Apple’s Hidden Setting That Makes Your Audio & Video Calls Sound Better

It turns out that a lot of iPhone users may have been making internet calls wrongly for a long time now. Reports circulating have revealed that a new feature that can be found somewhere in the Control Center of your iPhone has the potential to instantly improve the quality of your microphone during calls. Whether it’s an audio call or a video call once activated, your sound is better. It’s no longer a mystery that the voice quality on internet calls using FaceTime, WhatsApp, or similar apps can now be a lot superior compared to traditional phone calls.

This hidden feature is called Voice Isolation and is compatible with most iPhones, iPads, and Macs running on iOS 15 or macOS Monterey. This hidden feature was founded by David Pierce, a journalist at The Verge, and has exposed this feature to as many who cares to listen. For some reason, it’s believed Apple doesn’t want users finding out about Voice Isolation, hence why it was kept hidden. The feature that has been on the iPhone for the last few years can only be accessed by users when on a call.

Though it’s weirdly hard to come by on your device, as a matter of fact, you might have never come across it. However, any app that supports Spatial Audio will also support Voice Isolation. To access Voice Isolation, when you are on an internet call, you’ll need to swipe down from the upper-right corner to access the Control Center. Then click on “Mic Mode,” which will be set to Standard by default. There are two other options – Voice Isolation and Wide Spectrum. While the former makes voice clearer and isolates noise, the latter is designed to allow others to hear more background noise. The Wide Spectrum is quite useful if for one reason or the other you’re holding up your phone at a concert but it will most likely sound horrible to the other people on the line. But Voice Isolation? Voice Isolation is actually where the magic happens.

When Voice Isolation is enabled, your device pays attention to the audio coming into your mic, it automatically removes every background noise. The Voice Isolation feature comes in extremely handy if your friends complain about your background noise. In the process of isolating your voice, Apple’s technology seems to bring your voice closer; echo and room tone are removed drastically. The experience sounds like you’re holding your phone to your face when in actual sense you may not. The tradeoff is that your voice definitely sounds more processed, but it always sounds processed through apps like FaceTime or Zoom.

While the Voice Isolation feature delivers a completely remarkable sound experience by blocking out all the noise, there are two problems actually. The first problem is that the feature setting doesn’t come default for every app, you’ll have to enable it in every single app you make use of for calls. The second problem is that it doesn’t work everywhere. Apple makes Voice Isolation available only through an API on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, but sadly not every app supports it. Apps like Snapchat, WhatsApp, Slack, Signal, and Instagram all support it, though TikTok doesn’t. Zoom supports it for iOS, but not for Mac. It has zero support for in-browser apps that automatically rules out Google Meet and a handful of others.