Thoughts on the new UK compact voice

By Daniel, 26 September, 2013

Forum
iOS and iPadOS
Hello all, ok today I got to play with a family relation's iphone 4S updated to IOS7 and using the afore mentioned voice in the subject line did discovered that for me it definitely sounded muffled and I thought I detected the beginning of the word genral cut from the beginning. From just exploring the phone with this voice personally for me I got the impression that this voice has droped in what I would term as audio reduction quality. At least it feels like that. Unfortunatly I couldn't play with the HQ of this voice because the family relation doesn't have wi-fi and I didn't want to go using up all her data just to test it out. If anyone can confirm that the HQ voice is the same as it was in IOS6 or it too has degraded in quality that would be grate. So last thoughts: Compact voice is very surprisingly reduced in audio quality and am very much concerned that letters of words may cut out of speech regardless of where the silabals are present in the word. The reason for my worry is because I am hearing in pared and this would take presadence over blindness 1st off and I would struggle to use the newly adapted changes in this voice in various different environments. I am thinking of going to an Apple store over here in the UK and demonstrating the reduction in quality of the compact british Daniel voice. What do others think about this idea? Thought it would be best to show an employee from the store 1.2.1. The impact that it may have on hearing in pared users. The reason I say this is because after playing around on the 4S I then went back to my own which is a 5 and totally noticed that it was much clearer, louder easier to understand and pronounced words better. maybe those are the key word. I don't know so that's where you all come in :) I would like to know for those who use this voice as there default over here in the UK or from anywhere else in the world if you can get it how you are finding the changes. If you like, hate, un-able to function etc with the new ios7 with this and only this voice. Please, I don't want this thread to go off topic and get cluttered with all the other moans and groans about the other voices. I am by no means discriminating our international users. Its just, don't want it to get confusing that's all. Thanks and I look forward to those who contribute. Daniel

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Comments

By yorkshire-drew on Wednesday, October 2, 2013 - 20:22

I live in the UK and use the enhanced quality Daniel voice on my iPhone 4s running iOS 7.02. I'm not hearing impaired but from what I've noticed the voice is pretty much the same as the premium Daniel voice that ran on iOS6. If you're still unsure, why not take your iPhone to the Apple store and use their free wi-fi to download the enhanced quality voice to hear for yourself? I agree, the compact voices are worse in iOS7, but now it's possible to have several enhanced quality voices for other English dialects on your iOS device. There's an article and a podcast on how to do this elsewhere on AppleVIS. Hope this helps.

By Clare Page on Wednesday, October 2, 2013 - 20:22

Hi! Although I am not hearing impaired, I agree that compact Daniel definitely sounded more muffled immediately after I installed IOS 7 on my iPhone 4S: however, as Daniel is my default voice, the enhanced version downloaded itself automatically very quickly because I did the IOS update at home where I am always connected to wi-fi. Personally I find that the new enhanced Daniel is just as clear in general as he used to be under IOS 7, although I find he sometimes sounds croaky, as if he might be about to lose his voice, especially when I'm listening to him through headphones. However, I would still use him in a noisy environment, as I personally find that he is not as easily drowned out by noises around me as the female English-speaking voices are, and the croakiness I have noticed through headphones isn't so obvious when using my iPhone's speaker.

Hopefully, I will be going to an Apple store sometime this week and I will most certainly check out the Daniel enhanced quality voice to see if its improved myself or not. I will try to demonstrate the compact difference with this voice between ios6 and 7 to someone working at the Apple store. I'm not sure if it will do much but just making awareness of people who are hearing in pared. . My main concern and if you guys could confirm this, does Daniel Compact or inhanced cut off words at anywhere in the word, sentence etc? Apparently, I have heard that the Karen voice not sure which quality does this. I've heard this mentioned on one of The Serotalk's recent's podcasts. Thank you, this is such a grate community where we can exchange information. I'm so grateful for it! Where everyone, can help out where they can. :) Daniel

I have no idea whether compact Daniel cuts off the end of words in IOS 7, as he didn't stay compact for long enough after my IOS upgrade for me to notice such things. I haven't used compact Karen under IOS 7 either: I'm not keen on compact voices of any kind, so I downloaded several enhanced ones, Karen among them, and none of the enhanced voices I have cut off parts of words. So I only know from what others have said that compact Karen does this cutting-off-words thing, I haven't tested that myself either.

Hello, The UK compact voice does sound awful on iOS 7, and so does the Australian voice, however, this is not Apple's fault. In fact, its Nuance's fault, since they are the ones who make these voices. Vocalizer Expressive for NVDA has the same exact voices, and the compact voices have the same issues as they do on iOS 7.