VoiceOver reverting to compact voice

By Alexl1, 1 April, 2015

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

I was just browsing a news app when suddenly the VoiceOver voice changed and it sounded like the compact one. I went to settings and looked to see whether it had changed itself to the default setting in the VoiceOver settings, but it was still selected as English UK Enhanced as the default setting. I've tried turning my phone off and back on again, tried hard resetting, tried deleting the enhanced voice and downloading it again. None of these have worked.

When I say compact voice, I mean it sounds very robotic and mechanical. The pitch seems slightly raised, and I tried turning pitch change on and off as well but no luck.

I am running the latest iOS software.

Any ideas? Its really beginning to frustrate.

Options

Comments

By Syd on Saturday, April 25, 2015 - 09:59

I know Alex is supposed to be the most natural sounding but I still think Daniel is far more natural sounding, or was! Now he sounds awful! I can't get used to how he reads messages or even how he says the word messages now! He sounds like he's got something stuck in his throat! How that is a step forward I have no idea! He doesn't seem to have changed on my macbook which other people have said which I'm so glad about! I haven't been able to fix by redownloading or anything so I guess we're stuck with this until the next update! Keep us posted with replies from Apple and if this is improved I'd be glad to hear it! Shame the female British voice isn't available on the IPhone as she is the lesser of all the evils!

By Alexl1 on Saturday, April 25, 2015 - 09:59

Has anyone who has updated to ios 8.3 noticed any improvements on this?

By rdfreak on Saturday, April 25, 2015 - 09:59

This happened to me the other day; I thought I did something somehow.

By Callum Stoneman on Saturday, April 25, 2015 - 09:59

I updated to iOS 8.3 last night and Daniel still sounds the same. But I am starting to get used to it now even though it's not great

By steven carey on Saturday, April 25, 2015 - 09:59

Hello all,
As suggested by others, I contacted Apple accessibility concerning the problems with the UK Daniel voice. It has taken just over a day to respond to my e-mail with no further information or solutions to the problem.
Instead, I was asked to write back giving some examples of words that have changed and to explain what has changed.
When I wrote back, I explained that it is very difficult to just send examples of single words or phrases as the problems are subjective and depend on a comparison between UK Daniel compact voice (if that is what we have now) and the 156 Kb enhanced version that we had before. I tried to explain the problems with words such as 'messages' where the voice pitch changes on the double 's' which completely wipes-out those two letters and the general mechanical, flat compact-like voice we have now. I did suggest that the Apple Accessibility team try and compare the compact and enhanced Daniel voices to get an idea of what we are currently experiencing and that they should understand that a high quality voice for blind people is like sighted people experiencing the change from the CRT TV's we had in the 1970's and todays HD flat screens!
My Apple accessibility contact has now sent my enquiry to 'the responsible team' whatever that is and I wait with anticipation for a response.

Steve.

All of you guys all have amazing ideas. But it is an update. As soon as you get to iOS 7, the voice might change. To change it back:
1
Go to Settings > General > Accessibility > VoiceOver.
2
Tap on Languages and Dialects, (people below iOS 8), tap on Speech, (people on or above iOS 8).
3
Tap on Default Dialect.
4
Choose the Default voice that you want from the listed languages. There is a Default voice for each language.

NOTE: Alex is only available if
1
You are on/above iOS 8.
2
Have enough storage! Maybe at least 4 GB.

By Melissa on Friday, September 25, 2015 - 09:59

In reply to by Michael Hansen

I too have tried these steppes, and no luck. The enhanced voices sound like they are under water compared to the default voices. I am using iOS9.