Changing Speech Rate for Apps That Use the System Voice

By Callum Stoneman, 10 March, 2023

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hi,

Since SoundScape will stop functioning soon, I'm now looking at other navigation apps. I'm a big fan of BlindSquare, but also looking at what else is out there as I prefer to have more than one available.

One thing I have noticed is that the GoodMaps Outdoors and the WeWalk app both use the system voice (if that is the correct description) rather than VoiceOver's voice, and they do not have the option within the apps to adjust settings such as the voice, speech rate etc. I have managed to change the voice that they use by going to Settings > Accessibility > Spoken Content and changing the voice in there, but changing the speech rate here has no effect no matter which voice I select.

Does anyone know how I can change the speech rate for these apps? I'm used to having the voice fairly quick, and would definitely prefer this when receiving directions. Even Eloquence sounds painfully slow at the moment.

Thanks in advance for any help with this.

Callum

Options

Comments

By Holger Fiallo on Sunday, March 5, 2023 - 09:20

I think if you open the rotor and find rate you might be able to do so.

By Squirrel on Sunday, March 5, 2023 - 09:20

Something you could try is to create an activity in the Accessibility settings by navigating to Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver > Activities. The activity can be configured to use the preferred speech rate in the apps in question.

However, I suspect that this solution may not work as desired for this use case because the apps will be working in the background, unaffected by the activity settings. It may be worth attempting this solution nonetheless, unless someone can confirm that this approach will not produce the desired results.

By Callum Stoneman on Sunday, March 5, 2023 - 09:20

Thanks for the suggestion, but unfortunately that won't work in this case as the apps are not being voiced by VO when they speak the directions.