Siri spoken responses setting in ios 18.3.1

brycefromhoughton wrote:

thank you for your response. my issue is not how siri sounds, its that it literally wont speak out loud back to me unless i select “prefer spoken responses” which comes with the caveat thst it will speak out loud if my phone is on silent(i do not want this specifically). it essentially my understanding that automatic mode meant thst it will speak as long as my phone is not silenced, but its just not speaking at all under this setting. i’m wondering if its a bug, a misconfiguration, or i am misunderstanding the intention of the setting. i want to hear responses when my phone is not on silence only, is that possible?

You're right. If your phone is on silent, and you have Prefer Spoken Responses enabled, You'll hear Siri. I don't think there's any setting to change this. While this is a user to user only forum and we can't answer why questions or speak for Apple, I imagine this is by design. Think about the times your phone may be muted and you aren't directly in front of it and you ask Siri a question. If you couldn't hear the response, it would be pointless to ask Siri a question, right?

Since you want Siri to be silent when your phone is muted, you can provide feedback to Apple, but I wouldn't be happy if they do this as there are times I'm not in front of my phone, it's muted and yet I need to be able to hear Siri's response. Use this link to provide feedback --> Feedback - iPhone - Apple

I'll take a stab at this. If you want spoken responses, you need to keep the setting on Prefer Spoken Responses. Otherwise, you'll be frustrated and not get spoken responses. When you say get Siri to sound like it did on your old phone, I'm not sure how to respond to that. Siri is different with Apple Intelligence. Personally, I really like how the new Siri sounds. And the meaning of Siri will use on device intelligence is Apple speak with the fact that Apple Intelligence, unlike how other companies are implementing AI, is "ON DEVICE" as opposed to connecting to a server somewhere. Apple is protecting us users with On Device Intelligence.

I'm afraid since I don't work for Apple as no one here does on this user to user only forum, if you need more clarity, it would be a good idea to reach out to Apple directly for more help.

You're welcome. I'm sure someone at Apple may be better able to give you answers which will make more sense.

Stay well and take care.