Hi,
First of all, a warning that this is going to be a sort of long read. I didn't want to overload the forum so I'm going to make 1 complete post with my iOS 17 beta 3 findings and things I've noticed. I'll try my best to group them out so you can scroll quicker through if that's any use to you.
New UK Siri voices:
I have seen in the iOS 17 beta overall thread that we now have new German Siri voices, there are also 2 new voices for UK as well, they are hard to describe, but 1 sounds a little like its from the north of England and the other has more of a London sort of accent.
Siri new voice bugs:
I haven't noticed the issue where VoiceOver stops speaking with any of the older voices, however when using the new Siri UK voice, VoiceOver will stop speaking a lot more than the voices used to. I've just been left with the VoiceOver sounds and haptic feedback, I will submit feedback to Apple of course, but its kind of interesting how this bug didn't show up until today for me, although I have only been using the new voices on and off it seems to have got a lot worse today to the point where I have stopped using the Siri voices now.
Unreliable crossfade:
When using crossfade, I have found it generally works well, however the other day I had a bluetooth speaker connected to my phone (UE mega boom 3 for reference) and I noticed the songs were pausing between playing like they used to. I haven't been able to reproduce this issue since and crossfade has been working fine with the same speaker again.
Notification bug:
I have also had a bug today where my phone doesn't alert me to notifications, the only way I could describe it is as though the do not disturb focus is enabled and the notifications are appearing fine in notification centre. Siri does appear to read out messages through AirPods though when the phone is locked.
Battery drain:
First, yes I know this is beta software and that battery drain is common, I just wanted to give you a full rundown of everything going on for me with the beta.
The battery life appears inconsistent and has been dropping quite fast, it has been noticeably worse since beta 3 released but is not completely unusable.
Send button/text field disappearing in the messages app:
Another bug I have noticed is that sometimes when using the messages app, the text field and send button can become completely unusable to VoiceOver users, a workaround for this bug is to enable braille screen input and then perform the 3 finger flick up to send the message, this has worked every time for me without fail.
Fixed bugs:
A few major bugs have also been fixed, and I will list them below in the same format.
Direct touch typing fixed:
The bug where using direct touch typing would revert back to standard typing has now been 95% fixed, the reason I say that is because it can occasionally happen, but it is now rare and the fix is to lock and unlock the iPhone, it will return back to the keyboard and direct touch should be working absolutely fine.
Fixed - unable to send messages with braille screen input:
A bug I'm sure we all hated, the flick up to send a message now works every time once again and is completely reliable.
So, there is my general experience of iOS 17 beta 3, and other than my MacBook having a mini meltdown while writing this, I hope I managed to get everything into a clear format for you.
Please feel free to ask me any questions you have, I don't always come on the forum every day, but I will provide answers in the next couple of days for sure.
Notes:
Device used - iPhone 13 Pro Max
Battery health 91%, battery has been tested over the last few days to measure battery drain, health did not change before or after the update was installed.
Also remember it is important to test these bugs for yourself, your setup may be completely different to mine and you may not experience the same bugs.
Please only install beta software if you are actually going to test new things and submit reports to Apple. If you have no plan to do this then you have no point being on the beta program.
Thanks for reading, I look forward to answering your iOS questions soon!!!!
By danno5, 8 July, 2023
Forum
Apple Beta Releases
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Comments
I have been having issues…
I have been having issues with crossfade as well. I'm not sure if I am doing something wrong, but have not been able to use the feature since installing the beta. I have also experienced the bug with the text field and send button disappearing, and submitted a report.
sound schemes and eloquence
hi all, with ios 17 are we able to use custom sound schemes? also, with eloquence if it were like the one we have on our pc's and/or android phones I believe it would be used more widely, when reading on a pc apostrophe i can't see you today apostrophe, would not be spoken if someone quoted that in a book etc. whereas on ios that bug stops me from using it.
Sound schemes and crossfade
Hi,
first of all no, custom sound schemes are not a feature of VoiceOver in iOS 17, none of the sounds have changed and they are still the same.
Eloquence isn't what I use personally so I have not as much experience with this. I do know they have updated the dictionaries in iOS 17, so the pronunciation of eloquence should see an improvement.
I also have had no more issues with crossfade since the one I mentioned the other day.
How is everyone else getting on now that the beta has been out for a few days?