Hello, My app is crashing a lot with this issue. I can't reproduce the problem but I can see it occurs at the user's devices. The Crashlytics report shows the following lines:Crashed: AXSpeech 0 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x1824386bc pthread_mutex_lock$VARIANT$mp + 278 1 CoreFoundation 0x1826d3a34 CFRunLoopSourceSignal + 68 2 Foundation 0x18319ec90 performQueueDequeue + 468 3 Foundation 0x18325a020 __NSThreadPerformPerform + 136 4 CoreFoundation 0x1827b7404 __CFRUNLOOP_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_A_SOURCE0_PERFORM_FUNCTION__ + 24 5 CoreFoundation 0x1827b6ce0 __CFRunLoopDoSources0 + 456 6 CoreFoundation 0x1827b479c __CFRunLoopRun + 1204 7 CoreFoundation 0x1826d4da8 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 552 8 Foundation 0x183149674 -[NSRunLoop(NSRunLoop) runMode:beforeDate:] + 304 9 libAXSpeechManager.dylib 0x192852830 -[AXSpeechThread main] + 284 10 Foundation 0x183259efc __NSThread__start__ + 1040 11 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x182435220 _pthread_body + 272 12 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x182435110 _pthread_body + 290 13 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x182433b10 thread_start + 4The crash occurs in different threads (never at main thread)It is driving me crazy... Can anybody help me?Thanks a lot

In iOS 26, AVSpeechSynthesizer read Mandarin into Cantonese pronunciation. No matter how you set the language, and change the settings of my phone system, it doesn't work. let utterance = AVSpeechUtterance(string: "你好啊") //let voice = AVSpeechSynthesisVoice(language: "zh-CN") // not work let voice = AVSpeechSynthesisVoice(language: "zh-Hans") // not work too utterance.voice = voice et synth = AVSpeechSynthesizer() synth.speak(utterance)

Hello, I am building an iOS-only, commercial app that uses AVSpeechSynthesizer with system voices, strictly using the APIs provided by Apple. Before distributing the app, I want to ensure that my current implementation does not conflict with the iOS Software License Agreement (SLA) and is aligned with Apple’s intended usage. For a better playback experience (more accurate estimation of utterance duration and smoother skip forward/backward during playback), I currently synthesize speech using: AVSpeechSynthesizer.write(_:toBufferCallback:) Converting the received AVAudioPCMBuffer buffers into audio data Storing the audio inside the app sandbox Playing it back using AVAudioPlayer / AVAudioEngine The cached audio is: Generated fully on-device using system voices Stored only inside the app’s private container Used only for internal playback controls (timeline, seek, skip ±5 seconds) Never shared, exported, uploaded, or exposed outside the app The alternative approaches would be: Keeping the generated audio entirely in memory (RAM) for playback purposes, without writing it to the file system at any point Or using AVSpeechSynthesizer.speak(_:) and playing speech strictly in real time which has a poorer user experience compared to my approach I have reviewed the current iOS Software License Agreement: https://www.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/iOS18_iPadOS18.pdf In particular, section (f) mentions restrictions around System Characters, Live Captions, and Personal Voice, including the following excerpt: “…use … only for your personal, non-commercial use… No other creation or use of the System Characters, Live Captions, or Personal Voice is permitted by this License, including but not limited to the use, reproduction, display, performance, recording, publishing or redistribution in a … commercial context.” I do not see a specific reference in the SLA to system text-to-speech voices used via AVSpeechSynthesizer, and I want to be certain that temporarily caching synthesized speech for internal, non-exported playback is acceptable in a commercial app. My question is: Is caching AVSpeechSynthesizer system-voice output inside the app sandbox for internal playback acceptable, or is Apple’s recommended approach to rely only on real-time playback (speak(_:)) or strictly in-memory buffering without file storage? If this question falls outside DTS technical scope and is instead a policy or licensing matter, I would appreciate guidance on the authoritative Apple documentation or the correct Apple team/contact. Thank you.

Hello, I want to use the Speech framework in my app. However, I found that if I want it to work offline, it must be downloaded separately on the device. Do I understand correctly that it is not allowed to use it in a Swift Student Challenge submission if English (as the speech language) must be downloaded by the tester on their device using the internet beforehand?

Hello! I would like to use Speech Framework on my App Playground for this year challenge. But I still can't understand if I am allowed to use it to respect the rule of "not rely on a network connection". That's why: Speech framework can use on-device Speech recognition – No internet connection needed ✅. But it can ask to download an Apple's native language package to use it for this on-device recognition – To get this, you need to be connected to the Internet ❌. When I try to add a Speech Recognition Capabilities on my App Playground, its' description says: "Required to perform speech recognition using Apple's servers." (screenshot is attached). Does it mean that I won't be able to use on-device recognition on my App Playground? – And therefore, only online-version of this framework is available and I can't use it to participate on the challenge successfully❓. If it's possible, could you please make it clearer? This framework is crucial for my App Playground and I really need this to make it work. Thanks for your help in advance! And a have a good day!

I am a graduate student conducting research in speech/audio signal processing and multimodal interaction. Apple Vision Pro is widely recognized as a multimodal interactive system supporting voice, eye, and gesture inputs. However, I could not find detailed specifications or documentation about the audio input sampling rate used by the device’s built-in microphone array when capturing user audio. Specifically, I would like to understand: What is the default audio input sampling rate (e.g., 16 kHz, 44.1 kHz, 48 kHz, etc.) for the Vision Pro’s microphones? When developing with visionOS / AVAudioSession / AVAudioEngine, is there a documented or recommended sampling rate for audio capture? Are there any best practices or settings for enabling high-quality voice capture on Vision Pro (especially for voice research tasks)? For context, my work involves voice processing, analysis, and possibly on-device real-time speech recognition. Any pointers to relevant APIs, documentation or examples (especially regarding audio capture buffer size or available formats on visionOS) would be very helpful. Thank you in advance! Best regards.

Apple provides a function to create TTS voice as a file in TTS. (AVSpeechUtterance/AVSpeechSynthesizer) Or, if the user records the video of TTS playback and uses that video I wonder what the scope of use is if I use this TTS voice to make YouTube, TikTok, or commercial videos. Is it impossible to use it commercially at all? Can I use it commercially with the source indicated? Can I use it commercially without a separate source indication? Is there a difference in commercial use license between Siri voices and regular TTS voices?

Hello All, I want to implement Text-to-Speech (TTS) and vibration functionality when a push notification arrives. In my app, I am already using Critical Alerts, and the critical alert sound plays correctly in all app states. However, I need to confirm whether it is possible to trigger Text-to-Speech and custom vibration in all app states: Foreground Background Terminated (killed) state My Questions: Is it technically possible for iOS to run Text-to-Speech (using AVSpeechSynthesizer) when a critical alert notification arrives in background or terminated state? Is it possible to trigger custom vibration patterns from a critical alert when the app is not running? If yes, can someone please provide guidance or sample code on how to implement this? If no, can Apple explain the limitation or provide documentation confirming that TTS and vibration cannot be triggered in background/kill states? What works currently: TTS and vibration only work in foreground when the app is active. Critical alert sound works correctly in all states. I want confirmation on whether iOS supports background/terminated TTS and vibration, or if this is a platform restriction even when using Critical Alerts. Thank you!

So experimenting with the new SpeechTranscriber, if I do: let transcriber = SpeechTranscriber( locale: locale, transcriptionOptions: [], reportingOptions: [.volatileResults], attributeOptions: [.audioTimeRange] ) only the final result has audio time ranges, not the volatile results. Is this a performance consideration? If there is no performance problem, it would be nice to have the option to also get speech time ranges for volatile responses. I'm not presenting the volatile text at all in the UI, I was just trying to keep statistics about the non-speech and the speech noise level, this way I can determine when the noise level falls under the noisefloor for a while. The goal here was to finalize the recording automatically, when the noise level indicate that the user has finished speaking.

I have the new iOS 26 SpeechTranscriber working in my application. The issue I am facing is how to determine if the device I am running on supports SpeechTranscriber. I was able to create code that tests if the device supports transcription but it takes a bit of time to run and thus the results are not available when the app launches. What I am looking for is a list of what iOS 26 devices it doesn't run on. I think its safe to assume any new devices will support it so if we can just have a list of what devices that can run iOS 26 and not able to do transcription it would be much faster for the app. I have determined it doesn't work on a SE 2nd Gen, it works on iPhone 12, SE 3rd Gen, iPhone 14 Pro, 15 Pro. As the SpeechTranscriber doesn't work in the simulator I can't determine that way. I have checked the docs and it doesn't list the devices it doesn't work on.

For what iPhone and iPad models under iOS 26 SpeechTranscriber.isAvailable is true

Hello, I am a developer planning to build an application using Apple's new SpeechTranscriber technology. I am facing an issue where SpeechTranscriber is not available on my iPad Pro (11-inch, 2nd generation, model number: MXDC2J/A), even though I have updated it to iPadOS 26. I was under the impression that SpeechTranscriber would be available on any device running iPadOS 26. Could you please clarify if this is incorrect? Furthermore, I am planning to purchase a new iPad with an A16 chip for the development and deployment of this application. Can you confirm if SpeechTranscriber will be fully functional on an iPad equipped with the A16 chip? Thank you for your assistance.

I am trying to use SpeechTranscriber from Speech framework. Is it possible to use it on Simulator of iOS 26 (Mac OS Tahoe)? Function "supportedLocales" returns an empty array.

It looks like Apple has added some new API(s) to SFSpeechRecognition My app, which is currently listed on App Store does feature speech recognition. Yet, trying to use it under iOS 18.0 throws errors: -[SFSpeechRecognitionTask localSpeechRecognitionClient:speechRecordingDidFail:]_block_invoke Ignoring subsequent local speech recording error: Error Domain=kAFAssistantErrorDomain Code=1101 "(null)" What happens is that after several words are transcribed and displayed, the next sentence results in previous words disappearance. That's probably what that portion of the error text - "Ignoring subsequent local speech recording error: Error Domain=kAFAssistantErrorDomain Code=1101 "(null)" means. The problem occurs ONLY when the app is running under iOS 18.0 Even when it's compiled in Xcode 16.0 using iOS 17.5 everything works fine. Any suggestions?

Hi everyone 👋 I’m building an iOS app in Swift where I want to do the following: Record the user’s voice Transcribe the spoken sentence (speech-to-text) Auto-detect the spoken language Translate it to another language selected by the user (e.g., English → Spanish or Hindi → English) Speak back (text-to-speech) the translated text on the same device Is this possible to record via phone mic and play the transcribe voice into headphone's audio?

I am developing an app with transcription and I am exploring ways to improve the transcription from the SpeechAnalyzer/Transcriber for technical terms. SFSpeech... recognition had the capability of being augmented by contextualStrings. Does something similar exist for SpeechAnalyzer/Transcriber? If so please point me towards the documentation and any sample code that may exist for this. If there are other options, please let me know.

Hello Apple Engineers, I am developing a feature related to SpeechRecognizer (import Speech), and I have two questions: After adding the NSSpeechRecognitionUsageDescription key in my Info.plist, when I initialize an SFSpeechRecognizer instance, the system shows an authorization alert. The alert contains a pre-defined message from Apple: “Speech data from this app will be sent to Apple to process your requests. This will also help Apple improve its speech recognition technology.” Is it possible to remove or customize this message? My app runs in a network environment with a whitelist. I need to know which URL the SFSpeechRecognizer instance connects to, and which port it uses, so that I can add it to the whitelist. Thank you very much for your support! Best regards, Yu Cheng

I have some question about the TTS My device default language is zh-HK. (cantonese) my device is iPhone 16 Pro, IOS 18.6 I create a function speakMandarin I want the device to speak the zh-CN (putonghua) however the device only can speak zh-HK (cantonese). I already set the AVSpeechSynthesisVoice language as zh-CN func speakMandarin(text: String) { print("speakMandarin, \(text)") lastError = nil // Reset error // Stop any ongoing speech before starting new if synthesizer.isSpeaking { synthesizer.stopSpeaking(at: .immediate) } // Configure speech utterance let utterance = AVSpeechUtterance(ssmlRepresentation: text)! utterance.rate = 0.5 // Natural speaking speed utterance.pitchMultiplier = 1.0 utterance.volume = 1.0 utterance.voice = AVSpeechSynthesisVoice(language: "zh-CN") let preferredLanguages = [ "zh-CN" , "zh-TW"] var selectedVoice: AVSpeechSynthesisVoice? for lang in preferredLanguages { if let voice = AVSpeechSynthesisVoice(language: lang) { print(lang) selectedVoice = voice utterance.voice = voice break } } // If no Mandarin voice found, use system default if selectedVoice == nil { selectedVoice = AVSpeechSynthesisVoice(language: nil) lastError = "未偵測到普通話語音包，將使用系統預設語音" print (lastError) } utterance.voice = selectedVoice print(utterance) synthesizer.speak(utterance) } here is my log speakMandarin, <speak>你好！我們來聊聊喜歡的動物吧。你喜歡什麼動物呢？</speak> zh-CN [AVSpeechUtterance 0x1194efb80] String: 你好！我們來聊聊喜歡的動物吧。你喜歡什麼動物呢？ Voice: [AVSpeechSynthesisVoice 0x104ceff90] Language: zh-CN, Name: Tingting, Quality: Default [com.apple.voice.compact.zh-CN.Tingting] Rate: 0.50 Volume: 1.00 Pitch Multiplier: 1.00 Delays: Pre: 0.00(s) Post: 0.00(s)

Japanese “Hattori” TTS voice missing from Settings > General > Read & Speak > Voices > Japanese on iOS 26 Steps: Open the path above → “Hattori” is not listed and cannot be downloaded Expected: Hattori is available to download and select Actual: Hattori is absent from the catalog Regression: Was available on iOS 18.x on the same device

Hello, I'm trying to determine the best/recommended AVAudioSession configuration (i.e category, mode, and options) for the following use-case. Essentially, I'd like to switch between periods of playing an audio file and then recognizing speech. The audio file is typically speech and I don't intend for playback and speech recognition to occur simultaneously. I'd like for the user to sill be able to interact with Siri and I'd like for it to work with CarPlay where navigation prompts can occur. I would assume the category to use is 'playAndRecord', but I'm not sure if it's better to just set that once for the entire lifecycle, or set to 'playback' for audio file playback and then switch to 'playAndRecord' for speech recognition . I'm also not sure on the best 'mode' and 'options' to set. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.