Apple’s Hidden Voice Isolation Feature May Improve Your iPhone’s Call Quality

If you’re on the phone with someone, a babbling newborn can be very cute, but it can also be distracting to the person on the other end of the line. If you have a iPhoneyou can enable a hidden feature called Voice Isolation that can make your voice clearer on a call while blocking background noise.

Apple released voice isolation for phone calls iOS 16.4 in 2023. The company added the feature alongside Wide Spectrum to FaceTime calls with iOS15 in 2021. However, only voice isolation is available for regular phone calls at the moment.

To enable voice isolation, you must be on an active phone call, as the feature is not found in the settings. Once enabled, voice isolation will remain enabled for all future calls unless you manually turn it off.

Here’s how to turn voice isolation on and off for phone calls. You can also read everything you need to know about iOS26.

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How to enable voice isolation

1. Press your Phone application.
2. During a phone call, swipe from the upper right corner of your screen to access your Control center.
3. Faucet Telephone orders near the top of your screen.

4. Faucet Voice isolation.

To turn off voice isolation, follow the same steps above and tap Standard in the phone controls. This will return your microphone to its default setting.

What are broad spectrum and automatic?

Near the voice isolation in the phone controls you will also find Wide Spectrum and Automatic. These are different mic modes that you can activate.

Unlike voice isolation, which attenuates background sounds, Wide Spectrum amplifies background sounds without affecting your voice. Wide Spectrum is useful for calls with multiple people on the same phone line. This way everyone can be heard, not just the one holding the phone. Currently, Wide Spectrum is only available for FaceTime calls. Since the feature is still present in Phone Controls, it may become available for phone calls in the future.

Automatic will choose the best mode for your call. “For example, Automatic uses voice isolation to block ambient noise during calls using the receiver, and it uses standard mic mode for calls using the speakerphone,” Apple written online.

For more iOS news, here’s what you need to know iOS 26.2 and what was included in iOS 26.1. You can also view our iOS 26 Cheat Sheet for other tips and tricks.