can an iPhone speak the callers name?

I know that this is an old post, but I thought that since I did not see an answer for this, that I should mention that there is now an option to activate this on today's iPhone, ( iOS 10 )

Open the Settings app, then click on the Phone app, under that section you will see quite a few things that you can do, one of those things is the ability to have your phone announce all calls coming to your device..

Hope this helps someone.....

No such feature is built into the iPhone. There is an app in the app store, but it requires assigning custom ringtones to your contacts:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/autoringtone-pro-text-to-speech/id333264447?mt=8

Tell Apple you'd like to see such a feature:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

I've already done so but added that there should be the ability to turn this feature off. Most calls I get from sources I do not know only display the phone number so the telephone would just announce the telephone number which I think most people would find more irritating than some ring phones. And many people here would then complain it was violating their privacy and ask that it be turned off.

Ok, I thought you were talking about it using caller ID to announce it like one of my home phones did.

If you are only interested in your contacts being announced you could use custom ringtones, which most smartphones have gone to, rather than a computer voice attempting to pronounce the name (which would take some pretty smart programming with some contacts I have). You could create your own ringtones that just have the name of the contact, or a song or sound if you do not want their name announced in public, and assign them to each contact. It is pretty easy to do and once you catch up with your 100 contacts just do it each time you assign a contact.

Someone here already posted that they had an LG 4500 that did this and being curious I asked around about phones that have this capability. My clearly small and unscientific sample found that people with some people with higher end non-smartphones had this capability but none of the smartphone owners did. Might be a feature that was included in a sound chip used by both Nokia and LG that is no longer used.

You've done feedback, you can try the app someone suggested, you can make your own ringtones, or you could go back to an older phone that has this capability. BTW did you have an N97 or N73?

Yes. I used an iPod Classic with a microphone attachment to do mine but you could easily use your iMac, although I would buy a microphone. From there record it, use GarageBand to convert and save it, sync it to your iPhone and add it to the contact. Much easier than it sounds here, had a custom one from a script for my mother (you can find it on Mac|Life magazine website), my brother-in-law's was his Honda lawnmower starting, etc c

Here are the ringtones: http://www.maclife.com/aug2009win

Here's how to make them in GarageBand: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1358

One big advantage of this is when you have contacts for someone who doesn't call often. So for Dan Tonn I don't have just his name, I have "Dan Tonn, Income Tax CPA".

Doesn't really take that long and I am assuming you don't work 24/7.

Actually probably not as easy as you think and not a feature found on smartphones, but you've done what you can. Or look for one of the non-smartphones that are out now that do have this feature.

That's nice to know Nokia has that feature and every phone has something unique,but unfotunatley,the Apple iPhone does not offer that through there operating system,but the iPhone does have a voice dial system which is great.Jailbreaking offers things that can interest you with what all your iDevice can do,but I don't think it's worth it.The best thing to do is to recommend the idea to apple and see what happens in the generations to come in new Apple mobile operating systems.Good Luck!