Apple Adds Sliders To Let Users Change How Fast and Emotional Siri Sounds In iOS 27 Beta

Apple’s third developer beta of iOS 27 brings a new level of voice control to Siri, opening up options that let testers alter how quickly the assistant talks and how much expressiveness its speech carries. The controls, previously shown as forthcoming in earlier beta builds, are now live for developers to try and adjust.

The update replaces a binary choice of male or female tones with a broader set of voice options and adjustments. Testers can pick from multiple accents and base voices, then use on-screen sliders to slow or speed spoken responses and to increase or reduce the degree of humanlike inflection. As users move the controls, Siri reads brief sample lines — for instance, a short notification — so people can hear how settings change the assistant’s delivery.

Apple’s move follows a trend among tech firms to let people personalize voice assistants. OpenAI rolled out controls late last year that let users tweak its assistant’s warmth and energy, and offered presets that shift how the system frames answers. Those choices don’t just alter tone; they can affect the phrasing and presentation of information. The new iOS tools aim to make Siri feel less mechanical and more in tune with a user’s taste.

Siri’s rebuilt intelligence is woven into iOS 27 and can be invoked in several ways: speaking aloud, swiping down from the Dynamic Island, pressing the side button, typing, or launching a stand‑alone Siri app Apple added to the system. The company has reworked the assistant around generative models to give it broader conversational abilities across apps and system tasks.

Alongside the voice controls, beta 3 includes smaller interface tweaks, such as an updated Reminders icon. Some early adopters on social platforms have reported hiccups after updating: a few say Siri’s new features vanished for them, while others noticed their phones started reindexing content — a first step the system often takes when rebuilding searchable AI data.

A voice-experience specialist who reviewed the beta said the options should help people feel more comfortable using a spoken assistant, but warned there are trade-offs. More expressive output can be warmer, yet it may use more processing or draw attention in public. And privacy advocates will be watching how much on‑device processing Apple keeps versus what is handled in remote servers. Apple hasn’t announced a public release date, so broader availability will depend on further testing and refinements.