How to Enable the Speak Selection Option on an iPhone 7

There are some features and settings on your iPhone that allow you to hear a spoken version of the text that is currently displayed on your screen.

One of these features is called “Speak Selection,” which provides an option where you tap and hold on a selection, then touch a “Speak” button. The selection is then read to you.

However, this setting is not always turned on by default, so you may be looking for a way to enable it if it isn’t currently active. The steps below will show you how to turn on the Speak Selection feature on your iPhone in iOS 10.

How to Turn on the iPhone’s “Speak Selection” Setting

The steps in this article were performed on an iPhone 7 Plus in iOS 10.2. This will work for other iPhone models using the same version of iOS as well.

Step 1: Open the Settings menu.

open the settings menu

Step 2: Scroll down and tap the General option.

open the general menu

Step 3: Touch the Accessibility option near the bottom of the screen.

open the iphone accessibility menu

Step 4: Tap the Speech button in the Vision section of the menu.

how to enable speak selection on an iphone 7

Step 5: Tap the button to the right of Speak Selection to turn it on.

how to turn on the speak selection feature on an iphone 7

Note that there additional speech settings on this menu that you can choose to activate or adjust. For example, you could tap the Voices button if you would like to change the voice that is used to speak your text selections.

Now when you tap and hold on a word or a selection, there will be a Speak button that you can press to hear a spoken version of that text.

Now that you know how to enable the Speak selection option on your iPhone 7, you can use this feature to have your phone speak things to you.

Summary – Enabling Speak Selection on an iPhone – in iOS 16

  1. Open Settings.
  2. Select Accessibility.
  3. Choose Spoken Content.
  4. Enable Speak Selection.

Have you noticed that the color of the battery icon at the top-right corner of your screen is sometimes different? Find out more about why your battery indicator might be yellow and see how you can enable or disable the setting that a yellow battery icon identifies.

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