Has the Daniel enhanced voice on iOS changed. I have downloaded the enhanced voice, but it doesn’t seem to speak as well as it used to. The one on my phone sounds better but the one on my wife’s phone mispronounced certain words that mine pronounces correctly. Has there been a change or is there a bug? is it possible to delete a voice and then re-download it?
Comments
It sounds very robotic.
Daniel's voice comes across as quite robotic, and there are occasional distortions when it's used with the screen reader. While Caitlin is another popular choice, Daniel stands out as a more premium option. However, when you increase the speed, the quality of Daniel's voice diminishes. On the other hand, slowing it down results in a pace that's too sluggish, with inflections that go up and down repeatedly.
Modern voices
Thanks everyone for your assistance. I do find it difficult to understand why Apple aren't using much more realistic modern voices. Every voice still sounds computerised. I'm sure there are more realistic voices out there.
I really like daniel
I think daniel is overall a good voice. Some of the strange mispronunciations appear to have been fixed in iOS 17, and if you notice any, you can always report them to Apple Accessibility.
For example, a new one in daniel is the character å which is pronounced more like an I than an A.
There’s usually a good misspelling that you can used to correct pronunciations.
Agree with Brian
I would expect better quality of voices from Apple in this day and age. I know I'm going to upset the apple cart, pun intended, but the fact that a majority of the voices are 20 years old with no significant updates, really doesn't say very much. And even with some of the newer more premium voices, the fact that you can't really use them with apps like Voice Dream Reader (not screen reader as the app store calls it), really makes very little sense.
Licensing maybe?
I don't know how it works but maybe it also comes down to who Apple can get agreements with. When I tried Natural Reader, there were humanlike voices with mostly accurate inflections that I liked very much. A male voice called Eric and a female voice called Elizabeth I think come to mind. Not sure what company made them, though. Sometimes I wish I could have them for everything. But Zoe Premium has grown on me a lot. I've been using her quite a bit since I got a little tired of Siri US voice 4; I know Siri voices are supposed to be the most realistic, but Siri just seemed overly bright or cheerful sometimes depending on what I was doing or reading. And I can choose Zoe Premium as a voice just fine on Voice Dream, though her inflections sound a little more off in Voice Dream compared to, say, Kindle. I might be imagining it though.
Singer Girl, I like your comparison of fonts and voices.
Shows how much I pay attention.
I do have an iPhone SE, but so much of my work and reading and communication is done via my iPad as I have trouble with small screens that it didn't register that Zoe Premium wasn't available on my phone; I was using Premium on my iPad but Enhanced on my phone. That's just weird. Yeah, I hope they fix that. Fortunately the Enhanced version isn't too shabby either.
Choices of voices.
I can't really comment much on the iOS/iPadOS voices, as I am old school and use Alex for both macOS and iOS. However, on my Windows 10 Bootcamp, I use both Daniel Premium High Quality and Zoe Premium High Quality, with NVDA. Those voices sound really nice on my Pebble speaker system. And maybe I am biased, but after hearing the quality of said speakers, the vocalizer voices sound like garbage on my iPhone SE2. 🤷🏻♂️
@singer girl
Agreed. The vocalizer voices sound way better on Windows. I use NVDA, personally, but I am guessing the voices are the same as available for JAWS. Please note my JAWS experience ends with JAWS 2018, so I may be out of the loop on what works for JAWS, and what does not. 😅
One last thing. Karen premium high voice is dead sexy. 😇
Software hiccups
There is a possibility that it's the screen reader software causing every issue we have mentioned in these past few posts. For example, NVDA has an actual setting for "wait time". This is the time (in seconds) it takes to speak between pauses, like after a period, or line separator, etc.
There are also a lot more feedback settings, in my opinion, than say. . . in VoiceOver for macOS. And while the voices on Mac are not bad, per se, I feel they are a lot more "fluid" on Windows.
Just my 2 cents.
Now and Then
It used to be that iOS seemed to have more than macOS. Whether this is the case or just my own twisted perspective is anybody's guess.
Now, however, it seems there are an equal number of voices across the board.
Although, I cannot speak on behalf of the Enhanced vs Premium voices; I tend to use Alex for both Mac and iOS. 🤷🏻♂️
Aria
I would give up all of my currently downloaded voices on all 3 systems, not including Alexa devices, which would be iOS, macOS, and Windows OS. The voice I am referring to is Aria from Microsoft's Edge browser. She is available in Windows 10 as the default "read all" voice within the browser only.
Or.....
In Windows 11, as a downloadable voice for Narrator. I'd love to have her voice for NVDA/VoiceOver.
On a side note, I "do" have a little registry hack that gives me the Cortana voice for NVDA. That one is kinda cool. I suppose.
She is no ARia, though. 🙁
Fair enough
However, since you are on Windows OS, open Edge sometime, go to a website like AppleVis.com, and then:
• Press Control + Shift + U
That will make the Aria voice start reading the page to you. it's so pretty~ 🤭
Yes, the Microsoft Edge browser
The voice is part of the Microsoft Edge "read aloud" function. Now, if you had Windows 11, and if you used Windows Narrator within Windows 11, you could have the Aria voice as your Windows Narrator screen reader voice.
However, onWindows 10 using the Edge browser, everyone can enjoy the Aria voice when using the read aloud browser feature.
Done with Control + Shift + U. 😀
Narrator not required
I only mentioned Narrator because the Aria voice is an option on Windows 11.
No, continue using JAWS. I was only suggesting you open the Edge browser so you could hear the voice in question. This would not affect JAWSnor require you use Narrator. Think of it like pressing on a button and a voice speaks.
It's just a pretty voice. One I wish I could have with NVDA.
Link
The first female voice you hear will be Aria. Enjoy! 😃
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdQitJEuyug
Microsoft Edge is accessible
The days when Microsoft Edge really was inaccessible have long passed. Since Edge made the move to Chromium several years years ago, all of Edge’s functions are fully accessible with Jaws. So similar Is Edge to Chrome in function that I don’t bother using Chrome anymore.
Same
I'm happy enough with the vocalizer voices as well. I just think Aria has a pleasant reading voice. 😇
On windows 10, you can still…
On windows 10, you can still use those Microsoft Natural voices.
You just can't use them with any of the screen readers, but you can use them in Microsoft Edge with the emersive reader.
There's only two Australian voices I know of, Microsoft Natasha and Microsoft William.
There's quite a lot of english voices now, from a few regions that also speak english.
Neural Voices for NVDA
This is my fantasy. Thank you, that is all.