eloquence not coming on immediately after updating, bug?

By Igna Triay, 16 November, 2024

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

So I’m wondering if this is a bug or not. As my voiceover voice, I use the eloquence text to speech synthesizer. However, every time I update my devices, Samantha comes on, and after a while, Samantha is still the elected voice. In the last couple of times that I have updated my devices, at least on iOS and the Apple Watch, I have had to manually set the voice back to eloquence. Is this a bug? Why does it seem to take a little bit longer for the voice to come back after each update? I mean, if I go after updating into settings, accessibility, VoiceOver, speech, voice, if I scroll through the voices, at first, eloquence, won’t show up. After waiting a while, maybe a couple minutes thereabouts, it shows back up again n and it once again is the default voice. However, I’m wondering if this is a bug or not? Shouldn't your preferred voice work immediately after the update? I.e, if you use any other voice? Alex, daniel, siri etc, this doesn't happen, the voices show up right away. I’m wondering if this is a bug or not, because if it is, I’m gonna report it to apple.

Options

Comments

By Jonathan Candler on Saturday, November 16, 2024 - 01:50

When IOS or anything finishes updating, everything gets indexed and thus could be the reason why some voices like the eloquence voice does not kick back on after updating. Restarting the phone does help this process right along quite a bit though so if it doesn't kick back in after a couple of minutes, restart the phone and see if that fixes it. This always has happened as far back as I can remember.

By Dennis Long on Saturday, November 16, 2024 - 02:50

Yes this is a bug and should be reported as such. If you are on the beta file a bug report. If you aren't on a beta send an email to apple accessibility.

By Brian Giles on Saturday, November 16, 2024 - 09:50

It always comes back for me after a few minutes after I update. I find it works best if I let the phone sit for around 5 minutes and then eloquence is back. Rarely have to manually switch it back, unless I've switched back to Samantha on purpose.

By MikeTaku111 on Saturday, November 16, 2024 - 11:50

Hi there, I hope you are doing well, I think after every iOS or watchOS update, Eloquence doesn’t load immediately and defaults to Samantha, likely due to re-downloading or verifying the voice. This seems like a system oversight worth reporting to improve accessibility consistency.

Mike Taku.

By Brian on Saturday, November 16, 2024 - 12:50

Maybe one day Eloquence will be the default VoiceOver speech engine for iOS.

By Brooke on Saturday, November 16, 2024 - 13:50

This happens to me too. So far, restarting the device again has brought Eloquence right back.

By Dennis Long on Saturday, November 16, 2024 - 14:50

I agree with you Maybe we should suggest it. Eloquence is truly the best.

By Michael Hansen on Saturday, November 16, 2024 - 14:50

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

My understanding is that if a voice asset needs to be redownloaded after an update, VoiceOver will revert to Samantha in the meantime. (I suspect that VoiceOver is actually reverting to the default voice for the appropriate region--Samantha in the case of United States--though I have no way to really test this out easily.)

By Dennis Long on Saturday, November 16, 2024 - 23:50

I filed as a bug because in iOS 16 and part of 17 it worked as expected. this needs fixed.

By Brian on Saturday, November 16, 2024 - 23:50

At least voices are not deleting themselves during charge time like they did in the early days of iOS 17.