I set up an Apple shortcut to fetch text from an API I built and read it to me (weather related). Shortcut works correctly in the shortcut app, and works when I trigger it with Siri when my phone is locked. If my phone is unlocked, a popup is displayed with the text instead of it being read aloud. What gives?
iPhone 14 Pro, iOS 18
Found a kinda-workaround in a Reddit thread here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/shortcuts/comments/xdsb2i/speak_text_doesnt_work_in_an_automation_but_when/
Adding in a “Dismiss Siri and Continue” action in the middle before Speak Text seems to produce the right behavior (almost). So now the action list is:
Get contents of URL
Dismiss Siri and continue
Speak contents of URL
Doesn’t make any sense to me but works for now. However, now I get a popup message if I execute this while my phone is locked (You must unlock your phone to continue). The action executes correctly (data is fetched and read aloud) but that message pops up. Siri is allowed to execute when my phone is locked so not understanding that one.
I also tried one without the intermediary “get text from” step (2 steps - get contents of url and speak text) with the same result, so that suggests a bug or unexpected behavior with the speak text action.
Without seeing the shortcut commands used in the shortcuts I can neither deduce anything nor suggest a way out.
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iOS 18.5, iPhone 14 Pro
Apple shortcuts - speak text only works when phone is locked
