Speak it! Text to Speech
By Future Apps Inc.
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Description
Introducing Speak it! 2, the most advanced text to speech solution in the App Store! Speak it has now been designed to work with iOS 4, and take advantage of all the multitasking features.
Have Speak it read your emails, favorite news articles, documents and more while you exit the app and do other things with your iPhone!
All this on your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad for an unbelievable price!
*MacWorld Review (11/22/10) 4.5/5 mice!
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Future Apps presents Speak it!, the highest quality text to speech App available for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and now iPad! Speak it! utilizes the same voice synthesis engine that has made our iSpeak translator apps such a great hit. The text to speech engine is so powerful, it reproduces speech which is clear and natural sounding.
Copy emails, documents, web pages, PDF files, and more; paste them into Speak it!, and have the text spoken back to you with the highest quality text to speech engine available anywhere. You can even create the same quality audio files of the text to speech which can then be emailed to anyone you like! Need an elegant way to make announcements over your PA system? Speak it! can do that too. You can easily set up a list of pre-made announcements, and play them with a press of a button. You can even use Speak it! as a fun way to prank your friends! Speak it! is your own custom soundboard, with endless phrases and possible uses.
We have also realized in the past year there has been a growing disability community using Speak it! We would like to thank those users for supporting Speak it!, and for all the incredible feedback we have received. Speak it! 2.0 has new features just for these users including landscape more, ability to change font size, and much more coming in future updates!
FEATURES:
• Easy to use interface: simply enter the text you want to say, and press the “Speak it! button
• Four high quality voices are included: American Male, American Female, British Male, British Female
• NEW! Highlights words as they are spoken
• Ability to create audio files and email them
• Save as many phrases as you would like, and easily repeat them later
• Pause and resume speech playback
• Change the volume, as well as the speed of spoken text
• Change the font size of the text field
• Speak it! Store, where you can download 20 new voices
• Designed to be used while on a phone call
• Localized for French, Italian, German, and Spanish
What's New in Version 2.5
-new word highlight feature(each word is highlighted as it is spoken). This feature requires the keyboard to be up to activate, and iOS 4.0 or greater*
-ten new voices have been added for download on the Speak it! Store including Arabic, Dutch, Portuguese, Greek, Polish, Russian, and Swedish voices!
-search bar has been added in the saved phrases section
-max voice speed has been increased to 400 words per minute
-delete text button now prompts a confirmation alert
-fixed an issue with the automatic text scrolling while reading
-fixed an issue on iOS 4 device where playback interface would not show when trying to play saved audio files
-Speak it! Store has been updated with a new "Restore" button, which will re-download your previously downloaded voices in case of data loss
iPad Specific Changes
-fully supports iOS 4.2 when it will be release later this month (including multitasking support, fast users switching, background Text to Speech playback etc)
-voices downloaded from the Speak it Store no longer require an App restart to use after they are installed
-fixed a display issue with the voice selection list if you had more than six voices installed
*Highlight feature also works on iOS 3.x devices, but require users to double tap on text to activate
Customer Reviews
Is NOT integrated with email or text messages
The author's description as well as the favorable reviews of this app makes it sound like it was integrated with email and text messages. It's not. It's easier for me to read my emails and text messages myself than it is for me to copy and paste them. I'm ashamed to admit that I allowed myself to be duped. I didn't think I would ever find myself saying this but for the first time I wish there was a reasonable arbitration process for getting my money back. This app is as useful to me as snake oil.
Don't be fooled by reviewer number 2!
Reviewer 2caused me to somewhat impulsively purchase this app. It does NOT enable you to read long ebooks out loud until you fall asleep, at least not with the kind of hands-off facility implied. Most ebooks are protected and will simply not allow you to copy the text in the first place. Too much money in audio books. So if you're hoping to read your iBooks books out loud with this app, forget it!
Fun, Useful & Exactly as Advertized
Good stuff:
I've been using this app to read aloud long emails while I drive, or to read e-books to me until I fall asleep, or to read just about anything on car trips or long boring periods of time.
The voices are understandable and do a very good (none are perfect - it's on par with Kindle's text-to-speech process IMO) job at matching inflections and sounding out words.
Dear complainers: it works "EXACTLY AS ADVERTIZED". It reads anything; you just need to do the cut&paste yourself, like the instructions say. The app is easy to paste into.
Variable fonts make it easy to glance at it to catch your place while reading long text.
Bad stuff:
To cut&paste everything is onerous. When I click a .txt file from an email or dropbox or iDisk, it says "open in..." with a plethora of options. Is that so hard to do, that it is left out of this app? Developers, you've worked so hard, obviously, on the other parts. Why not include this integration?
pdf's are a different challenge, but I'd expect this to open simpler files.
To begin playing at a specific spot is quirky. I try over and over to put my cursor at the read-from-here point, but often it tries to select and reads my one word selection. Sometimes it throws me to the beginning of the text, and I have to spend several minutes to find my place again. Those are wasted minutes I could have spent reading myself! I'm getting better, but this is very annoying.
The voice-selection at the bottom of the screen is huge and easy to alter. The whole screen should be used for text; not superfluous buttons that could be tucked back until wanted. Having that screen area for my document would be so much nicer.
Conclusion:
This app still deserves five stars. It does a great job at its designed purpose: reading the text that you paste in. I'm happy.
- $1.99
- Category: Productivity
- Updated: Nov 09, 2010
- Version: 2.5
- Size: 231 MB
- Languages: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish
- Seller: John Stefanopoulos
- © Future Apps
Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.Requires iOS 3.0 or later
Top In-App Purchases
- Laura: American Female Voice$0.99
- Peter: British Male Voice$0.99
- Rachel: British Female Voice$0.99
- Antonio: Spanish Male Voice$0.99
- Klaus: German Male Voice$0.99
- Rosa: (US)Spanish Female Voice$0.99
- Nelly: American Female Voice$0.99
- Bruno: French Male Voice$0.99
- Vittorio: Italian Male Voice$0.99
- Maria: Spanish Female Voice$0.99
