iOS 17.3 and iPadOS 17.3 Released With Stolen Device Protection for iPhones, Collaborative Playlists, and New Wallpaper

The issue with Siri stopping and not reading message appears to be history. Cross finger it continues. Looks more stable but I might be delusional.

A friend of mine will be extremely happy if she can use Siri to text once again.

Here's to hoping. . .

It's about time Apple Music rolled this out. Goodness knows spotify has had it for a long time now.

I just updated to iOS 17.3 from iOS 16.7 today. I have to say that I am very much regretting that decision. There is this extremely annoying bug that pertains to voiceover speech stuttering. I’m just amazed that I haven’t really seen this mentioned or talked about much When discussing other bugs. But a quick search shows me that there are threads related to it on this very website. It has just not been added to the bug tracker, nor mentioned at any point in the list of bugs that are mentioned in blog posts notifying everyone of iOS version releases. My question is, has the stuttering issue been this bad in prior versions of iOS 17 as well? Or did I just get extremely unlucky that when I did ultimately decide to take the plunge and update, I was hit with a release in which this bug is more prevalent and pronounced than ever before? I’ve tried tweaking speech settings and restarting my phone and things of that nature, but nothing seems to help. It is super annoying and I’m not sure how I’m going to get used to this. I hope someone has a workaround to make it better somehow. It’s extremely noticeable when using Safari, apps like Facebook etc. However, it’s extremely random and it seems to crop up all across iOS at various points, on various screens. Even within the iOS settings app. Scrolling through messages, etc.
Just to mention, I am using the Samantha voice, the standard one. Not the enhanced voice. And I would prefer to continue using that rather than having to switch to a different voice.

Greetings:

I have been using iOS 17 since it came out last fall. I am using an iPhone 12 Mini. For me, VoiceOver has not been stuttering, and I have used Samantha, Alex, and Eloquence/Reed. Not a single stutter.

Components of the OS need time to update. Give it a few days to settle down, then see if stuttering persists.

I have used Eloquence and samantha with no issues Eloquence is my main tts. Give it a few days to settle down.

Restart after installing any software update. I know it restarts to install the update, but it doesn't hurt to do it again, and your issue might go away. I've never had stuttering speech with iOS 17.

Agree. Most recommend that you do a restart. I suppose to help and make it stable.

Thanks to all who have responded to my comment above. I have tried restarting multiple times ever since the update, but unfortunately, there has been no change. The random stuttering is still there, and happens on some screens/apps more than others. It is especially noticeable when using Safari to navigate a webpage, swiping through your news feed on Facebook, swiping through available updates in the App Store app, swiping through Messages in the Messages app, and so on.
I was not aware of this bug since I have just not seen it mentioned in any of the previous iOS release blog posts otherwise I would have never updated even now. However, when I started encountering this bug and did a quick Google search for "Voiceover stuttering on iOS 17", the following page from Applevis was the first result in the search results list:
https://applevis.com/forum/ios-ipados/voiceover-stuttering-ios-17

The issues that the original blog poster and the people who have commented describe, are exactly the ones that I am encountering. And what's worse is, according to them, they have tried reporting it to Apple multiple times. Have been doing so since the beta cycles, yet this remains unaddressed.

Here's another blog post from another user, also here on Applevis that talks about the same bug in iOS 17:
https://applevis.com/forum/apple-beta-releases/request-help-reporting-ios-stuttering-bug

This is not even something that one can just get used to or work around somehow. If anyone who has run into this bug before is able to provide a work around or a way to eliminate it by tweaking some setting, please do let me know.
Just to check, I even tried switching to a different voice to see what the experience was like, and unfortunately it made no difference. I wonder if this is a device/model specific bug since many of you don't seem to be encountering it? I am using an iPhone SE (3rd Generation).

Have you tried resetting all settings? While this process reverts all settings to factory defaults, and thus will require you to manually reconfigure them to suit your needs and preferences, it can sometimes resolve intermittent issues in iOS.

HTH

I knew, that my joy wouldn't last long.
I updated yesterday and when I wanted to play some playlists via my Bose Soundlink mini speaker, on my workplace in the morning, Voiceover freaked out again. Not like the days before, but still anoying for me and everyone around.
Does someone else encountered this issue? Using an iPhone 12 Pro.

No way to disable back-to-back requests, still. This is such a stupid and regrettable change that fundamentally decreases the utility of Siri. More than usual!

Hello. Perchance, have you cleared out the App Switcher by closing down all of the active applications? I do this every day, but I wanted at least to see if this was a factor in your situation. As I said earlier, I am not experiencing any VoiceOver stuttering on my iPhone 12 Mini. Thank you.

It works well with Alexa. She does a great job and no issues with her. Apple did not do a good job with it but now I am not having issues at this time with it.

Yes, I have done that. I actually do that on a fairly regular basis throughout the day myself. Perhaps, even more than necessary. But no, unfortunately clearing out the app switcher make no difference. No matter what I try, the annoying bug remains. It almost sounds like VoiceOver is tripping over itself. its own speech. Whatever Apple did with the voices in iOS 17; tweaking the speech rates and things like that, it really seems to have messed things up.
I am just surprised that as significant as this bug is, and understandably, it may be an intermittent one, it was just not mention much anywhere at all. I would have never updated to iOS 17 if I knew about this. Obviously, there’s no way to downgrade. There’s no going back, and there’s no way of knowing if this will ever get fixed. Especially since it seems like it’s not being experienced by A lot of users. The ones who have experienced it, supposedly have reported it, and have had no fruitful results from Apple’s end.

All I'll say is that Siri would be more useful if I could turn that feature off. It's not great, sure, but it's more useful without this stupid party trick of listening for follow-ups. Really, really annoying.

And you can tell your feline companion that Tab says hello.

As a work-around for back-to-back Siri requests, if you say "thank you" after it has responded the first time, it will stop listening. Not ideal, but until there is a toggle, I guess it's the best option.

Unfortunately it's not just about Siri listening when it shouldn't, annoying as that is. It's that while it listens, it suppresses speech feedback from VoiceOver while reading the screen, and if it doesn't hear a request, or if you explicitly tell Siri to go away, it will disappear completely and take the results of your request with it, so that you can't review it anymore. It truly is a ghastly issue. Between this and Dictionary being broken on macOS, I know longer have a good way to easily look up words in the dictionary.

I noticed this on the very first beta release of iOS 17. I've actually mentioned it in multiple places, but very few people seem to be aware of it. It's absolutely obnoxious, especially using Safari and Facebook. It's the reason I didn't update my phone until just a few weeks ago, and regretted the update as soon as I did it. Toward the end of iOS 16, only Eloquence stuttered, which was bad enough. Now all voices seem to do it.

Your post was the first one that I saw come up in search results when first tried looking it up on Google (when I first started running into this issue after the update to the dreadful iOS 17 a day or two ago).
I am sorry to hear that you are experiencing it as well, and so have a few more people who have commented on your blog post, as well as a few others on other relevant blog posts on Applevis. If you search for "Voiceover stuttering" on Applevis, there are a few results that come up where users talk about experiencing this issue on iOS 17.
. I think that should have been enough for the Applevis team to at least acknowledge it and add it to the list of bugs in the bug tracker, or mention it at some point. There are enough users out there who have talked about this on this very website.

However, sadly, not only has it not been acknowledged by a wider group of users, but it hasn't even ever seemingly been acknowledged by Apple at any point (since it has been there since the first beta release).

I am just curious, which phone/device are you experiencing this issue on? I am trying to see if it is one of those device/model specific bugs, which is why it hasn't been reported more widely. That said, I assume that a fair bit of us use the iPhone SE (3rd Gen) which is what I have and am experiencing this issue on.

Yeah, if you're talking about the voiceover volume suddenly blasting and there's no way to lower it after connecting to a Bluetooth speaker, I've experienced that too.

I was thinking of bringing it up here, but wasn't quite sure how to describe the issue.

For me, it only happens when the device type is set to 'speaker.' If I choose any other setting, voiceover starts blaring from the speaker, and that's not what I want.

I don't know about stolen device protection, but something out there is still stealing all Siri voices when my phone charges. So that issue is still, erm, an issue. Luckily, the Bingo genius work-around still works - restart the phone immediately before charging and then don't log back into it until you're done charging. The byproduct of this work-around is that it won't do an iCloud backup while plugged in, so be sure to remember to do that mannually, but apart from that it will do for now.

I'm very sorry to hear about the Voiceover stuttering bug in particular. I haven't experienced this one myself but you have my sympathy if you have that as I bet it makes the phone nigh on unusable. I wish I could say something more helpful.

In IOS 17.3 on my iPhone 15 pro, I simply say, "SIRI, what is the definition of X" where X is the word for which I seek a definition. SIRI responds with the definition. I don't know about Mac OS, though, but Mac OS isn't the topic of this post.

I don't understand at all why it's not listed as a known bug. I know a few people who didn't notice it until I pointed it out; then they could tell. I have an iPhone 14 and an iPad Pro, and it's happening on both devices. I also updated my mom's iPhone SE 3, and my stepdad's iPhone 14 Plus, and both devices do it. So I don't think it's device-specific. I think it's more that somehow, people aren't noticing it. It doesn't seem as prominent at slower speech rates, so maybe that's why not as many people are picking up on it. If many blind people aren't noticing it, it's no surprise the engineers at Apple can't really hear it. But it's so obnoxious!! I regret updating!!

Is this where voiceover's speech kind of, not sure how to describe it, as you're flicking through items, trips over itself.

In other words, the last bit of the previous thing spoken is spoken on the next item?

I get that sometimes with the Fred voice, but it's hardly a showstopper.

It's only like the tiniest bit, hardly noticeable.

For me it happens when I'm swiping fast.

You're right, and I should have said that I am specifically interested in reviewing the definition on-screen with VO. Also, be aware that Siri only announces the first definition in each major definition of a word, it does not announce any sub-definitions or usage notes and examples, all of which are on-screen. So having access to the entire entry really would be preferable.

Yes, that's what we're talking about. For me, it's extremely noticeable. VO will say a syllable of the line before, then read the current line.

Third-party TTS engines/voices no longer take so long to start after the device is powered on.

Sadly, it doesn't seem like anyone at Apple Accessibility is willing to even acknowledge this bug, even though I have been on the phone with them multiple times and even sent screen recordings. Apparently they can't "hear" the distortion/stutter in the recordings. According to them, I, the user, is navigating too fast. I have sent them recordings with speech rate set to 30% to 35% as well as the normal rate that I use it at; 80% to 85%.
Note that these people who are answering calls at the Apple Accessibility line are sighted.

For the record, I have been using Voiceover since iPhone 3GS came out, and I did not encounter this bug up until I put this stupid iOS 17.3 release on my phone last week (I was on iOS 16.7 prior to this). It would make more sense if Apple actually put Voiceover users on this Apple Accessibility line rather than non-Voiceover users who have no clue as to how Voiceover is supposed to behave, what the expectations are and what we, as dedicated Voiceover users are hearing.
They did not even want to send it forward for an engineer to look at because they couldn't identify it as a bug.

It is one of the most frustrating responses I have ever received to such a significant bug; how will it even get looked at if it isn't even being sent forward? We are all encouraging each other to report this, report that, no matter what, all the time on this site. Yet the people that we are reporting this to are just picking and choosing what they do or don't want to send forward.

All that said, I would still encourage all who are experiencing this bug, to still report it. The more it keeps getting reported/coming up in their records, the more they are going to feel compelled to look at it. Also, I am in no way discouraging anyone from contacting Apple Accessibility. I am just sharing my experience. I am sure others experience has been and will be better than mine.

i'm still using ios 16.7 , is latest 17.3 is fine to use? i've iphone SE-3, if its not fine, do you think that this is normal behavior from apple?