Apple's response regarding Eloquence voices

By morbidCode, 4 December, 2015

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

To eloquence people

Hello all, as I said in <a href="http://www.applevis.com/forum/ios-ios-app-discussion/writing-apple-concerning-speach-synthisizers">this post</a>, I would be writing to apple about eloquence, here is the email I wrote.

"Hello

I have been using IPhone 4s with voice over. While I do enjoy many voices such as Samantha, Daniel and the siri male voice in IOS 9.1, I was a bit surprised that a specific TTS voice, namely Eloquence, is not included, particularly it was very popular with many of us blind users. Now, I do think that there is a reason why Eloquence is not being included in voice over. But many users, including me, seem to want this voice. Some of the reasons are it's very responsive and it has great pronunciations of words. If it is possible, can you explain the reasons why Eloquence can't be added in voice over? I think this will help people desiring the Eloquence voice aware of the reasons why it is not included.

Thanks for your response and your work in making IOS accessible to us."

Surprisingly I got a response just today. I felt very happy about it because at last we are done with speculations and will actually find out about the reasons why eloquence is not added. Sadly that's not what I received. Here's the response.

"Hello,
 Thank you for your email. This is proprietary information that won't be shared.
Thank you for your understanding."

I'm totally confused. proprietary? I'm not sure what this mean? Is there a problem with how I written my email? Why do I get this weird response? Did I do something wrong?

Regardless of all that, does this mean we will never get eloquence from voice over?

Options

Comments

By tunmi13 on Thursday, January 24, 2019 - 17:26

So I've been scrolling through this thread for a bit, and I'm currently on the fence here.
Eloquence has its ups and downs, especially considering the fact it has a wide range of customization, varying from head size, to roughness, to breathiness, inflection, and pitch.
However, it does has its downsides as well, such as the fact that it's not updated.
I may be giving misleading info here, but according to what I know and wht I've read, Ebboquence 5 was the last version. Vocalizer on the other hand, is constantly being updated/improved.
Vocalizer also has a range of languages and human sounding voices that are distinguishable for the user of that language.
For example, one who speaks English can understand Alex, or Ava.

By John Dowling Jr. on Thursday, January 24, 2019 - 17:26

I think its funny how in iOS what was it, 10? 11? we got a taste of 2 of the macintalk voices. Fred, and Victoria. I wonder when there gonna add the rest?

By Daniel Angus M… on Sunday, March 24, 2019 - 17:26

hello,
All who want Eloquence, become beta testers and fill out an enhancement request in the Feedback Assistant app for macOS and iOS, and for those who want it, in TVOS.

By Queenofeagles07 on Sunday, March 24, 2019 - 17:26

maybe you just stop complaining and asking for too much and be thankful for what you got

By Justin on Sunday, March 24, 2019 - 17:26

Agree with this. The license for eloquence is gone, and the only companies that are using it are NVDA and JFW, There's no way eloquence will be comming to apple. Why should it? It's robotic. I'm actually glad it'll never be on apple devices. It's the end of an era, and the beginning of a new one, thank god!

By Remy on Sunday, March 24, 2019 - 17:26

I really like eloquence even now. yes it's certainly robotic, but it's responsive, clear and quick. A lot of those more natural sounding voices have these really weird inflections and hickups when speaking. They sound nice when they're natural sounding, but when they aren't, I really notice. I have gotten pretty used to the classic Samantha for Voiceover though. I don't feel like I need Eloquence on my Iphone, but I do respect it. maybe that's just because I'm so used to it. Even if it can't pronounce my name properly.

By Laurent Cadet … on Sunday, March 24, 2019 - 17:26

I think Eloquence has stood the test of time for many of us, and I would not swap it for anything currently available on my Windows screenreader. While I get on fine with the voices on the iPhone, I can't help wondering whether Eloquence would help me feel even more productive, due to the fact that my brain has been hardwired over the years to interpret the way it pronounces words, and how highly responsive the synthesizer is.

I accept that my views on this may not be shared by all -- I have been using Eloquence daily for nearly 20 years now. I also think though that providing a range of options to suit a variety of tastes is to be encouraged. so find blanket statements that something which is working well for many and has done for years should not be an option simply because its "out-dated" to be both highly inaccurate and unhelpful.

By That Blind Canuck on Sunday, March 24, 2019 - 17:26

When it comes to my iPhone, I've grown to used to Samantha and have tried other voices, like Alex, but find myself always going back to Samantha.

As for Eloquence, if it would ever make its way to the iPhone, I would probably switch to it in a heart beat as, using JAWS on a PC for many years, I find nothing beats Eloquence for speed and productivity.

Sure those high quality voices are nice and all, but crank the speed on those suckers and I find they tend to cut off words. If I need to read some long text, I may change my voice to a higher quality, but even though its old, Eloquence has proven time and time again to still be the best fit for me, but that is for me, not for everyone else.

Would I use Eloquence if it would ever show up on the Iphone, heck yeah. Will Apple ever add it to their list of voice synthesizers, probably not, but who knows what really happens behind closed doors at Apple HQ.

By kool_turk on Sunday, March 24, 2019 - 17:26

There's always the Fred voice.

It's not eloquence, but it's probably the clocest you'll get to Eloquence on iOS.

By TornadicSupercell on Sunday, November 24, 2019 - 17:26

Hello,
So yes, Eloquence is not in iOS 10, 11, 12, and 13. I've also wanted Eloquence on iOS ever since iOS 9.3.5 mainly because it is a high quality voice, has amazing enunciation of words, and is extremely eloquent. I do think Eloquence should be added to native iOS.

By KE7ZUM on Sunday, November 24, 2019 - 17:26

Actually eloquence is not an HQ voice. Even at 16 or 24 bit it still has some issues. Plus the speech engine itself I heard is no longer being supported by nuance.

By JeffB on Sunday, November 24, 2019 - 17:26

As someone who's recently switched to droid I can tell you that eloquence isn't on the Play Store any more. At this time it is not being sold by Code Factory on Android. I don't see any other way to buy it either. No big loss for me but as probably mentioned this would no longer be a reason to switch.

By Ahmed on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 - 17:26

Hi this is my opinion on the subject matter I would have to agree with what was said while some people prefer eloquence to the voices that we already have on IOS it’s a risky idea not withstanding the fact that Apple could be sued by CodeFactory for buying a speech synthesizer that they have no right to legally license or to own besides eloquence is out of date

By Konchog on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 - 17:26

In reply to by Ahmed

Hello all,

I think it has been quite a few years since I posted on AppleVIS. I prefer to keep a low profile, especially since I am a Buddhist monk. I suffer from Usher Type III, and I am totally blind, and ninety-nine percent deaf. However, in spite of my deafness, my primary mode of functioning in this world is through sound and voice, not tactile and braille. This is especially true since there is no Tibetan voice, nor is there support for the Tibetan braille code on computers except in Duxbury. And even here, there is no keyboard for Tibetan. So I mainly function in English language on the computer.

As far as I am concerned, Apple has really botched up the voiceover voices for people with low hearing and little experience using braille. I do have a braille display, but I quit using it when Freedom Scientific mangled the braille tables in Jaws 2020. Freedom scientific cannot get it through their head that Computer Braille is not a standardized, recognized braille format like English Grade 2 or Unified English Grade 2. I mainly use the display to examine words that are beyond the limit of my hearing to hear fully. I have less than one percent of normal hearing. Many of the voiceover voices are simply too difficult for me to comprehend. For example, with Samantha, I might have a comprehension rate of 75-80 percent. With some of the other voices, that rate might dip below 40 percent. With eloquence, my comprehension rate is probably above 95 percent. Vocalizer coices do not go over 90 percent. The voice I get the best performance with on voiceover iOS is Tom.

The other thing I hate about voiceover is that it keeps changing the audio output channel depending on the function. For example, I cannot channel all audio output to an audio bluetooth receiver. Perhaps this works with the new iOS compatible hearing aids, but those aids are not strong enough for my limitted hearing. A phone call comes in. I hear the ringtone on bluetooth audio. I answer the phone, and it switches over to the speaker on the phone. The Apple watch is even worse about switching audio output.

Anyway, I really like eloquence. It is clear, responsive, and enunciates quite well. I only with it had a Tibetan voice. Most of the lamas I know are fluent in Chinese, so they use the Chinese voice, but I know about three words in Chinese.

The Venerable Karma Konchog Jungney

By jim pickens on Friday, June 24, 2022 - 17:26

Eloquence is coming to iOS in iOS 16, this has been confirmed by many people, the current version of iOS is iOS 16 developer beta one, please do not install it yet unless you really really want to do so, and if you do install it, please back up your device, switching back to iOS 15 is A, really hard process

By gailisaiah on Friday, June 24, 2022 - 17:26

I still prefer good old Samantha as my voiceover voice and I use Sirie male (the one who sounds like a black man).