Eloquence finally on iOS

hi folks.
Can anyone here possibly tell me how long do we wait befor ios16 is finally released to public?
Um. just trying to calculate how long do we wait before we can finally hear elequance on ios?

Based upon past years, the public release of iOS 16 is likely to be mid September. It typically comes about a week after Apple announces new iPhones.

For those registered in the Apple Beta Software Program, Apple has said that the first beta release should be available next month.

Just want to add that sometimes Apple will release the beta a few days before July, like June 29 or so. Also just a quick question, is there an interview planned with Sarah and the team similar to what has happened in previous years to discuss the software in more detail?

Hi everyone,

As someone who really want Eloquence on the Phone, I cannot waight for iOS 16, but I'll never again do the first 3 or 4 rounds of public beta testing again. I've had some really bad times, up to and including using my secondary (Android) Phone in stead of the iPhone for a while.

Round 5 and later is usually ok though.

However, I decided after iOS 13 that I'm not doing beta testing any more. I use to be that guy you'd bother if something on your phone doesn't work the way it should.

As exciting as the inclusion of Eloquence sounds, my equally impelling motive for installing the first beta of iOS 16 on my 13 Pro Max has been to test the very first Persian voice on an iDevice. Having used Apple devices since the days of the 4S, I felt it was incumbent upon me to help with the bug-detection process for this exciting Persian voice. So far I've submitted two reports via the Feedback app relevant to the operation of the new Persian (Farsi) voice and hope Apple take care of them for prospective iOS 16 beta releases.
P.S.: In case you've missed this, iOS 16 will offer voices for 20 more languages and dialects.
P.S.S.: I've also submitted bug reports pertaining Eloquence via the Feedback app and highly encourage everyone who has installed iOS 16 Beta 1 to follow suit.

Applevis did just 1 interview with her if I recall. They mostly ask questions that probably were approve by Apple. Mostly Sarah just came to talk about how wonderful and great apple accessibility are and what things they are doing.

I have installed both the iOS 16 beta on my iPhone 11, as well as the macOS 13 beta on my MacBook Pro M1, 2020. Eloquence has been very responsive on both devices, especially when navigating the Home screen and the dock. It's even responsive when you type on the onscreen keyboard.

Not to get to off track, but there has definitely been more than one interview with a few people from Apple talking about new features in iOS 12 and 13. For whatever reason, no interview was posted last year, but I'm hoping that this will continue, as it was a very positive step in the right direction.

AM an Iphone user from 12 years, and mac user from 9 years, and I must confiss that Alex is very very good, but Frankly, Eloquence, even if he is not better than Alex, but Eloquence is my Voice model, Frankly, i love him, and hope he will be available on mac also

There's nothing to report for now, but it's of course something that we would love and something that we would typically try to organise this time of year.

Eloquence in my Windows 10 with jaws 2022 is great. I used the vocalize voices but went back to Eloquence. I will add it in my iPad 9 gen when it comes out. I am not sure if I will do the beta test in July. I might install it by August.

For those who want to check the voices, Thomas did a podcast. 20 voices. I found 3 good the rest blank.
https://overcast.fm/+vuSEknnjk

For those who have installed the Beta: are the new locales/languages announced in May already in the Beta? And more specifically, is Catalan already available in the Beta?

I had mixed, including very bad, experiences with beta soft from Apple n the past, but I won’t wait a millisecond more than strictly necessary to install IOS15 Beta if it finally brings VO in my language. If you wonder how is the experience of using a foreign voice to read your text, just apply any Dutch or Norwegian voice to English text ;-) With patience, lots of, training and good luck you will eventually get most of it most of the time, but it is a real pain and a nerve-wrecking exercise.

This is the best news all year

Here we are in 2022. The iPhone is arguably the most advanced smart phone on the market. It can outperform many of its rivals with a neural engine, machine learning, advanced AI and some of the most ingenious software ever devised by some of the smartest humans on the planet. It can produce high-fidelity audio, spatial audio and speak to me in a voice that's almost indistinguishable from a human being in a wide number of languages.

Better stick a 30 year old speech synthesizer on it from the 90s. Maybe I can get it to play Toad the Wet Sprocket while I'm at it.

Enjoy your faster horse.

Eloquence is one of the voice which I really love and enjoy. Besides Alex, The other voices are not that good. Let us see how other vocalizer voices fairs in-front of the grand-father.

Yes. People are happy for it. Go figure.

Well, I wanted to, but... To each their own! If, one day, Apple delivers that true Siri voice experience for offline VoiceOver use on iOS, I'll join the camp of non-Eloquencers. But that day hasn't come yet.

I seriously do not get the negativity surrounding this decision. What is wrong with people? A lot of users have been clamoring for Eloquence on iOS for years, and now it's finally here. What is with this reaction? If you don't want to use it, don't. Use something else, there are other voices available that are new, but for God's sake stop complaining. Stop. Seriously, it's getting annoying now.

I agree with Zachary. A lot of people have wanted Eloquence for years.

I’m very glad we’re getting all these new voices, especially the singing voices. I have been wanting to play with those voices for the longest of times, but because I couldn’t afford a Mac, I could never play with them. Putting them on iOS will ensure that I will get to have fun with all these new voices. Imagine playing your favorite game and having it sing out to you or having an hourly clock app that just reads out the notification and you can set it to bells so, instead of just a voice saying it’s 12 o’clock, you hear this chiming it’s 12 o’clock in that Westminster tone sort of sound. It is going to be awesome. And those of you who want to be negative about eloquence, I grew up with eloquence on my computers at school as well as my own laptop which no longer works. Eloquence is not my do or die voice, but I do like it quite a bit. I like vocalizer voices, but I would love to have some nostalgia on my device and terms of voices.

Agreed. I too have used Eloquence with Jaws at both School and at Home on my former windows computer. Now with it being available on both iOS and MacOS, it is once again my favorite.

Even though the eloquence synthesizer is not for me, I am happy that those who have been wanting it for years are getting it.
To me, the eloquence sounds too much like a machine talking through its teeth.
I'd rather get new voices such as Alex but, still, people have different tastes and choices.
I do not mean to disrespect those who love the eloquence synthesizer. I am just stating that it is not for me.
Yet I am glad that you guys will get it.
That just tells me that Apple indeed listens to all of us.
I will probably play with those voices for a little while but, definitely, I won't keep them for daily use. Just to have fun.
If I could have my choice, I would rather use Ivona TTS but, sadly, those voices are not available.
Once again I am very happy for those who have been wanting eloquence for years.
The more choices, the better.
It is nice to see that Apple is listening to all of us.
Peace.

Thomas Domville of Applevis demonstrates the new TTS voices in iOS 16 in the below Seeing in the Dark podcast:
https://overcast.fm/+vuSEknnjk

What are the new voices available for Italian besides Eloquence? Eloquence I use it on Windows with both Jaws and NVDA, but I wouldn't use it on iPhone, there I prefer a more human voice like Alex.

I for one am loving this! Eloquence is just in a class of its own in terms of precision, and it handles every word you throw at it, even if it might mispronounce it, it never resorts to spelling it. Big ups to Apple for doing this!

Malthe you are completely right. More over how many customers will this gain Apple? Apple is very smart. This is no longer available on Android unless you purchased it when it was available. so huge win for Apple.

I am so excited! I've been wanting Eloquence on my iPhone since way back in 2011 when I got my first device. I'm a bit deaf and use Braille sometimes, particularly for longer or more complicated text entry. I'm firmly in the Eloquence camp and for all its faults, after over 15 years of using screen readers with that particular synth, I'm staying here. I'm not wishing my life away, but hurry up public Beta!

Hi,

For those of us in this wonderful community, who are licensed amateur radio operators, like myself, eloquence reads call signs correctly, without having to do anything else!
How cool is that?

When I first read the good news, I could not believe it. After 10 years a dream came true. I listened to Thomas Donville's podcast and although I liked Nathan and Zoe, Eloquence will always, always be my favourite. Thanks Apple.

For those of you who hate Eloquence, say it in a more meaningful way instead of being a dick about it. That is all.

ok so after four days of testing, eloquence is working great on both my iPhone 13, iPhone SE 2020, and iPad 8th gen with its, a12, chip. This is developer beta1 so there are some bugs and I got 2 or 3 crashes in which I immediately reported feedback. It has some crackly choppiness when reading long phrases without pausing, and it pauses a bit too long after some punctuation and when reading the time, all of which I did send feedback on all of this to apple so when everybody gets it in early to mid September hopefully, all of this will be fixed. I can tell you this. If you like it on a phone, you will love eloquence on a pro max with good speakers or better yet, an iPad! It sounds great! Apple really listens to its users, userss of all disability types! This is the best thing apple has done for us I think! everybody write to apple and thank them profusely for this!

I can’t wait to use eloquence on my i pad air third generation

also I bet a lot of students today like eloquence on their computers since they use jaws. So because eloquence is in IOS and iPad-OS, now, maybe students will really be asking their schools and TVI's for more iPads rather than the expensive $6000 notetakers unless they need something real special like the ability to emboss graphs and stuff. Now that eloquence is on my iPad, it makes an even better notetaker!

Hey people. I have done the impossible! I have installed the first beta of IOS16 and I am loving the Eloquence! Note, It is extremely buggy and people should not install it. you should take your own risk..

This is weapons-grade epic.

I'm faintly amused by all the people appealing to modernity and accordingly opposed to Eloquence. That's been the strategy up until now--how well would you say it's worked, especially in light of all this positivity? :)

Of course Eloquence in any form isn't perfect--nothing is. All those old mispronouncements; all those weird artefacts caused by various combinations of punctuation marks, and especially in light of modern Unicode glyphs. But I feel sure that with just the right amount of polish, preferably up to the standard employed by JAWS, Eloquence on macOS and iOS will be something very special indeed. I'm already using it on my macOS beta machine and it's joyously surreal even now. FWIW, I'm fairly adaptable to anything, even Nuance, but I think it's clear why Eloquence has long been considered the gold standard. Alex is very good, and I think Ralph would have been the best option until the arrival of Eloquence if he could only have been more easily turned up without hacking on VO's preference files directly, but Eloquence is totally "it" for me, and as soon as it's in production, I'm switching over totally unless particular reading scenarios call for other voices. YMMV, JMHO, etc.

That synthesizer is around 20 years old, and no longer being worked on from what I've read. My info is a few years old and maybe something has changed since. I don't have a reliable link to show you all on Eloquence's death. But I also don't know of any work being done to improve it.
If you think it sounds more natural than Vocalizer, sorry, but you might just be used to Eloquence because JAWS has it as default. I personally think Eloquence sounds like a robot and it's female voices sound hoarse, worse than a chain smoker does after 35 years. But you're entitled to your opinions.

As for me, I'm used to Vocalizer, it doesn't have the strange equalizer settings Eloquence does. After listening to Eloquence for more than a few minutes while using my computer, my ears become used to it's equalizer and when I finally hear other audio, the other audio sounds noticeably different. Eloquence I've also heard make popping sounds at faster speech rates.

Is Eloquence nice for some people? Yes. Is more variety in terms of voices good? Yes. Is Eloquence alone worth installing a developer beta and exposing yourself to lots of potential bugs? I don't think so. I like the voices in iOS 15 because I'm used to them by now, and I use Vocalizer on my PC anyway.

But to each their own.

Reading through this thread, for several times now, I found some questions unanswered. Catalan is in iOS sixteen. It’s in the language and region settings, which now, are layed out like macOS. The developer beta and public beta are different. The public beta is typically based on the last developer beta. For example, the WatchOS seven public beta 1, a few years back, was based on developer beta four. So developers get more recent betas, and they’re for the most bugs. I personally love Eloquence! It was the first voice I learned computers with, using JAWS 3.7 at the time.

for those interested, here is a comprehensive history of the ETI eloquence tts engine.

https://amhistory.si.edu/archives/speechsynthesis/ss_hert.htm

I wonder if with these old voices we can finally have a reading of the updates installation progress like on MacOS.

I can confirm, Eloquence is finally on iOS, as well as Mac! Personally I like Eloquence due to the responsiveness of the voice. I didn't really enjoy using vocalizer and hoped that their would be new voices like Eloquence.

I was like some people, thinking that this couldn't be done on iOS. I was mistaken, because when I checked the VoiceOver settings, it said something along the lines of, "Eloquence", button. Then I thought, wait, what? Eloquence is actually on this. Then I did the testing. It works great on iOS and Mac. If you don't believe me, then you need to update when the release comes out, that way you will hear the voice for yourself.

Originally, I thought that their was just going to be more voices due to the unsupported languages, but I didn't expect that Eloquence would be added, plus all of the other languages. Anyway as I said before, if you do not believe what I'm saying you can always go download the beta test yourself or download the new release and test it, instead of saying such negativity about it. A lot of people have been wanting Eloquence now, including myself, and it is finally here. So for those of you who are being negative, then you don't have to use it.

You do not need to use Eloquence if you don't want too. Instead, you can just use other voices. You all are lucky that Apple has been listening to us.

Have a great day!

I agree Erick, I agree with you. Apple didn't have to do this they did. This proves Apple listens to the users. I wish other companies would be this responsive. This includes video game makers etc.

Hello.
I know that eloquence comes in a Japanese flavor, but it's not present in all distributions. It's not in the jaws bistro for example.
Does someone know if japanese eloquence is supported on IOS?

Japanese Eloquence is currently not available in iOS. If you want it, install the developer beta or wait for the public beta, and submit a suggestion in the Feedback Assistant App.

Thanks. I was just curious if it would be available. I don't care enough to install the beta on my primary device.

The quality of eloquence in the latest beta is changed. It now sounds more like Windows, and better than Android.

I love the updated quality. it's also on MacOS 13 Ventura as well. nicely done apple!! as far as the time announcement, I like what they have done with the Lock Screen. much simpler to know the date first, then the time afterwords. very cool!!

Hi guys,
I myself was wondering if eloquence was going to be included in watchOS 9.
I’ve been trying the iOS 16 developer beta, as well as macOS Ventura beta, but I refuse to do watchOS betas, since there’s no real way of going back without taking your Apple Watch to Apple.
I would really like to know if eloquence is on watchOS.

As far as I can see, Eloquence is not available on WatchOS9, although Alex and the rest of the voices available on iPhone (including enhanced variants) do appear to be.