Whenever my wife and I schedule rides on the shuttle bus that takes us up to
the hospital here in Colorado, she gets a call-back confirmation from a robot.
The voice that robot uses is so incredibly horrible, and she has been exposed
to VoiceOver because of me, that we bust a gut laughing at it and mocking the
hell out of it, and we are on the edge of writing to the transit system and
recommending they just use VoiceOver—even Eloquence would be better! I don’t
know what a Hopper is, btw. And, I was amused to see that the “novelty voices,”
are now in IOS after 16.
—Mark BurningHawk Baxter
Twitter: @MarkBurningHawk
Sent from my iPhone
On Dec 20, 2022, at 10:27 AM, Ron Johnson <ganahee@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi Buddy, and all,
Yes, I stand corrected, Alex was first brought to the Mac with Leopard. I
remember that because a buddy of mine and I downloaded an ISO of a developer
copy of Leopard, just to experience Alex, and we were blown away by his
ability to breathe.
As to voices I used. Back in the Spoken Interface Preview days, and in
Tiger, I mainly used Fred. Pre-OS X, (OS 8.1 thru 9.2.2), I either used Fred
or Bruce. Since Leopard, I’ve primarily used Alex. Honestly, I’m surprised
Apple hasn’t considered licensing the Alex voice to set-top box
manufacturers, etc. I’d be thrilled, for example, if my Hopper 3 used the
Alex voice! The voice it uses now isn’t great, and IMHO, the voice the Roku
uses is even worse!
Finally, I want to address a comment I saw earlier, regarding the initial
voice Ventura now uses.
For quite a long while now, iOS, iPadOS, tvOS, and watchOS have been using
Samantha, I believe, as their default voice. When I first installed the
Ventura Beta, I was a bit taken aback when I heard Samantha instead of Alex.
There’s a reason for this.
Apple is attempting to “unify” all their OSes. They will still have their
respective names, but there’ll be a unified experience across all Apple
devices. For example, in Ventura, you’ll notice “System Preferences” has
been replaced by “System Settings”. On all the other OSes, Settings has
always been what it was called. Also, if you notice, “System Settings” is
laid out just as settings is on iPhone/iPad? As a consequence of this
“unification”, all Apple devices will share a common interface experience,
and use the Samantha voice as their default voice, but rest-assured, the
voices we’ve come to know and love didn’t go anywhere - we’ll just have to
re-enable them.
HTH?
Ron
On Dec 20, 2022, at 07:50, Buddy Brannan <buddy@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Actually, I don’t think Alex was introduced to us until Leopard. Perhaps
Snow Leopard, but he definitely wasn’t available in Tiger.
--
Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV, WRVB670 - Erie, PA
Email: buddy@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Mobile: (814) 431-0962
On Dec 20, 2022, at 1:44 AM, Ron Johnson <ganahee@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi,
OK, you must be kidding, right? I’m sitting here in front of my 2018
MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, typing you this message, and Alex is doing his
job, faithfully, as he’s done, ever since Mac OS 10.4 Tiger.
It’s true, the initial voice in Ventura is Samantha, but trust me, Alex is
there. You’ll have to go into the VO Utility, Speech and the voices tab,
and re-download him from the Customize Languages table, but he’s there,
ready, willing and able to faithfully execute his assigned duties, as he
always has. :)
Take care,
Ron
P.S.
For those who may not know, not only is Alex still present in Ventura, but
you can use him on your Apple Watch if you can put in watchOS 9, and he’s
also available on Apple TV 4K and beyond.
On Dec 20, 2022, at 00:04, Kelvin Falconer <tusciafalconer@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
To someone who has guided me through many difficult adventures, I give
Thanks.
To someone who has worked tirelessly day and night, always available,
never reluctant or irritated with any request I have given.
To Alex, much loved by many a VoiceOver user, frustrating to others and
completely bewildering to some.
rest In Peace as Ventura retires your service.
With no warning or jolly sendoff, Apple has sent you to that big Bin in
the Clouds to enjoy the remainder of your utterings Peacefully.
Me, your nameless alter-ego.
I float through Time and Space like a treeless leaf.
Click on the link below to go to our homepage.
http://www.icanworkthisthing.com
Manage your subscription by using the web interface on the link below.
//www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceover
Users can subscribe to this list by sending email to
macvoiceover-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
with 'subscribe' in the Subject field OR by logging into the Web
interface at //www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceover
Click on the link below to go to our homepage.
http://www.icanworkthisthing.com
Manage your subscription by using the web interface on the link below.
//www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceover
Users can subscribe to this list by sending email to
macvoiceover-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
with 'subscribe' in the Subject field OR by logging into the Web
interface at //www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceover
Click on the link below to go to our homepage.
http://www.icanworkthisthing.com
Manage your subscription by using the web interface on the link below.
//www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceover
Users can subscribe to this list by sending email to
macvoiceover-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
with 'subscribe' in the Subject field OR by logging into the Web
interface at //www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceover
Click on the link below to go to our homepage.
http://www.icanworkthisthing.com
Manage your subscription by using the web interface on the link below.
//www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceover
Users can subscribe to this list by sending email to
macvoiceover-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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