If you've found yourself resorting to subtitles while watching movies and TV shows because the dialogue is hard to understand, a feature in iOS 18 and TVOS 18 should perk up your ears.
This isn't a new problem -- you can buy soundbars that boost dialogue or configure TV audio settings to boost audio frequencies where dialogue usually appears. But now Apple is applying some machine learning to the problem with its Enhance Dialogue feature in the just-released iOS 18, iPadOS 18 and TVOS 18.
Last year, Apple added the feature to Apple TV when paired with a second-generation HomePod. Now it works with existing speakers or connected Bluetooth buds and headsets.
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One downside to this expansion of Enhance Dialogue is that the feature so far appears only in Apple's TV app on iPhone, iPad and Apple TV. Hopefully developers such as Netflix, Disney, MAX and the other major streamers will be able to add support for it soon.
Also, for the Apple TV, the feature is limited to the Apple TV 4K (2nd generation) and later models. Here's everything you need to know.
Apple 4K TV
Apple/CNETHow does Enhance Dialogue work?
Plenty of factors contribute to dialogue becoming unintelligible.
When audio engineers mix the sound for a movie, they're often targeting how it will play in a movie theater -- and even there the variety of audio hardware and acoustics is all over the place. Mixing for the home can be even more tricky, trying to accommodate setups pushing sound from mediocre television speakers as well as through elaborate home theater systems. Then take all that data and squeeze it through compressed streaming channels, and now you're far away from the engineers' intentions.
Enhance Dialogue uses machine learning to differentiate between spoken words and other sounds and has two modes. Enhance raises the levels of dialogue without affecting other audio as much. Boost dampens the background in a more aggressive way and also enhances the dialogue to make it stand out -- the effect is most apparent in scenes with a lot of competing noise.
This easily overlooked feature will help you discern what's being said on your device or TV so you don't miss any nuance that would otherwise be drowned out by other noise.
How to enhance dialogue on iPhone and iPad
On iOS 18 or iPadOS 18, open the TV app and start playing a movie or TV show.
To turn on Enhance Dialog, do the following:
- Tap the screen to reveal the playback controls.
- Tap the Audio Options button (which looks like a waveform inside a circle). If you're viewing the video in portrait orientation, tap the More (…) button and tap Audio.
- Expand the Enhance Dialogue menu and choose either Enhance or Boost.
Turn on Enhanced Dialogue in the TV app under iOS 18. (The video is blacked out when taking screenshots due to the iPhone's built-in copyright protection.)
Screenshot by Jeff Carlson/CNETHow to enhance dialogue on Apple TV 4K
The Apple TV interface for turning on Enhance Dialogue is almost identical to the iPhone and iPad interfaces.
- While a video is playing, tap the middle pad on the Apple TV remote to view the onscreen controls.
- Highlight the Audio Options button and press the middle button to view its options.
- Select Enhance Dialogue and choose Enhance or Boost.
The setting is retained for other videos you watch, not just the one currently playing. You can also set an Enhance Dialogue preference in the Apple TV settings. Go to Settings > Video and Audio > Enhance Dialogue and choose either Enhance or Boost.
On the Apple TV in TVOS 18, Enhance Dialogue is a system-wide setting, even if so far the feature appears to apply only to videos played in the TV app.
Screenshot by Jeff Carlson/CNET