High Dain,
Thinks for the info man!
I will keep all of this in mind when Verizon Wireless comes out with the
iPhone.
Because when they do, I'm gonna be the first in line to get one.
Also I wish to add, I don't know about other media players for windows.
But I have successfully gotten *.aiff files to play in Winamp and Windows
Media Player.
I am bringing up this point because the message says that those *.aiff files
won't play in media players for Windows unless you convert them in to some
kind of a compressed audio file.
That's not really true.
Winamp will play those right out of the box.
Windows Media Player will too.
But you have to use the open with submenu in order to make that happen.
Just a little ted bit of info that I wanted to pass along to you and the
list.
My best regards.
John.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dane Trethowan" <grtd...@internode.on.net>
To: "PC Audio Discussion List" <Pc-audio@pc-audio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 2010 6:05 PM
Subject: Fwd: Speak It! app to use Infovox voices on the iPhone/iPod Touch
andiPad
Hi!
This message comes from a mac/iphone list, thought people would find it
extremely interesting as we have quite a few Iphone users on list now.
If anyone wants a demo of any of the voices mentioned below then let me know
and I'll see what I can do.
Cheers!
Begin forwarded message:
Hi All,
"Speak It!" is an app that lets you use the Acapela group's Infovox voices
on the iPhone or iPod Touch, and supposedly also for the iPad, on text
that you type or paste into the app, and create audio files with these
voices that you can either play back or mail. This is absolutely great,
because you can control the speed and volume of the voices, and use voices
that you may choose to purchase for other languages. The basic app
($1.99) from Future Apps, Inc. comes with Heather (U.S.), Graham (U.K.),
Lucy (U.K.), and Ryan (U.S.). You can buy additional voices through
in-app purchase for $0.99 each. I've just finished downloading Alice
(France) through the app (took about 10 minutes to download and install).
There's a text entry area (I copied and pasted what I wanted into it
instead of typing it in), and a picker wheel at the bottom of the page to
select the voice.
The screen when you start the app has two buttons at the top ("Settings"
at the left and an unlabeled button for info at the right), and three
buttons at the bottom ("Speak It", "Actions", and an unlabeled button for
saved items created as a result of using the "Actions" button). Below the
top row of buttons is an area for text entry following the label: "Enter
text to say" where you can either type in or paste in copied text. This is
accessed in the usual way by double tapping in the text area to bring up
the virtual keyboard. Below the text entry area and occupying the bottom
section third or so of the screen is picker wheel labeled "Select Voice".
You'll likely want to double tap the "Settings" button at the top left of
the screen to adjust the voice rate before you start speaking with the
Speak It! voice. There are three settings options to adjust: Text font
size (for low vision folks), Voice volume, and Voice rate. Each control
has both a button and a slider. The button doesn't do anything except
update to a number you can read off -- I think this is words per minute in
the case of the rate. When you make your adjustments flick left to get
back from your settings to the "Done button" on the right edge (not quite
at the top of the screen; maybe a fifth of the way down from the top of
the screen in the vertical screen extent if you touch it directly) and
double tap.
When you enter text, you have the option of either leaving the virtual
keyboard up, and double tapping the "Speak It!" button, which has now
moved up so it is just above the virtual keyboard and below the text entry
area, at the left side of the center of the screen, or of first flicking
right from the "Speak It!" button to the "Done" button at the right side
of the center of the screen, and double tapping to dismiss the virtual
keyboard.
The first mode is convenient when you want to review material and
continue to type in. When you've finished entering text, you'll want to
use the "Done" button to dismiss the virtual keyboard so you can also gain
access to the "Actions" button for saving items, either as text or to
create audio files, and to access the saved items (via the unlabeled
button to the right of the "Actions" button) under either the list of
"Saved Phrases" or the "Saved Audio Files". Double tapping one of the
"Saved Audio Files"
To have Speak It! read the text, double tap the "Speak It!" button at the
bottom left. Once you double tap that button, two buttons, the left for
"Play/Pause" and the right for "Stop", will appear in the location of the
"Speak It!" button. You have to move your finger slightly to the left to
double tap the "Play/Pause" button. Double tapping the "Stop" button
causes the "Play/Pause" button to disappear, and for the area occupied by
the "Play/Pause" button and "Stop" button to be replaced with the "Speak
It!" button.
As mentioned before there are two unlabeled buttons: one at the top right
and one at the bottom right corner for saved items. The button at the top
right, that you will use to purchase new in-app voices, takes you to an
Info screen where there is a Help button at the top left that gives you
information about trouble-shooting issues with Speak It!, and where the
first listed button is the "Speak It! Store" button, which you can use to
purchase additional voices. (The also have buttons further down the list
for their other applications, but you probably don't want to leave the app
to find out about these or buy them when you're first setting up Speak
It!.) The additional Acapela group voices currently available for this
app are for (U.K. or U.S.) English, French (including a Canadian French
voice), German, Spanish (including an American Spanish voice), and
Italian.
Miscellaneous other comments: Just after downloading the Alice French
voice I found VoiceOver's behavior a bit sluggish. There are various
suggestions on their FAQ (reached from "Help" button via the unlabeled
button to the "Info" page) about possibly deleting the app, shutting down
and restarting the iPhone/iPod Touch, and then downloading and installing
updates for the app through iTunes on your computer if this happens (you
will not be charged again). I didn't have to do any of this, but I did
restart my iPod Touch. There may be practical limits on the size and
number of voice recordings and saved phrase files you can keep. I haven't
used the app often enough to tell. I did notice that when I saved longer
files (130,000 words -- novella length) that sometime buttons would simply
click and not get announced when I navigated the control pages quickly.
I'd also guess that saving and emailing lengthy audio files may also take
up memory resources of the iPhone and affect VoiceOver performance. The
audio files are AIFF -- not compressed, and the default format for Macs.
They'll play in Windows iTunes, and on your iPhone, but maybe not in other
Windows apps without conversion to a compressed format. They can also get
quite large, so do some judicious experimenting on small scales before you
get carried away. Low vision users will like the ability to save these
phrases in large font text. This app is also supposed to be universal
binary and work on the iPad, too. If you have listened to the Infovox
voices from the Assistiveware page and downloaded the trial (for the Mac)
at:
http://www.assistiveware.com/ivoxsamples.php
you'll probably have a much better feeling for what these voices sound
like, particularly speeded up, than trying out the same voices at the
in-app purchase store. Some list users will also like the fact that male
English voices are available. I typically don't try to run these voices
as fast as the regular voices for the iPhone/iPod Touch. As Brett has
mentioned previously, when you set rates over 90 per cent for the English
language voices, and you don't use the default U.S. voice, you're likely
to experience some dropped bits of speech. This is not the only app that
uses the Infovox voices for text to speech. Anne recommended the "Read 2
Me" app ($4.99) by Retinal Media. I'll have to explore the latest update,
because they have recently added adjustable voice speed (yay!) and Google
Docs importing, along with larger file support, and appears to be less
buggy. But the "Speak It!" app has support for other language voices.
FutureApps, the developer of Speak It!, also has translation apps that use
these voices. It's possible that some of the other languages from their
iSpeak series that are demoed on their web site will also make it into
Speak It! (e.g., Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, and Polish). Here's the
FutureApps URL:
http://www.future-apps.net/
• Speak It! Text to Speech ($1.99) by FutureApps is available
internationally at the iTunes Store:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/speak-it-text-to-speech/id308629295?mt=8
Comes with 4 U.S. and U.K. English Infovox voices. Additional voices
(currently in English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish) may be
purchased for $0.99/each via in-app purchase. This app is universal
binary, and also works for the iPad.
• Read 2 Me ($4.99) by Retinal Media:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/read-2-me/id313752154?mt=8
English only Infovox voices, and also universal binary to work with the
iPad. New features of variable voice speed, Google Docs importing, and
more.
Cheers,
Esther
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