Late on Wednesday, Apple officially released iOS 18.2, which includes some of the Apple Intelligence capabilities that the firm had hinted about back in October 2024. Only a few Apple Intelligence features were available when the iPhone 16 series was introduced. However, iPhones and iPads now have access to capabilities like Visual Intelligence, Genmoji, Image Playground, and more in this deployment, which is essentially the second part of the rollout for Apple Intelligence features. But there is a function called Layered Recording that we think is hilarious. This tool is invaluable if you are a podcast presenter, musician, or content creator!
In essence, Layered Recording is an extra capability that the Voice Memo app offers. Imagine overlaying your musical masterpiece with a vocal track—no headphones needed. This new feature allows you to record vocals while playing your own instrumentals through the iPhone speaker.
There are countless options. Let your imagination go wild after using an acoustic guitar or piano as your foundation in Voice Memos. To add vocals while on the fly, producers can even upload a compressed audio file of an instrumental mix straight to Voice Memos. Apple offers some suggestions for utilising the new capability.
However, you may also use the feature to work together on a voiceover or audio recording. Additionally, editing would be simpler because the audio files would be in layers.
Open the Voice Memo app on your phone to utilise the feature. It’s the app that comes pre-installed on iPhones for capturing audio. Next, touch on any existing recordings on your phone, or a fresh recording of a background soundtrack or instruments you play. On the lower left corner of that specific recording, you will notice a waveform icon. Press that. A new ‘+’ symbol will now appear on the screen. Your audio recording will gain layers if you tap that.
In case you were wondering how this works, the answer is very cool. As a precaution, Voice Memos automatically records two distinct tracks when you record a song: one for your vocals and another for the instrumentals. This allows you to adjust the tracks later in professional software such as Logic Pro. Additionally, you can simply pick up that track on your Mac and transfer those recordings directly into a Logic session thanks to Voice Memos syncing between devices.
Here’s the catch, though. Only the iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max have this feature. And that’s because it isolates vocals using the new A18 Pro chip. For the feature to function, your 16 Pros must be running iOS 18.2. Logic Pro for Mac 11.1 with macOS Sequoia 15.2 is required if you wish to utilise the Layered Recording capability on your Mac. Logic Pro for iPad 2.1 with iPadOS 18.2 is required for the iPad.