iOS 27 Listen to Page on safari pauses for 2 seconds after every sentence when iPhone is locked

iOS 27 Listen to Page pauses for 2 seconds after every sentence when iPhone is locked

Since updating my iPhone 12 to the official iOS 27 release, Safari's Listen to Page has developed a major problem.

The biggest issue is what happens when I lock the iPhone. The voice pauses for around 2 seconds after every sentence or paragraph, then continues. This happens repeatedly throughout the entire page. With the screen unlocked, it reads much more normally.

The problem also affects the voice when changing the speaking rate. At 1× the voice sounds mostly normal, but at 1.25×, 1.5×, 1.75×, etc., the voice becomes distorted and the pitch sounds wrong.

I use Listen to Page to listen to long WebNovel chapters, sometimes for hours, so the pauses when the phone is locked make the feature almost unusable.

I tested Reader Mode + Speak Screen, and that does not have the same issue, but Listen to Page was much better before iOS 27.

This started immediately after updating to iOS 27.

Is anyone else experiencing the same 2-second pauses when the iPhone is locked?