Muffled voice on iPhone? Here is how to fix it

Although the iPhone has always done a fantastic job of filtering out basic background noise while on a conversation, Apple has unlocked a new feature in iOS 16.4 that takes this to a whole new level using machine learning.

Traditional noise cancellation is useful for removing regular background noises, such as the hum of traffic on city streets or the hum of your air conditioner, but it falls short when it comes to less predictable noises, such as dogs barking, children playing, or infants screaming. Filtering out such types of sounds is becoming increasingly vital as more people work from home, and happily, that’s exactly what Apple’s Voice Isolation function is for.

Voice Isolation was technically introduced in iOS 15, however it could only be used with FaceTime and other VoIP calls at the time. This capability is now extended to cellular calls with the introduction of iOS 16.4. If the folks you’re chatting to continually telling you that your voice sounds terrible or muffled, try using Voice Isolation.

How to enable Voice Isolation on a phone call

Unfortunately, Apple hasn’t made the Voice Isolation setting as evident as it could have been; it’s so well-hidden that many people might not even notice it’s there. The good news is that once you’ve found it, you can enable it in a matter of seconds – and it will remain on until you toggle it off again. Here’s how to get to it.

Step 1: Launch the Phone app and dial a phone number. Once a call is in progress, the Voice Isolation option will show.

Step 2: To launch the Control Center, swipe down from the top-right corner (or up from the bottom if you’re using an iPhone SE).

Step 3: At the top, above the standard Control Center panels for Airplane Mode and audio playback, you should see two additional buttons for Video Effects and Mic Mode. Choose Mic Mode.

Step 4: From the pop-up window that displays, select Voice Isolation.

Step 5: Swipe up (or down on the iPhone SE) to dismiss the Control Center and resume your call, then select an area outside the pop-up dialog to close it and return to the main Control Center screen.

Because the Mic Mode remembers the last setting, if you enable Voice Isolation, it should be active for all future calls – both incoming and outgoing — unless you manually toggle it off. However, because the Mic Mode is a global setting, adjustments made in other apps such as FaceTime or Zoom may have an impact on your cellular conversations.

How to enable Voice Isolation on a FaceTime call

Enabling Voice Isolation on a FaceTime call is similar to enabling it on a cellular call, but you don’t need iOS 16.4; you may enable Voice Isolation in FaceTime on any supported iPhone running iOS 15 or later.

As with the option to blur your video background, you can change the Mic Mode as soon as you launch the FaceTime app – no need to make an outbound call beforehand. The same is true for other video and VoIP apps like Zoom and Skype. However, unlike the Video Effect feature, whichever Mic Mode you select will be applied to all apps that support that mode.

Apple also provides a second Wide Spectrum mode for FaceTime and other VoIP apps, which works in the opposite direction of Voice Isolation by raising the sensitivity of the microphone so that callers can hear all of the sounds surrounding you. This is useful if you’re in a huge conference room or at a concert, but it’s not yet available for cellular conversations. When using FaceTime, selecting Wide Spectrum has no effect in the Phone app, which will utilize whatever other mode was previously specified before switching to Wide Spectrum.

Which iPhone models support Voice Isolation

Voice Isolation is only available on models equipped with Apple’s A12 Bionic chip, the first to feature an eight-core Neural Engine designed for this kind of heavy lifting, because it uses advanced machine learning technology to analyze the audio from your microphone and separate your voice from the rest.

Thankfully, that’s still a fairly extensive list of iPhone models, beginning with the iPhone XS and ending with the iPhone SE versions issued afterward. This means that the iPhone X, iPhone 8, and iPhone 8 Plus are the only iPhones that can run iOS 16.4 in the first place.

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