The UK daniel default voice in iOS 26 does not update the basic way it pronounces things, this has always happened by default on iOS, but you used to be able to force it to update by downloading and switching to the enhanced version and then back again.
If you set up a new iPhone on iOS 26, this no longer works. For example, instead of it saying characters, it says what sounds like characters, but with an e instead of an a. Can't reproduce it with spelling, but hopefully that makes sense.
By danno5, 30 September, 2025
Forum
iOS and iPadOS
Comments
That’s an interesting issue to have
That’s an interesting issue. I’d be willing to switch my voice to that temporarily to test it out for you if you want. I’m curious to see if I can reproduce this. Do you think it would matter what device you’re using? I have an iPhone 15 as my parent my iPhone and my iPhone SE third generation is my secondary. Device.
iPhone
I doubt it would matter which iphone you have, I've seen it on a 16 pro and my 17 pro max so far
iPhone
I doubt it would matter which iphone you have, I've seen it on a 16 pro and my 17 pro max so far
I just tested this with my iPhone SE third generation
I can’t reproduce this on my iPhone SE third generation. I switched to the regular Daniel Voice, and then I went to the rotor and listened to the word characters and it pronounced it normally. Hopefully this issue can get resolved for you soon though. I switched my voice back to regular Samantha on my iPhone SE third generation.
New phones
I thought you'd have no issue, thank you for testing, you've proved what I thought. It’s only happening after a new iPhone is set up. Not after one is updated which is strange.
Give It a Few Hours?
Hi. You may have already tried this, but just in case you haven't, new phones have a crazy amount of data to download when they're first set up, so they tend to act... interesting, for the first day or so after activation. It's possible that the voice data hasn't fully loaded. You might try waiting about 12 hours, then rebooting the phone.
new phone
Doing a restart my help also.
2 weeks in
Done all that haha, tried all the tricks, but no luck this time
Happy to help
Happy to help you. Sorry it’s not working for you. I’m not sure why having a new phone would make your voice as a weird things but that’s kind of strange. Hopefully it’ll get fixed with the software update. I have never set up a folder as brand new. Anytime I’ve gotten a new phone. I’ve just transferred my settings over from the old one to the new one.
VO is broken
Me think iOS 26 broke VO. Maybe is so call liquid glass or a ghost. For me after updating to 26.01, VO and notification continues. Looks like apple need to go back and rebuild VO from the ground up. No new features but fixing VO.