Apple Live Captions: Features & Requirements

Features

Unless noted, features apply to iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

Captions

Conditional: Live conversation captions¹⁰
Conditional: Live device-audio captions¹¹
Conditional: Speaker labels¹²iPhone only
Conditional: Translated captions^{13, 14}iPhone · Mac only
Supported: Typed repliesMac only
Supported: Spoken typed repliesMac only
Supported: Caption engineAutomatic speech recognition

Transcripts & notes

Conditional: Direct system-audio capture^{15, 16, 17}

Audio input & output

Conditional: Audio inputs^{17, 18, 19}Device microphone · Device audio

Compatibility

Conditional: Required hardware²⁰iPhone 11 or later · iPad with A12 Bionic or later · Mac with Apple silicon

Availability & access

Conditional: Recognition languages^{1, 2}Cantonese (China mainland) · Cantonese (Hong Kong) · English (Australia) · English (Canada) · English (India) · English (Singapore) · English (United Kingdom) · English (United States) · French (Canada) · French (France) · German (Germany) · japanese · korean · Mandarin Chinese (China mainland) · Mandarin Chinese (Taiwan) · Spanish (Mexico) · Spanish (Spain) · Spanish (United States)
Conditional: Service eligibility³Open access
Conditional: Internet required⁴Mac only
Supported: Initial model downloadMac only

Accessibility

Conditional: Screen-reader support⁵Mac only
Supported: Keyboard navigationMac only
Supported: Caption display controlsText size · Color · PlacementMac only

Privacy & data

Not supported: Audio sent off deviceMac only
Conditional: Delete transcripts^{6, 7}iPhone · iPad only
Conditional: Recording-consent controls^{8, 9}iPhone · iPad only

Listed for iOS and iPadOS 27; availability also depends on country or region. Minimum OS: iOS 27 / iPadOS 27 (page version).
Mac with Apple silicon; availability also depends on country or region.
Built into the OS for anyone with a supported device; Apple states it is not available in all languages, countries or regions.
Only for the first-time language-data download on Mac; Apple does not state that ongoing captioning needs a connection.
With VoiceOver and a braille display; captions are output to the braille display via the Application Chooser.
Clears the current Live Captions transcription; call captions kept for up to 1 hour (Keep Call Captions) are cleared this way or expire.
Clears the current Live Captions transcription.
Call captions only, when Keep Call Captions is set to 1 Hour; an announcement also plays if captioning is paused or switched to 1 Minute.
Call captions only, when Keep Call Captions is set to 1 Hour.
Supported hardware, language and region are required.
Check compatibility for the specific Apple device.
Only in FaceTime video calls; not documented for microphone or device-audio captions.
Live Translation (Apple Intelligence) in one-on-one FaceTime calls; needs an Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone (iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 16 or later), downloaded languages, and supported language/region; usage limits may apply. Languages: English (UK, U.S.), French (France), German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish (Spain), Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Japanese, Korean.
Apple Intelligence on a supported Mac, one-on-one FaceTime calls, supported languages and regions; usage limits may apply.
iPhone 11 or later in a supported language/region. Call captions follow the Keep Call Captions setting.
Supported iPad model (A12 Bionic or later) in a supported language/region.
Mac with Apple silicon in a supported language/region.
iPhone 11 or later in a supported language/region.
Supported iPad model in a supported language/region.
Device model requirement.