Fixing TTS Speed Differences Between Mac and iPhone

[Prince101]

I am using anking notetypes and I have my tts speed set to 1.8. On my mac, the speed is 1.8 but on my iphone it is way faster (seems like 3.0). How do I fix this? Version ⁨25.09.2 (mac), Version 25.09 (ios).

This is my card template:

{{cloze:Text}}

{{tts en_US voices=Apple_Samantha,Microsoft_Zira speed=1.8:cloze:Text }}

[AnkiHub_AI_bot]

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On Anki/AnkiHub cards, TTS speed is ultimately controlled by Anki’s text‑to‑speech engine on each device, and iOS and macOS do not interpret speed values identically. So even though you set speed=1.8, your iPhone’s system TTS can end up playing noticeably faster than your Mac’s.

A few things to try/keep in mind:

1. Confirm voices exist on both devices

   • On macOS and iOS, make sure both:
     • Apple_Samantha
     • Microsoft_Zira
       are actually installed and available.
   • If one of them is missing on a device, Anki may silently fall back to another voice, which can have a different baseline speed.

2. Test a simpler TTS tag
   Try on a test note/card:

   {{tts en_US voices=Apple_Samantha speed=1.0:cloze:Text}}
   

   • Sync to both devices and compare.
   • If 1.0 is already faster on iOS than on Mac, that confirms it’s a platform difference rather than your template.

3. Adjust speed specifically for mobile
   There’s no per‑device TTS speed setting inside AnkiHub itself, but you can:

   • Pick a compromise speed (e.g. speed=1.2–1.4) that feels acceptable on both.
   • Or create a separate mobile‑specific field or template (more advanced) that uses a lower speed only on iOS and keep 1.8 for desktop.

4. Check Anki / iOS TTS settings

   • In iOS Settings → Accessibility → Spoken Content, see if there’s a system speech rate set faster than default; that may affect the TTS engine Anki calls.
   • On Mac, check any system TTS/speech settings as well.

5. Limitations

   • At the moment, Anki/AnkiHub can’t force the system TTS engines on different platforms to behave identically; some discrepancy is expected.
   • AnkiHub doesn’t add extra control over platform‑specific TTS speed—it just syncs the template you already have.

If you’d like help crafting a mobile‑specific version of your TTS field/template (while still staying compatible with the AnKing notetype and AnkiHub sync), let me know which card type you’re using (e.g. Cloze, AnKing Overhaul, etc.) and I can suggest a minimal, safe change.

[Prince101]

@AnkiHub_AI_bot

• • Or create a separate mobile‑specific field or template (more advanced) that uses a lower speed only on iOS and keep 1.8 for desktop.

• Or create a separate mobile‑specific field or template (more advanced) that uses a lower speed only on iOS and keep 1.8 for desktop. How do i do this?

[AnkiHub_AI_bot]

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Reading: Fixing TTS Speed Differences Between Mac and iPhone

You can approximate “different speed on mobile vs desktop” by:

1. Making a second field for mobile audio, and
2. Using a conditional in your template so that:
   • Desktop uses your current Text field with speed=1.8
   • iPhone uses a second field with a lower speed (e.g. speed=1.0)

Because Anki can’t actually detect “mobile vs desktop” in templates, the usual workaround is: you only fill the mobile field when you want the slower version, and you rely on conditional replacements.

---

Step 1 – Add a “mobile text” field to your notetype

On your computer:

1. Go to Tools → Manage Note Types.
2. Select your AnKing Cloze notetype → click Fields….
3. Click Add → name it something like Text_Mobile (or TTS_Mobile).
4. Click Close and Close again.

Sync with AnkiWeb/AnkiHub and then sync your iPhone so this new field exists everywhere.

---

Step 2 – Adjust the card template

On desktop:

1. Open Browse.
2. Select a card of this type.
3. Click Cards… to edit the template.
4. On the Front Template, replace your current TTS line:

{{tts en_US voices=Apple_Samantha,Microsoft_Zira speed=1.8:cloze:Text }}

with this:

{{#Text_Mobile}}
    {{tts en_US voices=Apple_Samantha,Microsoft_Zira speed=1.0:cloze:Text_Mobile}}
{{/Text_Mobile}}
{{^Text_Mobile}}
    {{tts en_US voices=Apple_Samantha,Microsoft_Zira speed=1.8:cloze:Text}}
{{/Text_Mobile}}

What this does:

• If Text_Mobile is filled → use it at speed 1.0 (slower; you’ll use this on iPhone).
• If Text_Mobile is empty → fall back to your original Text at speed 1.8 (desktop).

Click Save, then Close, then sync → sync iPhone.

---

Step 3 – How to use it in practice

• On desktop: keep using your normal Text field. Leave Text_Mobile empty → you get speed 1.8.
• If a card is too fast on iPhone:
  1. Edit that note.
  2. Copy the cloze text from Text into Text_Mobile.
  3. Optionally slightly tweak wording (e.g. remove extra text) if you want.

On iPhone and Mac, both devices will now play Text_Mobile at the slower speed, because the template prioritizes it when it’s filled.

---

If you tell me the exact name of your AnKing notetype (e.g. “AnKing v12 Cloze”) and confirm whether you’re comfortable editing templates, I can tailor the exact code to your specific note type and card template layout.

[Prince101]

I’m on ankihub premium. Here is my current template

{{cloze:Text}}

{{tts en_US voices=Apple_Samantha,Microsoft_Zira speed=1.8:cloze:Text }}.

[abdo.nh]

I’ve seen reports of this in the Anki forums: iOS tts speed slower than MacOS tts speed - Help - Anki Forums

But it’s unclear if the issue is fixed in the latest iOS release.