Alex on iOS 16 sounds weird

By Zoe Victoria, 13 September, 2022

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

I updated to iOS 16 today, and haven't had any problems with it so far. But I noticed right away that Alex, my preferred voice for voiceover, sounds weird. He's saying quite a few words in a really odd way that makes him sound a lot less natural. The word button is a glaring example of this. Does anyone else agree?

Options

Comments

By Troy on Tuesday, September 13, 2022 - 01:19

I didn't notice this but I did notice he talked even faster at the rate I had vo set at, but I did notice that Samantha sounds like some of her teeth fell out.

By MelodicFate on Tuesday, September 13, 2022 - 04:06

I had this too, but when I turned VoiceOver off and back on, Alex started speaking normally again, if a bit faster.

By Labsii on Tuesday, September 13, 2022 - 10:58

I did use Alex (and Ava Enhanced) as my voices before iOS 16. I did notice some changes in Alex, though for me it is more like that it speaks slightly slower by default.

However after I have tried new Jamie Premium and Serena Premium (UK voices) I really don't look back to any old voices. They are certainly not bad, but compared to those they are just average.

By Lily Rose on Tuesday, September 13, 2022 - 11:32

They don't sound too different although Samantha Enhanced sounds like she has her teeth gritted—Which makes her sounds even worse then Samantha default. I think Alex breathing has gotten worse, yes making him sound less natural, in my experience, and he does say button kind of funny.

By Missy Hoppe on Tuesday, September 13, 2022 - 23:53

New Alex speaks a bit faster than I'm used to, but slowing him down by 5 percent made him too slow, so I guess I've already adapted to the slight speed increase. Alex sounds a bit choppy and stuttery on my apple tvs; not sure how to describe it. Interesting that a lot of you are thinking that Alex says "button" strangely. For me, he's the only voice that isn't saying it in a weird way. All the other US english voices I've tried pronounce "button" very strangeley indeed, and the way some of them say iMessage... It sounds like I mess edge. So, even though there were a couple of voices I was really looking forward to using, at least occasionally, I think Alex is still by far the best option for my ears. If he does have pronunciation quirks, at least to me, they're not nearly as crazy-making as they are with the other enhanced/premium voices.

By David Goldfield on Wednesday, September 14, 2022 - 00:58

I also notice that Alex sounded a bit different on iOS 16 although the changes are very hard to describe. All I can say is that I encourage all of you who would like this investigated to reach out to Apple by emailing [email protected].

By Daniel Angus MacDonald on Thursday, May 25, 2023 - 14:35

the reason Alex sounds different is because I submitted beta feedback to make him sound like he did in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. most users of this site might not know how Alex sounded back then. they did a phenomenal! job! replacating the tamber quite well,