Hi Applevis members.
In watchOS 26 I have notice that my preferred voice on the watch which is Stephanie UK keeps reverting back too Daniel which is the default for British English. This issue occurs every time when I reboot my watch not present in watch OS 11.
So every time I am redownloading and redownloading when my watch runs out of battery.
Is there any way to stop this or when is exactly apple going to find a solution to this problem.
Apple is such a buggy company this days the hardware is absolutely amazing but their software is atrocious
By Apple-fan01, 30 September, 2025
Forum
watchOS and Apple Watch Apps
Comments
OS 26.02
Did you update to iOS 26.01 and OS 26.02? A long time ago, I had same with issue but with Samantha. Let it alone for one day and it changed to the VO I selected.
Unfortunately, this isn’t just happening with watches it’s happe
People are having issues like this with their iPhones as well. There’s voices that literally just aren’t downloading or the actors that they’re downloading and then not activating. I’m having this issue with my iPhone 15 or Karen premium will act as though she’s downloaded but then she won’t activate. We’ll hopefully get fixed with the software update. Apple is As well hopefully get fixed with the software update. Apple is aware of the issues with the voices. It’s probably something that you’ll need to report to them about your watch too if you haven’t done it already. There’s been multiple reports of Voice just not working. But yeah something definitely broke with the 26 update for voices. Stephanie is a great voice. I’m sorry you’re having this issue. Hopefully Apple will fix this soon.
Still not resolved
I updated to 26.0.2 on my watch but as soon as my watch turned on after updating Daniel voice turned on instead of Stefanie.
So this is what Apple is now is it?
After updating waiting for another update after updating waiting for another update so on so fourth.
Voice from watch
Did you change the voice directly from the watch and not the phone? Like I stated, had this issue a long time ago with Samantha. She did not want to leave me.
This is going on with Siri and my walkmeter app as well.
I was planning to start a thread on here, but it kind of sounds like this is thread is already discussing a similar issue, or at least partially. On my iPhone 16, I'm using American voice 4 for Siri; she sounds a lot more realistic and expressive than she did prior to my iPhone 16, and I can't use that version of her voice for VO no matter what I do, but I'm OK with that. However, on my new apple watch ultra 3, the American Siri voice 4 sounds like a very compact version of the one we got around iOS 15 or so, not even remotely similar to the voice my phone is using. The quality just isn't there. I even tried switching to a different voice. If I go back to the male Irish Siri voice I used to prefer, my watch switches to that no problem, but the American Siri voice 4 isn't matching no matter what I do.
On a somewhat related note, I use Nathan as the voice to read announcements in my Walkmeter app. This setting was honored just fine on my old watch, but now, no matter how many times I try to transfer Walkmeter settings from my phone to my watch, Walkmeter on my watch keeps using Samantha. It's not the end of the world, but it's very frustrating since I didn't have either of these issues on my original apple watch ultra. I've tried rebooting the watch, but that doesn't seem to do any good. It's definitely not an issue that bothers me enough to make me want to erase the watch and try setting it up again, but I'm really hoping it resolves itself soon or that someone out here knows how I might go about fixing it. Thanks!