All versions
- CoreData syncing doesn’t work properly when the app is in background (when the screen is off) for some specific data (recorded through database relationships like the current chapter position.). If you experience this problem (it appears only for ePub books when the position in some cases may not be properly persisted), you can workaround it by:
- Disabling syncing in Extras > Settings > Books & Articles > Storage > Sync across Apple devices, or
- Ensuring that the screen is always visible when you finish the reading.
- Apple’s recent SwiftUI app technology doesn’t work properly with some aspects of VoiceOver. Most notably it doesn’t recognise the text language and adopt the voice based on the content in the app.
18
There are widespread reports of various CarPlay audio issues affecting some users.
Some Speech Central users have reported that the audio reproduction doesn’t work properly. This issue is not universally reproducible (on my device and my car everything is working properly) and it is not clear if it is affecting just specific device models or specific CarPlay devices or it is a result of some operating system software corruption during the upgrade process.
There are multiple reports of likely related problems on Reddit.
As this appears to be fairly widespread issue affecting a lot of users, it is likely that Apple will fix it in some future software updates, but for all details you need to contact Apple.
One user has reported that this happens only on his wireless CarPlay dongle and that wired access works properly.
As I can’t reproduce the issue I couldn’t test workarounds, but it is likely that Microsoft AI voices shouldn’t be affected by this issue in the same way Apple voices are, so you can try to set them up.
Known issues from the iOS 17 remain unfixed in iOS 18.
17
Apple voices may speak aloud some instructions like “pause equals 0.2”. As the instructions are being read and not applied this will result in some odd pronunciation (especially if the problem is in the speech rate). Consider some of the following steps to improve experience:
- If the issue happens frequently restarting the device or reinstalling of the voice should help to make it less frequent.
- Some of those issues can be avoided by simplifying instructions. To do that disable Extras > Settings > Speech > Advanced > Emulate book narration.
- You can setup some AI voices as described in the help.
16.4
Apple voices for the German language have the same problem as they had in the version 15.6 – they keep pronouncing “homeograph” during the text for no apparent reason. Also for the German voices they do have the problem that they need few seconds to start speaking, but at least after that they don’t make big pauses between sentences which is significant improvement comparing to the version 16.3
16.3
- Some users experience frequent crashes after updating to iOS 16.3. As the problem is not reproducible and affects only a very small portion of users (certainly less than 1%). It is expected to be caused by the operating system software glitch that appears in the update process. As this glitch seems to happen only with Apple built-in voices logic it won’t affect any apps that don’t use them. It is not certain whether Apple may fix this problem in some future update as it generally isn’t reproducible. Some of the actions that you may take are:
- Try to update to the newer iOS version – data is still being collected, but 16.4 seems to fix at least some of those issues.
- Try to export audio file from the app. It seems that this has positive effect.
- Try to resolve the problem. For official advice you need to contact Apple regarding their bugs and possible ways to resolve them. In my experience users could resolve similar problems by performing factory reset of the device, so I expect it to be helpful in this case too.
- Try to setup and use Microsoft voices as they shouldn’t be affected by the problem.
- German voices (except for Eloquence voices) have a notable pause before each sentence. Update to the iOS version 16.4 mostly resolves the problem (it is limited to the single pause on the speech start). You may also consider some of the following options to workaround the problem:
- Setup and use Microsoft voices.
- Use Eloquence voices provided by Apple.
- Install eSpeak voices from the App Store and use them.
All affected users are suggested to provide the feedback to Apple using the Feedback Assistant. Please stress that only German Apple voices are affected by the problem and that it happens only on iOS 16.3 and as such it is certainly Apple’s bug in them.