Distorted sound of VO on iphone 5s

By bubbles, 2 November, 2013

Forum
iOS and iPadOS
Hello I have just purchased my new iphone with great enthusiasm only to be dissapointed by really bad quality of sound on VO. It is new iphone 5s, I have tried abslutely everything! I went to the apple store and was told that perhaps my handset is faulty and was offered a replacement. But after trying 4 other new handsets with the same problem I was told that this is probably the problem with the batch that they:Apple store received. I was also told that that they have send their comment and I should hear within 24 hours instruction about how to fix this. When I did not hear after 24h I contacted the apple support line and was offered 3 options of returning the phone to the apple store. I have chosen to make an appointment again in the Apple store and apparently problem should b fixed?! Really feeling sceptical as majority of staff really have no experience and expertise of Accessibility and dealing with customers who are blind. I would like to add that they all have been trying to be very helpful and polite. Very, very frustrating especially when you rely so much on the VO function that help you to be more independent, therefore it is so important that the sound quality needs to absolutely spot on. I am a bit lost with this issue and would appreciate any helpful advice or solution.

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Comments

By Yujin on Saturday, November 23, 2013 - 21:30

I suspect this is due to VO using low quality voice on iOS 7. Try go to Settings>General>Accessibility>VoiceOver. Then, go to 'Languages & Dialects'. There should be an option called 'default dialect' as the first option. Double tap on that option. Next, scroll down to the Voice Quality section, you should find an option called 'enhance quality'. Turn on the setting and the high quality voice will start to download. Hope I get it right and solve your problem. Thanks

By Michael Hansen on Saturday, November 23, 2013 - 21:30

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team
Hi Bubbles, I have an iPhone 5S, and if this is what I think you're talking about, I can unfortunately confirm that this is a known issue. Apple used a different speaker in the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C, and VoiceOver speech distorts when the volume is set to the highest settings. The only marginally good solution to this issue is to turn the volume down low enough so that the speech doesn't distort. I've tried a couple iPhone 5S's and an iPhone 5C, and they are all the same. So, getting another iPhone 5S or 5C unfortunately won't fix your problem.