Has everyone got used to the compressed iOS 16 voices now?

I use Siri four and haven't noticed much of a difference.

yeah that is the reason that some of my friends still stay on IOS 15.
the vocalizer voices is more better

I use Anna enhanced here in Germany. In iOS 16, she has strang pronounciation but overall I got used to it. Unfortunately, there are no alternatives except eSpeak which I don't like.

I'm using Karen Premium and I've not noticed a degradation, although it took a few versions for them to iron out a bug that was crashing my Voiceover routinely from the time I upgraded my phone to 16 last year to about a month or so back. I don't use Samantha, but I have heard the way she says the word display, which sounds as if she's burping the word.

While I'm glad we have eSpeak now on iOS, there's something about it that doesn't quite make it sound the same as with NVDA on windows.

I think it might have something to do with the pausing, so I use the Fred voice instead.

I could use Eloquence, but I haven't used that in years so that also doesn't quite sound right, again something to do with the pausing.

I think it pauses a little too long if that makes sense.

Fred isn't perfect, but at least I can tolerate that one.

This is something the next release of eSpeakNG, now being tested via Test Flight, will address by allowing users to define SSML pauses.

I'm certain I will have many throw eggs at me here, but for me, I am still stuck on the original, compacted voice of Samantha. Every single time we get a new voice, a new option for a old voice, I try it, to see if it'll work for me, unfortunately, it miserably fails. I really thought that when we got newest male Siri, that it might be a workaround for me, to convert him into using voiceover full-time. Every time I try to use a new voice, no matter who it is, it miserably fails across-the-board. It seems I can do Siri stuff OK, but it cannot read anything else. Sometimes the voices may perform OK, on the demo, but once I deployed across systemwide activities, all of a sudden all of the speech breaks up, it's choppy, I have to slow the speed way down, just to try to get something decent out of it. I had high hopes for eloquence/jaws, sadly, that didn't work, either. Until something comes along better, compact Samantha voice is it for me.

I will say that, as of iOS 16.0, Apple has even screwed up their own default, compact Samantha voice that they originally created. Really? Until this iOS version, that voice has simply never changed, since I started using my iPhone, back with an iPhone 4s. I understand software develops bugs, but why does portions of software become affected, when they didn't have a problem to begin with. I don't understand it. I guess I'm just thankful I have what I have, and hope that Apple gets a darn clue once in a while.

Hello,

Since the quality of the Belgian dutch voice Ellen is very bad in iOS 16 I am still using iOS 15.7.
I already send some mails to the Apple Accessibility team. But nothing is changed and we are already arrived at the beta version of iOS 16.4.

I'm using espeak with IOS 16 and i'm ok with it. I used to use Daniel UK on IOS 15 for English and it was ok. I used to use Yelda enhanced for Turkish shortly after I installed the IOS 16 on my new iPhone and it sounded way better than IOS 15. I guess the compact one is kind of screwed, though.

Since upgrading to iOS 16 the voices have annoyed quite a bit.
Even simple words was mispronounced and this went on a few versions.
Now I'm on iOS 16.3.1 and something has happened because all voices now works much better.
Norwegian SIRI male is my default VO voice and it was crap but better now.
The same with my English voices UK English SIRI male, Australian SIRI female and US English SIRI female (voice #4).
Now I can switch between all these voices in my rotorand all is fine.
All voices definitely pronounces iMessage correctly.

Like Roxann, I seem to always go back to good old Samantha for my voiceover. And for Siri, I use the male voice that sounds like a black man.

@gailisaiah 🤣 That has cracked me up. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one that still uses the original voice. I think there's probably a lot of haters of Samantha out there, but for the life of me, I just can't seem to break away from it. Whenever I do, all of my productivity, across-the-board, in all of the circumstances I use my phone drops considerably. Pronunciations go out the window. Choppiness arrives. Low volume arrives. On anon I can go. Samantha is it for me, despite the fact that Apple just screwed it up here recently. I don't know what they've done with the original version of this, but it still is, despite the fact that it's got problems, the best voice, at least according to my ears, anyway.

Now the thing that made me laugh so hard was your reference to the black man Siri voice. That's exactly how that one sounds to me, as well. When that one first arrived, I thought I would give it a try, with full intentions on reverting back to the original Siri male, but to my surprise, I have stayed put with this new voice. Seems to work nicely, at least for Siri tasks, anyway. It doesn't perform well, sad to say, when used as full-time voiceover assistant.

the title says it all. If this has been done, or if could be done (including jail breaking) I would do it. I don' care that I don't have eloquence but yeah.
I want better voices, and less lag, which iOS 15 had.
For my main start up volume on my m1 Mac book pro, I have Mac OS Monterey, which is just as fast as Ventura, if not a little bit faster. I have a smaller beta testing volume used for testing new versions like Mac OS 14 when it comes out in June.
I have reported several issues to apple, and they have not done a single thing about any of the issues I have presented to apple.
all I have to say is, GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!! apple! get on it! Fix your problems so that I want to update to the latest software!
I use eloquence on the 14 pro but I would rather use Susan or Allison but I can't. Why? iOS 16. That's why.
apple, if you are reading this, see my feedback about shortcuts and sounds being laggy.

Absolutely not. I simply can not update my main device to iOS 16 because of the horrible voice quality. I have iOS 16 on an iPhone 8 that I use as an iPod. I can't use it for reading with VoiceOver. I no longer use my iPad mini because it is also destroyed with iOS 16 voices. I keep trying to use different voices but they all have some problem that either makes them hard to understand or gives me a headache. Siri's okay for slow reading, but can't be my main voice. Eloquence is fast and understandable but bassy voices give me headaches.
I simply want iOS 15 Alison because it doesn't slur or sound degraded. It doesn't hurt my head and it is like a brain tap I totally understand and don't even really hear anymore because I'm so used to it. Sure it's the same for the compact Samantha people, but I have always hated Samantha intensely and barely used my phone until there was something better.
I can't update either my iPhone 13 or my MacBook Air because of the problem. It's ridiculous! I live in terror that something will happen that will require updating and I will no longer be able to read or function well.

I really don't understand why Apple won't acknowledge that many voices have been destroyed. How bad does a person's hearing have to be to not notice the change? If they suddenly made all screens blurry would that be okay. Could they convince sighted people that's just the new thing and they should get used to it?

Please! I beg every single person who hears the degradation in the Vocalizer Voices to tell Apple that downgrading speech is not acceptable. They need to find a way to let us install the previous version of the voices or get newer voices to sound clear.

I apologize if you've read a similar rant by me before, but it needs saying and I'll keep writing it whenever someone brings up the topic. Apples hearing from me again as well.

I said absolutely no problems at all with voices on iOS 16 or matter-of-fact on iOS 17

I can say that the compact voices had almost no change, so it is still possible to continue using these voices, the problem occurred in the improved voices

I've always found it strange that whenever I tried an enhanced voice of any kind, I always found it fuzzy and jumpy. So back to compact Samantha I would go. I haven't noticed any change with the quality since upgrading.