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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?

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I didn't notice this but I…

By Troy

1 year 2 months ago

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.

I had this too, but when I…

By MelodicFate

1 year 2 months ago

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

New voices

By Labsii

1 year 2 months ago

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.

Alex And Samantha

By Curly

1 year 2 months ago

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.

I hadn't noticed that, but I have been wearing headphones.

By Jo Billard

1 year 2 months ago

Samantha most definitely does sound weird, enough that I'm thinking of deleting her from my activities.

My thoughts on new Alex

By Missy Hoppe

1 year 2 months ago

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.

Alex on iOS 16

By David Goldfield

1 year 2 months ago

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 accessibility@apple.com.

alex sound

By Daniel Angus MacDonald

6 months 2 weeks ago

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,

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