An iPhone talking aid for adults
He knows exactly what he wants to say. He cannot get it out.
A stroke, a tumour, ALS, throat surgery. The mind is intact. The words will not come, or the voice will not carry. Typing a whole sentence takes so long that the other person has already walked away.
Aloud is built for that exact moment. The person taps two or three words. Their iPhone offers three complete sentences. They tap the one they meant, and the iPhone says it out loud.
Honest status, today
Aloud is not on the App Store yet. It is being built and tested. There is nothing to buy on this website, and nothing to download.
If you need something this week, the what to do right now guide lists free things that work today, including options built into the iPhone you already own. That page is useful whether or not you ever use this app.
What it actually looks like
This is the whole interaction. There is one screen, one row of big word tiles, and one big button.
-
Tap two to four words
- coffee
- too cold
Then tap the big button: Make a sentence.
-
Pick the sentence you meant
- The coffee is too cold.Tapped
- It's too cold for coffee.
- I don't like my coffee too cold.
Say my words: coffee, too cold
-
The iPhone speaks it
“The coffee is too cold.”
A Stop button is on every screen that can make a sound. The sentence stays on screen at large size so it can be read across a table.
Those three sentences are the real output measured from the on-device model during development, not a mock-up. So are these:
| Words tapped | The three sentences offered |
|---|---|
| pain, left leg, worse at night | My left leg hurts. · My left leg hurts at night. · My left leg hurts worse at night. |
| no, wrong, I said Tuesday | No, I said Tuesday. · I said Tuesday, no. · I said Tuesday, wrong. |
| tired, not sad | I'm tired, not sad. · I'm tired, sad is not me. · I'm tired, not sad at all. |
| bathroom, now | I need to go to the bathroom now. · I need to go to the bathroom right now. · I need the bathroom, now. |
Nothing is spoken until the person taps it
This is the single most important rule in the app, and it is not a setting anyone can turn off.
A language model that guesses wrong does not just produce a clumsy sentence. It speaks a feeling, a reason or a fact that the person never expressed, in their voice, to their doctor or their daughter. During testing, a naive version of this app took coffee, too cold and said I wish I could drink coffee, but it's too cold — it invented a wish. Given card, blocked, not me it said I don't have the card — it invented a fact.
Showing three candidates and letting the person choose fixes this at the root. The model proposes. The human decides which one is true. And there is always a literal option:
Say my words
Say my words is on every screen where a sentence is offered, in every state, including when the model is slow, unavailable or wrong. It speaks the tapped words exactly as tapped and never goes near a model.
Nobody is ever trapped inside a suggestion they did not mean.
The honest device requirement
The three generated sentences use Apple Intelligence, which only runs on some iPhones. This matters, so it is on the front page rather than in a footnote.
| Your iPhone | What happens | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| iPhone 15 Pro, 15 Pro Max, or iPhone 16 and later, with Apple Intelligence switched on | The full thing. Three generated sentences, plus Say my words. | Free. |
| Any older supported iPhone (for example an iPhone 13) | Same screens, same buttons, same number of taps. A built-in rule-based expander offers up to two options plus Say my words. Word tiles, saved phrases, typing, all voices, speech on calls and export all work normally. | Free. There is nothing to buy, and no upgrade is nagged for. |
Apple's Personal Voice — a synthetic voice made from recordings of the person's own voice — runs on iPhone 12 and later, which is a wider set of devices than Apple Intelligence. So someone on an iPhone 13 can use their own banked voice without the generated sentences. More about voice banking.
Nothing leaves the iPhone
This is a structural fact, not a promise in a policy document:
- The app is built with no network permission. It cannot make a request even if it wanted to.
- Sentences are built by Apple's on-device Foundation Models. Nothing is sent to a server to be turned into a sentence.
- Speech uses Apple's on-device synthesiser. Your voice is never charged for by the character or by the minute.
- Zero third-party code. No analytics, no crash SDK, no advertising identifiers, no fonts fetched from anywhere.
- No account, no login, no email address. The app opens and works.
Read the full privacy policy. It is short, because there is not much to say when nothing is collected.
The other things you could use instead
There are real alternatives, some free, and some of them may suit better. Pretending otherwise would waste your time. Prices checked on the United States App Store on 2 August 2026.
| Option | Price | Turns 2–3 words into whole sentences? | Works offline? | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Live Speech, built into iOS | Free, already on the phone | No | Yes | Type and it speaks, including during phone and FaceTime calls. Saved phrases. Word-by-word keyboard prediction. Try this first: it costs nothing. |
| Talk For Me | $1.99 once | No | Yes | Made by a developer who lost his own speech. 60 quick buttons, speech into phone, FaceTime, Zoom and Google Meet, Siri Shortcuts. Excellent value. |
| Speech Assistant AAC | $24.99 once | No | Yes | Ten years of continuous updates, a responsive developer, iPhone, iPad, Mac and Watch. Deeply customisable. Some reviewers find the default text small and the menus dense. |
| Proloquo4Text | $119.99 once | No | Yes | From AssistiveWare, the best-established name in this field. Word and sentence prediction, strong voice options. |
| Talk to Me, Goose! | Free download, then paid tiers; free for registered ALS families in the US and Canada via Live Like Lou | Yes | No — needs a connection | Built by David Betts, who has ALS, with Anne Mundell. Its Merlin feature takes starter words and generates text, and it offers cloud voice cloning. iPhone, iPad, Mac, Android and Windows beta. If you or your family member has ALS in the US or Canada, check whether you qualify for this for free before you consider paying anyone. |
| Aloud | Free, everything included | Yes | Yes — no network permission at all | iPhone and iPad only. Not released yet. Three candidates plus a literal row, huge type, and nothing ever spoken without a tap. |
The short version: if the person can type reasonably fast, Live Speech is free and already installed, and it may be enough. What none of the other free options do is take two or three words and build a sentence. That is the one thing this app is for, and it is free as well.
Who this is built for
Aphasia after a stroke
The main audience. Words will not come, but the person is fully there. Roughly a quarter to a half of strokes cause aphasia.
ALS and motor neurone disease
Speech fades on a known trajectory. Voice banking has a closing window.
Head and neck cancer, laryngectomy, intubation
Often a known surgery date, then months without a voice, with hands that work perfectly well.
Speech pathologists
Feature match, trial report contents, the authorship question, and the no-commission policy.
Questions people actually ask
Does the app put words in the person's mouth?
No sentence is ever spoken automatically. The app offers up to three candidates plus Say my words, which speaks the tapped words exactly. The person taps the one they meant. This is the same act of selection that every talking aid already asks for. Clinicians can read the detailed answer on authorship, including how the app keeps an exportable record of what was tapped next to what was spoken.
Does it need an internet connection?
No. The app has no network permission. It works in a hospital basement and in aeroplane mode.
Is there a subscription?
No, and there never will be. There is no payment at all: the app is free, with everything included. The price page, explained plainly.
Will it work on my dad's old iPhone?
If it runs a supported version of iOS, yes — with up to two rule-based options instead of three generated ones, and free forever. See the device table.
Can it use my own voice?
Yes, if you have made an Apple Personal Voice on that iPhone. The app asks Apple for permission to speak with it. It can never copy or export that voice — Apple does not permit it, and the app does not try. How to make one.
Is it a medical device?
No. It is a general communication aid, in the same family as a pen and paper or a letter board. It does not diagnose, treat or claim to improve any condition. The regulatory position, in full.
Where the numbers on this page come from
- Aphasia after stroke, and how many people are living with aphasia: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, Practice Portal: Aphasia.
- What Live Speech does and does not do: Apple Support: Use Live Speech and Type to speak using Live Speech on iPhone.
- Personal Voice, including the 10-phrase enrolment and the rule that apps cannot capture its audio: Apple Support: Create a Personal Voice.
- Competitor prices and features: each product's own App Store listing, linked in the table above, checked 2 August 2026.
- The measured sentence outputs and the invented-intent examples: development testing of Apple's on-device Foundation Models, 2 August 2026. Method and full results are described on the clinical page.