VoiceOver may switch to use another TTS voice whenever it needs to announce punctuation

Category
VoiceOver Speech/Voices
Severity
Moderate

Description

Update: since posting this bug here, others have reported also seeing this behavior with voices other than Alex.

Original Report: This bug appears to be dependent upon a very specific use case and has an effective workaround.

If you are using Alex as your default TTS voice, you may find that VoiceOver will switch to use another voice whenever it needs to announce punctuation.

From testing, it appears that this behavior is likely to present itself if you have only the Alex TTS voice enabled. It is also likely that your region setting may be a factor, as this problem has been most consistent for one of our Team who has this set to the UK.

A quick and simple test to see if you are likely to encounter this behavior is to go to a text field on your device so that the onscreen keyboard appears. Now switch to the punctuation keyboard. If VoiceOver continues using Alex when you touch any of the punctuation keys, then it’s probably safe to assume that you will not see this problem.

Bug First Encountered

iOS 9.3

Device(s) bug has been encountered on

iPhone 6S

How often the bug occurs

Always

Workaround

If you are effected, we have found a temporary workaround, and that’s to add your preferred TTS voice as an option on your VoiceOver language rotor in Settings > General > Accessibility > VoiceOver > Speech. The result will be that you now have 2 language options on the rotor, both of which should in theory be the same. However, in our own testing, the newly added one appears to work as expected, whereas the ‘default’ instance on the rotor will demonstrate the behavior described above.

Status

Fixed

Fixed In

iOS 10.0.1

Options

Comments

By Arthur on Saturday, April 30, 2016 - 12:42

I live in the UK but use the US Samantha voice as Apple killed the UK Daniel Voice. However all my punctuation is spoken using another rotor language. I find it more of a nuisance, than a problem. I am using a 6S>

By JeffB on Saturday, April 30, 2016 - 12:42

I found that Samantha will say emoji's for some reason I have my voice set to Daniel and I would prefer it if Daniel spoak them as I am not a fan of the Samantha voice.

I always used Daniel as my default voice, but since Apple improved it, I don't like it so much. You might try going into your accessibility settings and adding Daniel as a rotor voice. This may sound dumb, but it works.

By JeffB on Saturday, April 30, 2016 - 12:42

Cool I'll try that thanks!

By JeffB on Saturday, April 30, 2016 - 12:42

I might of done it wrong but Samantha still says Emoji and the emoji after I type it. Not sure if I did it wrong or what's up.

By Arthur on Saturday, April 30, 2016 - 12:42

Here is how I have done mine. Bare in mind that I don't usually post, so I am not sure just how good I will be. You sound like getting around your phone isn't a problem to you so I won't bore you with step by step. In the first accessibility screen I tap Voice over, then down to speech. I say this because there is a speech option on the first page. You see your default voice at the top then rotor languages. I have a couple in here, so I removed them added the same voice as my default and bobs your uncle. Well I think he is anyhow.