Hi Esther, *smile* I love the thoughts of some poor US-based employee trying to understand someone from Cork. Oh and I'm not just talking about their accent, they don't call it "The Peoples' republic of Cork" for nothing; they're an incomprehensible breed. Even the rest of the Irish nation can't understand them. There's a wonderful story that the BBc did a programme a few years ago, and even though the guy in question (from Cork) was speaking English, they actually had to use subtitles so the English viewers could understand him. However I'm digressing.
I partly suspect that, given the iTunes store page(s) are written in some form of XML or HTML derivative, some kind of "lang" attribute is changing the synthesiser language. However, this theory falls flat on its face given both Brett and your experiences with the Canadian store. Why, for example would it pick badly accented Spanish? This is slightly supported by your comment regarding the header-codes in emails; however as I said this is pure guesswork on my part. the fact that the buttons are spoken in the system default voice would suggest that they fall outside the scope of the xml/html content and thus the synthesiser reverts to whatever is set in settings. As you say most interesting, and most odd. Dónal -----Original Message----- From: Esther [mailto:mori...@mac.com] Sent: 07 December 2009 23:46 To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com Subject: RE: iPhone synthesiser changing in appstore. Hi Dónal, I have my defaults set to use the Australian voice (selected Region Format "Australia" under Settings > General > International), and when I visit the (U.S.) iTunes Store the voice reverts back to the U.S. English selection for entries, although words for the controls like "button" are still spoken in the Australian voice. Perhaps the language setting of the US voice for Ireland was chosen to make all of Apple's employees from their headquarters in California feel comfortable when they visited Apple's center for European distribution in Ireland? Or alternatively, perhaps the intent was to get Apple's employees in Ireland trained to an American accent! There are odder things than those voice shifts going on: Brett alluded to the early woes of the iPhone's VoiceOver users who accessed the Canadian iTunes store, only to be greeted in Spanish (and, to add insult to injury, Spanish that was not spoken with Spanish intonations.) Posts to the VIPhone list that included replies from other individuals switched to UK English voices and German voices depending on some of the mail header codes -- even when the text was written out in English. All quite interesting. Best, Esther Donal Fitzpatrick wrote: >Scott, > >It is an interesting one. What's bizarre is that if I change the >language to UK in the international settings, I get a UK voice. The >choice of Ireland as country means a US voice. Now what's even more >unusual, is that parts of the UI are spoken with a UK voice in the app >store, and others (for example the buttons across the bottom of the >screen) are using the default voice. The only thing I can think of is >that the appstore is set to UK or something? Mind you it could be >worse, the thing could be trying to speak to me in Gaelic! > >Thanks > >Dónal > >-----Original Message----- >From: Scott Howell [mailto:scottn3...@gmail.com] >Sent: 07 December 2009 23:14 >To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com >Subject: Re: iPhone synthesiser changing in appstore. > >Actually it is in there and I'm really surprised it changes that way. >Look in Settings, General, International, and Region Format. You'll >find some really interesting stuff here. Now I'm curious if the App >store figures you aren't in the U.S. and switches to the region where your located? >Hmmm, very interesting indeed. >On Dec 7, 2009, at 5:50 PM, Donal Fitzpatrick wrote: > >> Evening folks, >> >> I'm noticing some odd behaviour on the iPhone. I am simply using the >> default US English synthesiser - that is the one which was on the >> device when I got it. However, when I switch into the appstore, I >> notice that it's changing to a UK voice. Interestingly, I don't see >> this synthesiser or indeed language option in the various settings >> panels. Anyone got some ideas as to what's going on? >> >> Dónal >> >> -- > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en.
