‘The Lost Voice’ promotes a life-changing new accessibility feature from Apple.

Each year millions lose their ability to talk due to degenerative diseases. Personal Voice recreates your speech on iPhone, so you can continue to communicate in your own, unique voice.

To raise awareness of this innovative technology we focused on an intimate use of the human voice - telling a bedtime story. Brought to life on film, our emotional tale ultimately reveals the narration to be the Personal Voice of a genuine user of the feature.

Those with speech loss are often forced to rely on proxy voices to speak on their behalf. Many depend on text-to-speech readers which sound robotic and unnatural. Providers and family often also speak for those without their own physical voices.

Apple's Personal Voice recreates a user's own voice on their iPhone, iPad or Mac instead, so they can speak through their devices in a voice that sounds like their own - enhancing autonomy and self-determination.

The film is a children’s story brought to life. It tells the tale of two friends - a young girl and a magical creature. Together the pair search high and low looking for the creature’s missing voice.

Only at the end is it revealed that this bedtime story was, in reality, being read to a small girl by her father, who has speech loss and who has in fact been using Apple’s Personal Voice feature to narrate the tale throughout.

From speaking with loved ones to reading a bedtime story, your voice can be an important part of what makes you, you. Yet each year millions lose their ability to talk due to degenerative diseases like Motor Neurone Disease, Multiple Sclerosis, Muscular Dystrophy, cancers and dementia.

Personal Voice is an innovative new accessibility feature from Apple. Designed for those with speech loss, it uses machine learning on your iPhone, iPad or Mac to recreate your distinctive and unique way of speaking, so you can continue to communicate through your Apple devices in your own voice, even after losing your physical ability to talk.

The work was designed to raise awareness of this life-changing feature.

The film was launched for International Day of Persons with Disabilities. The work received over 19 Million views on YouTube, raised global awareness of the Personal Voice feature along with Apple’s commitment to accessibility, and was met with wide acclaim from disability advocates, the press and the general public.

Forbes stated the campaign was “Powerful in its portrayal of the universal message of the critical, life-altering promise of accessible technology in our world”.

Ad Age noted ‘Apple reserves some of its most inspired marketing for its accessibility features.’

And Steve Gleason, ex-NFL star and advocate for those living with ALS (Motor Neurone Disease), called the work ‘A tale of technology at its best. Life-changing.’

At Apple we believe accessibility is a human right. Our products are designed from the start to be accessible to all.

This belief lead to the creation of Personal Voice, a new feature for those at risk of speech loss. At Apple we also subscribe to a core tenet of the disability rights movement - ‘nothing about us without us.’ And so, just as the feature was designed after consultation with those who live with speech loss, so the work was also informed by the lived experience of our lead cast member and others.

Our purpose is to make technology accessible to all, and the work is designed to raise awareness of a specific feature which fulfils that brand promise.