If you’ve assigned a British or Australian voice to your Siri assistant, you might notice the voice sounds a bit more natural. Apple is quietly updating some of its international Siri text-to-speech synthesizers.
Seemingly through a server-side change, Apple is quietly updating some of the international Siri text-to-speech synthesizers. Last month, some readers commented that the British male voice had been upgraded and we can confirm that the British female voice has also been updated as of this week. The change can be heard on iPhone and iPad as well as the HomePod.
Although Apple had previously changed the U.S. female voice in iOS 11, this time around Apple didn’t change the human voice talent. The new British voices reportedly sound the same, they just sound less robotic, with a clearer accent and better intonation of syllables.
Apple may be using new machine-learning techniques to improve the voices. 9to5Mac also reports their Australian readers are telling them they have noticed changes to Siri’s Australian accent in recent weeks. This indicates Apple may be restyling all of Siri’s international voices.
If you’d like to hear Siri’s new British voices, you can set your iOS device’s voice to British male or female in the Siri menu in the Settings app. Your Apple Watch will use the same voice as the one you select for your iPhone. The Siri voice on the HomePod can be changed in the Home app on your iOS device.