Hi folks. Here is another post today, which will function as an update to last year’s posts on i-Notify and in this case, the voices. I will be talking about them from both my perspective, from what I hear on my iPhone and what I hear on Weatheradio Canada currently.

Since August 1st 2022, a number of WXRs have been killed and the configuration has been edited, in order to allow for more times during the hour, for hourly reports. Fine and good, but that left out a bunch of regions within the listening area and the sevenday forecast does not cut it. People are listening for the forty-eight hour forecast and the way Weatheradio Canada has gone selective, is much like how the ATADs used to be, before 2011. Back in the day, you would call the local number and you would hear the weather conditions, any alerts for the area and the local forecast for the next 5 days. In 2011, that was changed in most regions to accommodate the entire broadcast region of the listening area, of a particular WXR through selecting options on a touch tone phone, including the language being spoken. Some didn’t go that route such as Collingwood and in a way, that was alright because the rest of the forecast mapping area was on other local ATADs, such as Toronto and Goderich.

In November 2021 we now have Hello Weather! Or in French Bonjour Météo. Both telephone services provide much the same broadcasted information as Weatheradio Canada and even more, in some cases with marine forecasts as an option and using the current voices on the network. If you wish to learn more about the service, go down through the archives to November 2021 and there is a standalone post I had done, in order to help others find it. I have used this and I enjoy it, but it doesn’t replace Weatheradio Canada for me, with the same being true for WeatherCAN. This is despite that I can hear everything using the same voices on my phone, while others like me may choose not to do so.

September 2022 saw iOS 16 coming two iPhones except for devices which came out from 2016 and older, but which had been updated to the latest software until then, such as the iPhone 7 models, iPhone SE and iPhone 6S models and the seventh and final generation of the iPod touch. As a result, the older versions of Tom, Ava, Chantal and Nicolas have all been replaced by newer versions which are more peppy, much like Siri these days. I have mixed feelings on that, in that I love what I am hearing, but I wish to have the option of going back to the older versions of the voices. This is also true of other voices which have been added to VoiceOver on iPhones and iPads since 2016 and again, I wish to have that option of going back to the older version of Fred. But, apparently with iOS 17, we can change the voice expression, but it doesn’t mean that we can go back to what Tom or Ava used to sound like with the cadence and vocal pitch of the various words and phrases. At least, that is what I had heard on a podcast in late June and obviously, I am disappointed in this news. However, I am hopeful that things could change in that the more human voices do not go up and down, but can expand and contract according to expression and inflection. I will elaborate more on that in a later post after iOS 17 comes out next month and I have had a chance to play with it.

Speaking of iOS 17, if you have the iPhone 8 models and the original iPhone X you are out of luck as you will not be getting iOS 17, but newer phones will be getting it. Fortunately, I am one of the lucky ones and I hope that I will be happy with the software and especially with how I can use all the voices, not just Tom, Ava, Chantal and Nicolas either. Of course, I am also hopeful that Weatheradio Canada will improve with the broadcast and at some point, hopefully all the ATADs can be killed, with no replacement message when calling them, or anything except that the phone number is out of service. As far as I’m concerned, there is no o reason to keep these numbers alive, because of the previously mentioned Hello Weather! And keeping them alive, only hobbles the net work in improvement and robustness. Hopefully that changes with a new software update which can finally put the old phone numbers out of their misery once and for all.

I-Notify has also changed in some regions, besides how the configuration has been truncated. In some cases, words and phrases have had changes to their cadence and especially in French, within the AQI forecasts. Also, there is no stutter when the words ” probability of precipitation” are heard in French in Ontario. With the AQI, if the forecast is 3 or moderate, the translation to French has a sing song quality to it and again, this is only in Ontario. I don’t know why, but that is how it is.

What will i-Notify sound like when the new software update comes? your guess is as good as mine, but I am hopeful that things improve and we get the short term forecasts back again, along with possibly normal temperatures and the recreational forecasts and marine forecasts for all areas across Canada. Most importantly, all regions within the listening area should be represented when forecasts are played. Well, that’s all I got for this post and if you can, please read the previous post below and subscribe if you were able to do so and if you haven’t already.