New iOS 16 Child Voices: Joelle & Noelle (USA English)

I took the plunge today and updated my iPhone 11 to iOS 16 specifically to try out the two brand new USA English child iOS voices: Joelle & Noelle.

It has been over a month since iOS 16 was released and Apple had rolled out a few bug fixes and several app developers had released updates for AAC apps. The chatter online about problems surrounding iOS 16 seemed to have lessened. So I decided that I wanted to go ahead and update. Heads up… it took quite awhile to download and then install iOS 16.0.3 so be sure to have your iPhone plugged in and on a consistently strong WiFi connection the entire time. After that was done I had several apps that needed to be updated. Most app developers had to add a way for these new voices to be selected. These are the only 2 child voices that I know of.

Why am I so excited about these new iOS child voices?

Many free and affordable iOS AAC apps rely on iOS voices since there is a pretty significant licensing cost to include premium voices in apps. That’s why some apps have those as in-app purchases.
Having child iOS voices means that many free and affordable apps will now have these two new child voice options. As you’ll see in my video, some apps automatically detect and use the child voice that I set under Accessibility – Spoken Content – Voices – English – listened to previews and then downloaded the voices that I wanted. Keeping in mind that everything you download takes up memory so I only downloaded what I knew I would use. For most AAC apps I had to go into the settings within that app and set it to the child voice that I wanted to use.
I hope this is just the beginning and hopefully Apple will add child voices for other languages in the future.

Note: It is anticipated that iPadOS 16 *might* be rolled out next week. I’m going to wait a few weeks to make sure Apple and app developers have time to work out any bugs before I update my iPads to that.

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Robust iOS Symbol-Based: https://bit.ly/SymbolBasedAACapps
Robust iOS Text-Based: https://bit.ly/TextBasedAACapps
Visual Scenes & Video Visual Scenes: https://bit.ly/AACvsd
AAC Feature Matching Resource Bundle (includes all three, save 10%): https://bit.ly/aacFeatureMatchingBundle. If you are looking to purchase resources for several staff / team members, take a look at the Multiple Licenses discount (saves 20%)
Robust Android AAC Apps (Google Play & Amazon Fire): https://bit.ly/RobustAndroidAACappChart
Affordable and Free AAC apps & AAC-Related Apps (iOS, Android, Amazon Fire, Windows & a few web-based options): https://bit.ly/BasicAffordableAACchart