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New Voice Controls in iOS 27 Developer Beta

Wednesday, July 8, 2026
5 min read
New Voice Controls in iOS 27 Developer Beta

Apple just dropped something. A real peek at how useful these new voice controls are if you talk to Siri all the time. It’s in the latest iOS 27 developer beta. You can actually control how Siri talks now, not just which voice it pulls from the menu. That’s a big shift.

In this iOS 27 beta 3 stuff, they flipped the switch on two things: “Pace” and “Expressivity.” Remember those? They were shown off before, all hype marked as "Coming soon" back in the first developer release. Now they’re actually live for testers to mess around with. It feels more immediate, you know? Less like a distant promise.

So what exactly are these sliders doing? That’s the meat of it. You can adjust how fast or slow Siri speaks. Pace control. Then there’s this separate one for expressivity. This controls that little bit of naturalness, the human emotion bleeding into the voice. As you drag those sliders around, Siri actually says some common phrases out loud. Like, “You have one new message.” You can hear the difference right away before you commit to a setting. It lets you test it out.

This whole move is tied into Apple’s bigger push. They’re trying to make Siri feel less like a cold robot and more… natural. This fits right into their whole plan to rebuild the assistant using generative AI. You see how much a good, human-sounding voice changes the whole experience? Think about it. If you use stuff like ChatGPT, you get that sense of connection instantly. Apple clearly wants Siri to catch up there.

It’s not just about pace and feeling. They also have the existing ability to pick voices with different accents, which they showed off at WWDC back in June. Now you can combine voice choice plus pace plus expressivity. It’s a layered control system for how Siri sounds now, instead of just picking from those few preset voices we used before. A proper way to shape the sound.

But here’s where things get interesting, and maybe a little frustrating. You have to put this in context when you look at other players. This is definitely a solid step forward. No doubt about that. But OpenAI’s ChatGPT already seems to be further along in this space.

Back in December 2025, for instance, ChatGPT rolled out options for adjusting voice warmth and enthusiasm. On top of that? Controls for base style and tone. You can make the assistant sound friendlier, more professional, even candid or quirky. And it doesn’t just affect how it sounds when talking. It changes how it actually presents information to you in general. That level of personalization is intense.

So yeah, while those new Siri sliders for pace and expressivity are welcome additions definitely useful if you use the assistant often Apple still has a bit more catching up to do if they want to match that deep level of customization ChatGPT already offers. It’s progress, sure. But it leaves room for more refinement.

Where can you actually test this stuff? You need to be in the right spot. The AI-powered Siri is being built deep inside iOS 27. Apple made it pretty easy to start a conversation in a few ways. You can just talk to her naturally. Or swipe down from the Dynamic Island at the top of your screen and type out what you want. Then there’s the old way press that side button on your phone. And then there's this brand new standalone Siri app that comes bundled with the update.

There are also some smaller bits in this beta 3, too. Like a refreshed icon for the Reminders app. Small things, but they add up.

Now, before you rush to install this whole beta thing and I mean really think about it there are some flags you need to watch out for. Some users over on X have started reporting losing access to the new Siri experience completely after updating. Others noticed their phone starting to reindex personal data again. That’s usually Apple optimizing things, trying to sharpen how Siri searches and processes your stuff. If you rely on Siri constantly, maybe hold off. Wait for a slightly more stable build before diving in. It just feels… messy right now.

Written by Gree News Team — Senior Editorial Board

Gree News Team covers international news and global affairs at Gree News. Our collective of senior editors is dedicated to providing independent, accurate, and responsible journalism for a global audience.

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