Your iPhone will soon automatically TRANSCRIBE voice notes for you, Apple reveals 

We all have that friend who insists on flooding our phone with three-minute voice notes.

But thanks to Apple’s upcoming iPhone update, the days of having to dig out your headphones to listen to these lengthy messages will soon be a thing of the past.

Apple has confirmed a new feature in the iOS 17 update that will automatically transcribe voice notes and voicemails.

The tech giant unveiled the feature at this year’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) and said it will be available in iOS 17, coming to iPhones in September.

The new feature automatically converts incoming voice messages to text as they are spoken by the sender.

While iPhone users will have to wait months to get their hands on the feature, many have taken to social media to express their excitement, with some calling the update “every introvert’s dream.”

Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, said the new iOS features would make iPhone “more personal and intuitive by deeply reflecting on the features we all rely on every day.”

Live voicemail can be great news for people who don’t have time to spare, as the live transcription allows you to read incoming messages without the distraction of picking up the phone.

This can also be of great help to users who might be nervous about answering calls from an unknown number as the update allows users to accept the call after reading the voice message.

“A call comes in from an unknown number, it’s hard to know if you want to pick up the number,” explains an announcement video playing on WWDC.

“Now if someone calls you and leaves you a message, you’ll see a live transcript in real time as they talk. If it’s something you want to address right away, pick up and talk to them right away.”

For added security against scammers and spam, Apple also says that calls identified as spam won’t even show up on Live Voicemail and will instead be “immediately rejected.”

Similarly, while some may be concerned that Apple stores transcripts of their private conversations, the company insists that Live Voicemail transcription is handled “on the device” and remains “entirely private.”

This is powered by Apple’s Neural Engine; a specialist type of chip called a “deep learning processor” specifically for AI.

Apple has built Neural Engine chips into all iPhones since the iPhone X, and they provide the computing power behind Memoji, Face ID, and the recently unveiled Live Voicemail.

While iPhone users will have to wait months to get their hands on the feature, many have taken to social media to express their enthusiasm, with some calling the update “every introvert’s dream.”

“Live voicemail is the feature the curious introverts have been waiting for,” one Twitter user wrote. “Yes, I want to know what the person is saying, but no, I’m not taking a call.”

However, other social media commenters were less impressed, mocking the feature for its resemblance to previous Android features and the 1990s answering machine.

‘I love this feature. I know many Android users will say they’ve had this for a while…” one iPhone user tweeted.

“Apple just announced something called live voicemail,” another Twitter user joked. “Congratulations Apple for recreating “the 90s answering machine.”

The reveal came as part of a series of big new features for the iOS 17 release, which is expected to arrive in September 2023 to coincide with the release of the iPhone 15.

These features include a new standby mode for the iPhone and the ability to leave voice and video messages in FaceTime.

Users can also expect significant updates to the stickers feature, with new emoji stickers and the ability to create Live Stickers by extracting subjects from photos.