Siri voice question

By David Lai, 18 September, 2023

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hi folks!

I just updated to iOS 17 despite all the reports I've been reading. So far, so good. VoiceOver never crashed and I'm doing well.

The only question is, my Siri voices are still using the big ones of hundreds of MB. For those who got the new and more expressive voices for VoiceOver, are these of similar sizes? If not, I guess I'll have to delete the current Siri voices and redownload again.

Also, I just looked under the English UK settings and didn't find the 2 new voices.

Thanks and hope to hear that I'm missing something. :)

David

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Comments

By wiljames on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

You have to go to Siri and sample the voices to get the newer ones to download. For example, I am using Norah, American Voice 4. She takes up only 59MB whereas she use to take up 400MB.

By Dominic on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

Laura is still 450 MB over here

By David Lai on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

I see, thank you! Well, I just got the US voices to all shrink their sizes. Do I have to do this for all languages I prefer using Siri voices? That would be a big project. Wish VO was adaptive enough to this, but alas!!!

By Emre TEO on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

A detailed solution for this problem would be highly appreciated.

By Missy Hoppe on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

Do I go into the actual Siri settings to play samples of the new voices to get the smaller ones? Messing around with them in voice over settings doesn't seem to be accomplishing anything, and if they can be smaller, I would really, really love to free up the space on my phone as I pretty much have all the English voices installed apart from eloquence. Any further clerification would be extremely appreciated.

By David Lai on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

I went into the Siri settings to reget my American voices and now they are AI powered. But so far I don't know if this means I need to get all my Siri languages like this, including different English accents and Chinese? Not sure, I gues so... ?

By David Lai on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

For some reason, though I've deleted the old British Siri voices, and have downloaded the British Siri voices under Siri settings with my language settings still set to English US, I can't see the smaller British voices. Could it be that the smaller AI-powered voices are only for American English? Still confused. Meanwhile, loving the snappy experience of using American Siri voice 4.

By roman on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

Hey folks. apple mite be working on other voices to make the synthesizer, voice over friendly? As far as I have checked, Siri voice for (American English) seems to function well with voice-over.

By David Lai on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

I'm waiting for other English accents and Chinese Madarin to be available soon. So far, I'm enjoying the new edition of the American Siri voices.

By Missy Hoppe on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

Maybe I need to call Apple accessibility when I get home, but I have no sign of any of these new voices that you guys are talking about. You are mentioning that they have names, and that are a fraction of the size, but no matter what I do, I am not getting them. All of the Siri voices I have are still well over 400 MB. Should I completely delete them all and hope that the correct ones re-download, or is there another step I need to be taking? Thanks!

By Desertway on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

All my Siri voices are the same as they were, both the American and British male and female. All are over 400 MB, and I downloaded them all fresh.

By Dominic on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

I have the exact same problem. I also can’t see any of those new British voices that were in iOS 17 beta. Dammit! I wanted to use that British guy that kind of sounds like some gangster guy from England! LOL

By Dominic on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

In iOS 17 beta, that was this rather hot, sounding British female voice, but kinda sounds like on the news reporters from BBC. I would’ve just love to make a fake news report on my iPad, switch to that voice and see how she reads it.
Dominic iOS 4.1 has been released by Dominic Inc, without a support for the record Galaxy note 7, and explosive iPhone 7.
And I said that in a British voice mind you.

By Holger Fiallo on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

How you find the name? I did downloaded voices for siri 2 and play it but nothing about name.

By wiljames on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

You will need to choose the voices in Settings > Siri and Search, Language. When you tap on a voice to preview it, you will notice to the right of the one you choose a percentage. At the end of your voices, you will see text that states Siri Voices will take effect after download completes. If you choose a different voice, you will cancel the download of the previous voice. You also need to be on WI-FI for this to take effect.

By Ann Marie B on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

Hi. I have the UK siri voice 3 as Siri and American voice 4 as my voice over voice. I'm enjoying them so far. :)

By Cankut DeÄŸerli on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

On my iPhone 11, only the American voices changed, other English voices and Turkish voices are the bigger ones. Also, I can't find the new voices on my MacBook Air, running Mac OS Sonoma RC, including the American ones. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

By Enes Deniz on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

Have the very same issue. Also, as I mentioned earlier in the General TTS Discussion thread, even the small AI-powered US English voices each have two different variants found in Settings>Accessibility>VoiceOver>Speech>English (US) and Settings>Accessibility>Spoken Content>Voices>English (US).

By Enes Deniz on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

In addition to the smaller US English voices, you can also still find the larger ones when you go to Settings>Accessibility>VoiceOver>Activities>any activity>Voice>English (US)>Siri.

By David Lai on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

So it looks like the smaller Siri voices are for US English only, and only when they are used as the main VO voice? Am I understanding correctly that other languages don't have such features? Thanks for answering my confusion question! :)

By Enes Deniz on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

You do find smaller voices for other languages when you go to Settings>Accessibility>Spoken Content>Voices>any language having Siri voices>Siri. Though you can't use them with VoiceOver, and they don't even work if selected to be used as the system voice for these languages for use with features like Speak Screen. I tried switching back and forth between the male and female Turkish Siri voices, but it would be Yelda, the default/built-in Turkish voice speaking whenever I tried to have the voice speak, or no speech would be heard at all.

By Cankut DeÄŸerli on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

So is there a bug effecting these new voices to operate properly? This is really confusing. And not only for Ä°OS but Mac OS to.

By Missy Hoppe on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

I have no clue what I did, but when I got home from work, I did discover the smaller US english voices. I've actually deleted all of my roter languages for the moment; no sign of smaller voices for any other siri voices. I'm also confused by the comment earlier in this thread saying that each of the US voices has two varients now. Also, still no sign of names for these voices. I'm beyond confused. I kind-a want to use the new, smaller siri voice, especially with Alex so frequently turning into Samantha, but honestly, none of this is making any sense. Maybe I'll call Apple Accessibility and see if they can help me understand, but I have a potentially much more serious concern I am hoping Apple can help me with. Thankfully, it's not an accessibility-related issue, but it seems like a pretty major bug none-the-less, assuming it even is a bug.

By Cankut DeÄŸerli on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

I'm using an iPhone 11. And my Mac is an M 1 MacBook Air. So I don't think that this issue is related to hardware.

By Matt92Machine on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

The voices weren't originally available in voiceover, so I deleted all the siri voices in settings/accessibility/voiceover/speech/voices, and then I rebooted the phohne. Once I rebooted, the smaller sized siri voices were available to be downloaded.

By Ann Marie B on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

So this is interesting. My mom called me and said my VM had an English accent. I played around in Settings and saw that it was because I said my Siri voice to one of the British voices. I said it back to the American voices and called my phone using A lady and it was fine. Strange but cool at the same time.

By Cankut DeÄŸerli on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

Rebooting the device didn't work for me, and interestingly I can't delete the large Siri voices. There is no delete option in rotor actions.

By Matt92Machine on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

Seems like only American English siri voices shrunk.

By Cankut DeÄŸerli on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

If you go to settings>accessibility>spoken content, you can find the smaller voices. But they don't show up in VoiceOver settings for whatever reason. This is really frustrating and confusing.

By David Lai on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

Well, for now I think I'll just restore all my rotar languages to the Siri voices, despite their big sizes. At least I'm happy that my VO hasn't crashed once after iOS 17, plus I can switch dictation depending on what keyboard I've set to. For some reason I wasn't able to do that on iOS 16. Now that this is fixed, I'm happy. Hopefully some future update would shrink all the Siri voices for VoiceOver. But until then, I'll go with the American voice 4.

By Cankut DeÄŸerli on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

Did anyone write to Apple Accessibility about this problem? Maybe they can come up with a solution.

By Quinton Williams on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

Yes, the voices require at least an a14 chip (iPhone 12 or newer) from what I understand. otherwise, you'll just get the larger ones. This is what I've gathered from the testing I and a few friends have done. It might be helpful to list your device. mine's a 13 pro max and has them.

By Brad on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

GO to your siri settings, then find the voice you want, double tap on it and you should hear a preview, if not, swipe down until you hear preview and tap on that, then swipe to the right, and you should hear something about the voice downloading, wait for it to complete downloading and you're good to go.

You must not click on any other siri voice in this time otherwise it will stop downloading the last voice and download the one you've clicked on.

By Cankut DeÄŸerli on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

I don't think they are hardware dependent because the US Siri voices are the small ones on my iPhone 11. I think The system has a bug effecting some voices to showing up.

By Enes Deniz on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

Deleting the Siri voices and rebooting the device didn't work and likely didn't even succeed on my device. I wouldn't be able to delete some Siri voices that were reported to be used by Switch Control. Not only that, any voices that I could delete by swiping up/down and finding the rotor action "Delete" for the voice, would be back in few mere seconds. Not surprising that they were waiting for me after I rebooted the device, without having to be redownloaded. So when I attempt to delete a voice, the free storage space goes up by the size of the voice, only to shrink back to something close to the free disk space available prior to the attempt.

By Andy Lane on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

I have a 14 Pro Max and have the US Siri voices in their new improved shrunk down, more expressive versions which I’m not sure I even prefer but not to worry, I don’t use US voices anyway. Non of the other languages have new versions available though so I’m still not sure if all of them have been released.

By Enes Deniz on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

As I said earlier, you do find smaller versions of the voices for all the languages and dialects having Siri voices if you go to Settings>Accessibility>Spoken Content>Voices>any language having Siri voices>Siri.

By Levi Gobin on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

I didn’t even know the smaller ones were available on macOS.
During the whole entire beta testing cycle, from Mac OS Sonoma beta one to Mac OS 14 public version, only the big siri voices would show up.
After I updated to 14.1, the big voices still showed up. After I restarted my Mac, the new smaller ones showed up.

Another question. Are the other variants for the Siri voices (available in all languages) available in spoken content?

By tripolice on Saturday, October 14, 2023 - 15:47

In Siri settings, the voice I have sampled is taking ages to download. It just says, in progress, and that the voice will take effect when downloaded, but no other progress indication, on WIFI and plugged in. Under Voiceover, Speech settings, the voices are the larger ones. This is happening with American English voices, and no British voice 3 and 4 in Voiceover for me, although they reflect in Siri settings, but again, not downloading.