This is a very long battle trying to solve an issue with an automation I created in the Shortcuts app. I have been facing this issue on my old phone SE2 and now it's the same on my 12. I am running IOS 16.6 with the latest security patches/ updates.
Additional challenges faced are unable to delete downloaded Siri voices Settings/ accessibility/ spoken content/ voices/ English. An edit button appears which when clicked, allows you to delete the downloaded voices, but suprise, you can delete the voices even without clicking the edit button. Just swipe up/ down to get the delete option. Post performing this, the Siri voices appear to have been deleted as their state changes to download Siri voice. However, when you restart your phone, those voices that you just deleted are back!
This issue has also been reported to apple support multiple times with no solution yet. I have tried restoring, resetting all settings, deleting all apps., redownloading the Shortcuts app., Deleting the Siri Voices and redownloading them but nothing is helping!
I have included Screen and Video recording for this issue for the benefit of the reader I am also explaining the problem/ challenge here in text.
NOTE: I am also a VoiceOver user and have a sight impairment
Created a personal automation on the Shortcuts app. When any of 2 alarms is topped, get weather, text and speak text. While creating the automation and running it to test, the automation works flawless and the Siri voice used to speak text sounds just like it should. This is covered in the first video link.
The challenge: When the automation is triggered, i.e. when the alarm is stopped and the text is to be spoken; the Siri voice is all choppy and inconsistent. This is demonstrated in the second video.
P.S. It happens with all Siri Voices irrespective of Language selected in the automation i.e. Australia, India, United Kingdom, United States etc.
NOTE: It's the Siri voices I downloaded from: Settings/ accessibility/ Spoken content. Other voices downloaded work fine but they aren't as good and natural as Siri voices.
automation how it should be working:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7YxOVRf8WA
automation how it works when triggered:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq2rIJQV7cw&list=PL8vG-Fmt9t_lLgPAxlA8qaKVksgc9b3y6&index=2
Comments
When your device either…
When your device either starts or stops playing an alarm, the entire config of the sound device is changed. Notice, if you swipe while the alarm is playing, not only is the alarm sound, and VoiceOver, coming from all connected devices plus the internal speaker, but there's also some kind of dynamics compression being applied to the audio going to the built-in speaker.
Anyway, as soon as you stop the alarm, iOS has to get the sound device set back up the way it was before the alarm. Try pausing the shortcut before speaking. I can't remember off hand what the action is called, but there's always a "pause" or "wait" action. Have it perform a very long pause, like 20 seconds. Test it with a real alarm. If it still glitches, then my guess is wrong. If it doesn't glitch, then start making the pause shorter, until you discover how short you can make it before the glitches return.
@Bryan, thanks for the hope...
I understand what you say but the only option to doing what you asked for is when you swipe up on the Speak Text action and tap more in the automation you get the wait until finished with a toggle to ON/Off. Mine was toggled to off, so I toggled it ON. Expecting a miracle that failed when the automation was triggered this morning when the alarm was stopped. Only change was that when alarm was stopped, it took some time to trigger the automation but Siri still speaks choppy and it only happens with this automation, all other automations that have a Speak Text action work fine; mainly set to time of day Speak Text i.e. It's 2:30PM. Time for lunch!
Having said that, there is no option to set the pause time for it to speak, don't know why one would need that option. Last I remember was this automation worked great as expected on IOS 15; even apple customer service has no clue on what the fix is. They just collected logs of my device and told me to keep shut till the next IOS update which I believe is going to be IOS 17; last update did not help either and it was just a security patch.
Thank you for your reply, I know this is complex and if guys at apple could not figure out all we can do is try and wait in patience.