[ad_1]
Apple broke ground in advertising last year with “The Greatest,” a joyful film representing people with disabilities in their everyday lives. Now it followed up that effort with a childhood fable focused on speech accessibility.
The tech brand released “The Lost Voice,” directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Taika Waititi and coinciding with International Day of Persons With Disabilities Dec. 3. The film unfolds as a narrated children’s story, with magical creatures and a journey through beautiful landscapes.
The tale begins when a young girl meets a rabbit-like creature with white and pink fur. Curiously, she asks him, “Why are you so quiet?” and offers to help the animal find his voice.
The pair begin an epic search for his voice, traveling through forests, deserts, mountains and beaches and meeting friendly characters along the way, including a frog, owl and turnip. They discern that despite being quiet, the creature has “so much to say.”
At the end, it is revealed that the narrator is a dad with speech loss who is reading a bedtime story to his child using Apple’s latest accessibility feature, Personal Voice.
The brand introduced Personal Voice on iOS 17 earlier this year. The feature uses secure on-device machine learning to sample and re-create people’s voices, helping those who lose their ability to speak due to conditions such as muscular dystrophy or motor neurone disease.
The ad also showcases another new accessibility feature, Live Speech, which allows users to type what they want to say on an Apple device and have it be spoken out loud during calls or in-person conversations.
Real impact
As with award-winning campaign “The Greatest,” Apple’s goal for “The Lost Voice” is to show the impact of its accessibility features on the lives of users.
