Apple updates high quality OS X speech with Voice Update 2.0

Tom and Jill are going uphill, version 2.0 that is. The high quality voices, first introduced in OS X Lion as optional downloads, now have updates available through Software Update.

In March 2011, AppleInsider was first to report that Apple would be bundling dozens of high quality new speech synthesis voices supporting a wide variety of languages and regional dialects.

Mac OS X Lion shipped later that year with support for downloading the optional voices within the Speech pref pane of System Preferences. In Mountain Lion, OS X retains the default system voice of Alex, first introduced in OS X 10.5 Leopard in late 2007.

However, uses can browse higher quality alternatives (pictured above) from the revamped Dictation & Speech pref panel, by selecting "Customize" from the System Voice selection popup.

The system will then download each of the selected voice packs chosen for installation by the user. The optional voices weigh in nearly 1 GB each.

Shortly after the release of Mountain Lion on Wednesday, Apple made available a series of "2.0" Voice Updates for each of the optional voices users had previously installed. Each update "delivers pronunciation and clarity improvements."

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39 Comments

gatorguy

said about 11 years ago

Aren't these Nuance voices? Pretty certain I've seen these in use with some GPS systems.

EDIT: Confirmed. They're definitely voices from Nuance.

tylerk36

said about 11 years ago

I was hoping for an Albert Einstein 2.0 voice. Oh well.

gazoobee

said about 11 years ago

This illustrates one thing that's driving me batty about Mountain Lion so far. "Software update" now sends you to the App Store where the results you are going to get will vary wildly depending on what part of the world you are in. In this case, I have Emily, Jill, and Samantha installed but I live outside of the US and they are US voices. Therefore I have no updates waiting in the App store, yet there are updates for these voices.

Having to go to a separate place in the OS (System Preferences> Dictation & Speech), and "fiddle" with the voice controls just to force the OS to download something that should be available on the standard Software Update is annoying at best and an impossibility for most users who wouldn't know how to do it.

It's also going to make life in IT support a whole lot harder because one of the main things users never, ever do is update their friggin software and the very *first* thing an IT support person wants to do is to make sure that the software that's having the problem is actually up to date. The way they have it set up now, no third party can do software update without having access to the users AppleID. It's hard enough convincing some users to let you have their User Account password, to convince them to give you their AppleID and password is harder still and shouldn't be necessary just to update system software.

So far, I think the blending of the App Store and Software Update is a colossally bad idea that seems to have no real upside at all. It doesn't seem to me to be likely to make the user upgrade their system software any more often than they do now for instance. Updating your software on OS X seems like a complete mess at this point IMO.