Here’s how you know Apple is getting stuff right: when it introduces a feature you’ve never thought of but as soon as it’s here, you think, of course, that’s brilliant. Well, that’s what the latest-announced iPhone feature is like, and it’s also coming to Apple TV. It’s a subtle but clever update to the functioning of the mute button.
Apple has a history with this kind of update on Apple TV. Years ago, it improved video playback in a way no other company before—or since—has done.
If you miss what someone on TV said, you could pick up your Siri remote and say, “What did he/she/they say?” Whichever pronoun you use, the result would be the same. The video would rewind by 10 seconds, then play the bit you didn’t hear again, with subtitles front-and-center, and just for those few seconds. If you haven’t tried it, it’s fantastic.
Now, with the next-gen software for iPhone and Apple TV, iOS 18 and tvOS 18 respectively, there’ll be another key innovation.
It will work on the upcoming iPhone 16 series, but also iPhones all the way back to the iPhone XS, once the software is installed. The software is currently in its second developer beta. It will come to public beta later this month and reach general release in September.
So, how could anyone improve the mute button? It just works, right? Apple’s change is brilliant: when you mute video playback, either on the iPhone or by pressing the mute button on the Apple TV remote, as the silence descends, subtitles automatically appear onscreen. Tap the button again and as the sound fades in, the subtitles fade out. How cool is that?
The feature will also be available, with a satisfying sense of completeness, on the iPad and Mac when you’re watching video using the default video player.
Now, I can see some drawbacks to this: if you’ve muted the TV, or iPhone or whatever, so you can take a call or listen to your significant other across the living room, say, and you continue to focus on the screen because you can still see the words, instead of listening to your interlocutor, you may come a cropper, be warned.
However, overall, this is one of the neatest upgrades for watching video that has appeared for ages. Only Apple.
