple releases Taika Waititi-directed film promoting speech accessibility tools
Apple’s latest short film focusing on accessibility, released on Thursday and directed by Oscar-winner Taika Waititi, tells the story of a character’s search for his lost voice. The film promotes the Personal Voice and Live Speech features included in the latest versions of iOS and macOS.
The film is a children’s story narrated by Dr. Tristram Ingham, a New Zealand-based physician and disability advocate. Ingham lives with facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD), a disease which causes progressive muscle degeneration, and leads to an inability to speak. His narration was created using Personal Voice on an iPhone. The film is also audio-described for those with visual impairments.
The film tells the story of a furry little character searching everywhere for his lost voice, with the aid of his friend, a young girl. There’s also an ebook, where the story appears in words and illustrations. Both are available now.
The film’s effectiveness and emotional impact does not come from the centering of disability, but from the lithe writing, imaginative visual vocabulary and trippy score, which is made up mostly of human voice samples. Like the best Apple promotional films, it is about what it’s about, far more than the products it inevitably promotes.
The film release coincides with the UN’s International Day of Persons with Disabilities, which is December 3. It was produced with the participation of organizations supporting people with speech disabilities.
Personal Voice debuted in iOS/iPadOS 17. It is intended for use by those who are at risk of losing the ability to speak. Many Personal Voice users have amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which eventually causes loss of the ability to speak. After recording some 150 phrases to an iPhone or iPad, a synthetic version of the recorded voice is generated on-device. Once that’s done, the user can instruct Personal Voice to speak in the version of your voice that’s been created.
Live Speech, Apple’s other new speech accessibility feature, allows the user to type a phrase or sentence and have it spoken by the device. Think coffee orders or other quick interactions.