I updated to iOS 13 and speak screen accessibility feature stopped working correctly

This fixed it for me:

Turn off Speak Screen, restart phone, turn on Speak Screen.

Finally Siri can read web pages again!

I observe the feature is still not working properly with iOS 13.4.1. Only (temporary) workaround is a reboot of the device.

The speak screen used to be integrated with the music app before iOS 13. It always had problem with randomly stopping, but at least it pauses when AirPod was removed or an incoming call appears. Now on iOS 13, the speak screen is an application of it own, with same issue unsolved plus new problems. I’ve reported the issue since the initial released of iOS 13 2 months ago. No improvements was made with the latest iOS update.

The only “cure”, which seems to be very temporary, is doing a “hardware reset”. The problem seems to exacerbate itself, while listening to something, and using another phone function, or different app. That’s really sets Speak Screen off.

After I updated to iOS 13 and, very quickly, discovered that Speak Screen, was now completely unreliable, I too contacted Apple, I spoke to increasing “ layers” of Apple Support. All of them said that they had no idea what I was talking about, that it was a complete surprise to them that speak screen was not functioning perfectly.

This leads me to the conclusion that Apple is going through the, ”lie and deny phase”.

Any time in the next year or two they will eventually come to the conclusion that “there’s a problem with those butterfly keys”!

if we just chip away at their armour, hopefully more than a few dozen people will annoy Apple and they’ll, eventually, admit there’s a Speak Screen problem, then get around to fixing it just in time for iOS 20, or more likely iOS 25?

iOS 13.4 hasn’t fixed anything for iPhone 11 Pro. It seems to be worse. Speak screen won’t start reading, and the control bar disappear after couple second. Requiring to restart phone each time to resume usage.

Sorry to hear that. I’m on a iPhone 11 Pro as well and it’s been working all morning for me without having to reboot.

my settings in case there’s a pattern of what works for some.

Speak Selection: On

Speak Screen: On

Speech Controller: Off

Highlight Content: On

Words and Sentences

Style: Background Color

Voice: English -> Alex

I'm running iOS 13.4 on Apple 11 Pro. Loved this feature on my older iPhones and one of the reasons I came back to iPhone. Now Apple has screwed this feature up. It works for me only in iBboks. Other apps like Kindle or Play Books will only read the first page and the. It stops and crashes. I believe Apple is doing this intentionally to stifle competition.

I’m in the same boat! I’ve been using speak screen for years to read my books on the Kindle app and since ios13 it hasn’t been working - super frustrating...

Have you tried using a different voice? In Settings>Accessibility>Spoken Content>Voices, you can select a variety of voices for usage with speak screen.

If you continue to experience issues, try reaching out to accessibility@apple.com, as they may be able to help get some information that would allow the Apple engineering team to further investigate this.

The usual lie and deny from Apple!

i really am beginning to think buying a “premium product” from Apple is an exercise in futility, and a waste of expenditure!

This problem is definitely not limited to you. I know numerous people who have iPhones, who, upon upgrading to iOS 13 have the same problems.

Apple is fast becoming a company with little, if any, integrity.

”There’s nothing wrong with our butterfly keyboards!”

I'm on IOS 13.3 and it is so frustrating that it starts reading the content but just stops halfway through randomly. Sometimes it's just few lines...

Is there any workaround for this?

Does Apple even acknowledge this is an issue or simply calls it a 'feature'?