Is anyone else experiencing an issue in #VoiceDream for iOS whereby certain words ending in "al" (A L) are mangled in the speech output? For example, "professional" gets spoken as "profession el" or something like that.
This is happening with or without my pronunciation dictionary in place, and with any voice. If you've experienced it, did you find a fix/workaround?
Voice Dream - Text to Voice
Version: 5.1.3 • 268.9 MB
Improvements to bionic mode and better password management
#VoiceDream, #BionicMode, #TextToSpeech, #app, #AppUpdate, #iOS, #AccessibilityFeatures, #PasswordManagement.
And there it came, I waited just because I wanted the renewal email for my records but now I think it's time for my #VoiceDream subscription to end. Sorry people it's not worth $59.99 to me.
#books I’m still making my way through Jonathan Alter’s biography of Jimmy Carter, His Very Best. #VoiceDream tells me I’m now 78% done with it. He was truly a great man who lived out his principles. I’ve always said that Bill Clinton would be fun to sit next to on a cross-country flight, though at some point you might want to put on voice-cancelling headphones when the talking gets too much. Jimmy Carter is a President who I just would have loved to meet and get to know. So sad that in 36 years we went from the best to the absolute worst, twice. Quite an indictment, I’d say.
The other day I saw someone post here about being able to use #AI voices on #VoiceDream. How would this work? My assumption was it would be in a #VoiceDream app update, but there doesn’t appear that there has been one. Could someone enlighten this curious one? Thanks!
In iOS 18, #VoiceDream is no longer usable for me because it jumps ahead by 1 minute and 16 seconds when I play or resume a book. If I pause, rewind, and then play, it jumps ahead by 1 minute and 16 seconds. If I rewind while it's playing, it jumps ahead by 1 minute and 16 seconds. This is Eloquence, set to 730 words per minute.
My opinion of #VoiceDream Reader has been reduced significantly. Today I was assisting someone in getting their Bookshare account set up as a student. Once that was done, I steered them to VDR. It was going to force them to sign up for a subscription. It was my understanding that they had backtracked on that, but it seems that was just for existing members. So I can no longer recommend VDR to them. Bookshare has its own reader app, but I’m totally unfamiliar with it. (1/2)
Voice Dream. You can now try out the Kindle beta for Voice Dream and be able to give feedback. They added this in the most recent update, 4.33.0. You must first have a subscription to Voice Dream in order to have access to the beta. To access it, go to settings, and you will see the option after managing voices. #VoiceDream #Kindle #Beta #blind #Accessible
The content of my previous post was mostly factual, based on my own experience. As a follow-up, here's some wild conjecture and opinion:
Firstly, I'm not convinced that this is a feature Voice Dream's owners have developed in collaboration with Amazon. When you sign in, the web page clearly states that you are signing into Amazon's own Kindle web reader, rather than a third-party product via OAuth. There is no native #VoiceDream interface for browsing/searching through your library, it's all done via the web interface, suggesting that they don't have official API access to hook into.
So, what does that mean? If this feature has been developed without Amazon's blessing, it could stop working at any time. Either because access is blocked, because the structure of the underlying web page changes in a way that prevents book text from being scraped, or some other reason.
Meanwhile, I'm curious whether pulling text out of the Kindle web reader via a JavaScript bridge goes against Amazon's terms of service. I don't know; I haven't read them. But it strikes me as a form of "reverse engineering", which most commercial platforms explicitly prohibit.
For now, I'll acknowledge that the Kindle support is in beta, but also say that I'm underwhelmed. The Kindle web reader was not built, nor optimised for mobile devices running on battery, so the prospect of leaving it open and on screen is not appealing. The awkward user flows, and lack of wider app integration make it stand out, but not in a good way. And the speech pauses are irritating.
Is it better than reading with VoiceOver or Speak Screen in the Kindle app? I don't know; I've never done that.
Here are some initial comments:
Kindle doesn't appear in #VoiceDream as a standard content source. Instead, Amazon's web reader is embedded into the app, and the book text is extracted from the web page to be spoken.
This means that Kindle isn't deeply integrated into the rest of the app, and results in the majority of Voice Dream features being unavailable. You can choose a book and start audio playback, but not access bookmarking, text highlighting, annotations, full-text search, the built-in dictionary, etc. More fundamentally, standard book navigation (e.g. by heading) is not possible either. You can skip by page, and that's all.
I don't know if the features aimed at other audiences, such as finger reading and word highlights, work or not. I would suspect not, given the webview-based architecture, but I haven't been able to verify either way.
Meanwhile:
1. Playing a Kindle book doesn't register it as your "currently reading" item. If you relaunch the app, or close the Kindle viewer, you have to locate the book in Amazon's web interface from scratch.
2. Speaking of Amazon's web interface, selecting a book to read happens entirely within it, bringing all of the accessibility issues along for the ride that you may expect from Amazon in 2024.
3. While Kindle content is playing, the #VoiceOver magic tap gesture causes whatever non-Kindle document you were reading elsewhere in Voice Dream to resume.
4. You can pause the playback of a Kindle book on AirPods. But when you try to resume, you also trigger the previous non-Kindle document.
5. On the two books I've tried, there are large pauses in the speech stream at frequent intervals, lasting almost a second. These don't seem to line up with page changes, and I'm not sure what causes them. Maybe something related to scrolling.
6. I pressed "next page" four or five times in quick succession, to jump past all of the copyright information in a book. Unfortunately, this caused playback to completely stop working, no matter how many times I toggled it.
#VoiceDream apparently now has beta Kindle support in the main app, i.e. a beta version isn't required. There are reports on the mailing list that you need to be a subscriber to see it, that there should be a "Kindle beta" option in the "Settings" menu, and that you can't lock the screen or background the app while reading a Kindle book. I subscribed and updated the app, but it isn't showing up for me, so I don't know any more than that.
VoiceDream. Voice Dream version 4.32.0 update is available to download. Here is the release notes, Good news! Legacy users will continue to be able to use Voice Dream - Fix bug with nested folders in zip files - Add login button to Settings with Reset Password button - Fix issue with files not finishing downloading - Add support for AU file format - Fix DAISY document parsing bug. #VoiceDream #Update #blind #Accessible
Hace un tiempo, una app que uso muchísimo en iPhone, VoiceDream, pasó a manos de una empresa. Hace un par de días, hicieron el gesto de cambiar el modelo de compra única a suscripción. 90 eurazos al año.
Se ve que sus clientes se lanzaron al cuello y han reculado para quienes ya compramos la app en su momento.
La accesibilidad es cara, pero esto es demencial. Y si ya lo han intentado una vez, será cuestión de tiempo para que hagan el cambio definitivo y les den igual las protestas de sus clientes.
Y podría hacer aquí una perorata sobre la relación entre modelo de negocio, tiendas de aplicaciones móviles y software privativo, pero como son temas que no conozco lo dejaré en que me cabreé muchísimo y es otro pasito más que me acerca a Android liberado.
If you don't feel the need to subscribe to #VoiceDream right now, but want to support future development with a donation, the developers have set up a "tip jar" where you can contribute an amount of your choice: https://buy.stripe.com/4gw5nweUg086b0Q4gp
Having gone to cancel my #VoiceDream subscription in the #iOS #AppStore while it is still a free trial, they sure do have an interesting list of plans. The monthly subscription options range from £4.99 to £19.99, and the annual options from £49.99 to £119.99. There is also an option labelled "Premium", which is also annually billed, at £79.99.
Quote from Kishin Manglani on the #VoiceDream mailing list:
"Following our recent announcement to transition #VoiceDream to a subscription, we received an overwhelming response from thousands in our community. Your feedback, along with the impactful stories shared about Voice Dream being a pivotal part of your daily lives, has led us to reverse this change.
We will continue to provide access to the app's existing features at no additional cost.
As we continue developing Voice Dream, some new features may be offered as part of a subscription, but the current capabilities will remain free to those who have already purchased Voice Dream.
For those who have already moved to a subscription, it's no longer necessary to continue using the app. You may cancel your subscription, but we welcome you to keep it active to support ongoing development."
/unquote.
Original source (login required): https://groups.io/g/Voice-Dream/message/116
(Edit: the announcement is also posted publically here: https://www.voicedream.com/subscription-pricing-update/)
@lynnskyi I know my opinion on #VoiceDream going to a subscription model probably won’t be popular. I understand why they did it, and I’ve already signed up. Reading is one of my life essential functions, and VoiceDream is an integral part of that process. It’s really no different in my mind than what Bookshare does. And if they do in fact integrate Kindle that, to me, would make it worth the price by itself.
Voice Dream Update, 4.30.2. Taken from the Voice Dream email list... IN the notes on today’s update to version 4.30.2, they mention adding support for .au files. I didn’t know what those were, so I did a web search. This is what I found:
Sep 22, 2023Files with the .au file extension are audio files stored in a file format used by Audacity, a sound editor software. The .au files are part of an Audacity project, and these files are used while working on the project. After editing, the finished sound data is exported to a common audio format like MP3.
I found a web site with sample .au files from Audacity. #voicedream #Update #Accessible #Blind
It's been brought to my attention that the current owner of #VoiceDream Reader is the app acquisition company Applause (https://applause.dev), and not Applause App Quality, Inc. (https://applause.com). The latter company offers #accessibility testing services, the former does not, and as far as I know there is no connection of any kind between them other than an unfortunately shared name. This partially or entirely invalidates at least one of my posts on the subject which I'll leave up for posterity, but wanted to set the record straight.
