Voice Dream - Text to Voice

Definitely helpful! I was also experiencing the same problem. I'm glad to know that a fix is on the way. Thanks for the comment.

I too am having this problem. I'm glad I'm not alone in it, and that hopefully we'll get a fix for it soon. Thanks for letting us know, Clare.

Hi all:
I downloaded Voice Dream Reader yesterday and, so far, I really love this app. However, when I downloaded the app it said that I would get to choose a voice to start reading and so I chose the Acapela voice of Heather, just to see how it worked. The problem is that, even though I have gone through the settings many times, I cannot make Heather read anything. When I do the command to read, it is VoiceOver that reads the text to me instead of the Voice I chose. On the other hand, when I tried Reading with A different iOS voice, it worked like a charm. Can somebody tell me how to do this properly? Maybe there is something that I am missing. Please help because I really want to buy a few voices that will make my reading time more pleasant. I will be going for the NeoSpeech and Ivona voices for I think they are the best voices out there. By the way, I am using an iPhone 7 Plus with the latest iOS version. Thanks in advance for your always greatly appreciated help.
Have a very nice day/night, everyone.

Hi basically my subject says it all. I have my e-text book in iCloud drive. It is split up in to 41 files. It's a pain trying to add each individual file. So is there a way to add multiple files at once. ps. there all DOCX files. thanks in advance.

What's New in Version 4.4.1

- Updated for iOS 11.
- Added support for loading documents using iOS 11 File Browser.
- Added support for iOS 11 Drag and Drop for files and URLs.
- Minor bug fixes and enhancements.

Hi! Since the last update, I have encountered some problems. When I open a book, voiceover becomes stuck on the text of the book, and I can't move toward the play button and toward all the other buttons. I've discovered that, if i double tap some times on the text, the buttons reappear, but it's unpredictable, meaning that I don't know how many times do I have to tap. I'm the only one having this problem? I've an iPhone SE with the last IOS.

Hi everyone,

On my iPhone 8 running the latest IOS with Voice Dream Reader, I can no longer find page numbers in DAISY text files or PDF files while using VoiceOver. I have reported the issue to the developer and am told that the page numbers are still there but VoiceOver cannot find them. Has anyone else encountered this problem? I have begun noticing this since the latest release of Voice Dream Reader.

Hello everyone,

Since the latest release of Voice Dream Reader, I can download only EPUB files from Bookshare from within the app and not DAISY text files. My setting on Bookshare clearly indicates that I prefer DAISY files but Voice Dream tries to get only EPUB files. Has anyone else encountered this problem? I have an iPhone 8 and am running the latest IOS.

Hello again everyone,

I have yet another problem to report with Voice Dream Reader.
I had purchased the Kendra voice to use with this app years ago but I am being asked to pay for it again after deleting and redownloading the app. Here's what happened.
Some time ago, I changed my Apple ID from an email address I no longer have to my iCloud email, and everything worked quite smoothly with all of my apps, including Voice Dream Reader. I was able to use Kendra reliably as before. However, since I began to encounter other problems with the app, I decided to delete it from my iPhone 8 and then reinstalled it immediately. All of my settings for the app were successfully restored from icloud accept for the setting related to Kendra. When I proceeded to download this voice I was told to pay for it yet again. I have reported the issue to the developer but have heard nothing. Does anyone know any possible solutions to this problem? Thank you for your help.

Hi, everyone,
Here's an example to explain what I mean.
Whenever I try to flag a document of any kind, or delete a book, or try to perform any other such actions, Voice Dream Reader either reads the text of the book by word or character, or skips completely to another book or button.
I've checked the rotor in the speech settings with no luck. I've also removed the app from the app switcher and turned off the phone completely then restarted it, but nothing seems to help the problem.
I've also noticed that before when I used to type in page numbers or percentages in the edit box, the numbers used to appear in a phone pad system. Now, though, the regular keyboard appears and I have to switch from letters to numbers, then type the number using the number row. Is there a way I can return the key pad back to the phone key pad style?
Thank you in advance for any help.

hey everyone
I'm from India
I'd love to buy this app. but this app is way too costly here in India. and unfortunately, the free trial version of this app, voice dream reader lite is also not available in this country.
I am considerring to sign up for bookshare. so was thinking to buy this app.
will the developer be bringing this app to India with a much more affordable cost? as many people here use bookshare :)

thank you

Yes, I was going to recommend EasyReader, it works very much like VoiceDream.
And yes, you can use those nice voices that you use in VoiceDream, Though you do have to pay for them.

I would love to see Voice Dream have the eloquence voice as an option. I know they already have Fred, but eloquence would be great to have as another voice option. Just a thought...

Hey so I've tried downloading a book from Bookshare within the app but for some reason the download button doesn't show up. I can only view book details. Does anyone know how to fix this?
Edit: Wasn't the app's fault; I just forgot to renoo my subscription. Works fine now.

It's really unfortunate that Voice Dream Reader doesn't work for you. I'm using the most current version of the app, and all the buttons are clearly labelled and the gestures work correctly. However, just in case it makes any difference, I'm using an iPhone X S and bought the app many years ago before apps could be bundled.

Getting an iPad 9 in Jan and want to know if it works well with iPad and smart keyboard?

Hi! How do I highlight text using voiceover? I can select the text but then can’t find the option to highlight.

I absolutely love VoiceDream Reader. My one question is whether there is a way to stop it from reading the page numbers in books that I’ve downloaded from BookShare. When crossing from one page to the next, it reads out the page number as if it were part of the sentence in the book, which is a bit distracting. Is there a way to stop it from doing this? Thanks in advance for any ideas.

I was trying to figure out how to read OneDrive documents on Voice Dream Reader, so I looked at the Health page. I followed the instructions, but OneDrive does not appear in my options.

I tried to contact the official people, but I have not received a response in several weeks from anyone.

So, I was wondering if you guys could help me?

As far as I can see, there's no direct support for 1Drive. Your best bet is probably to make it appear in the files app and then use the file browser content source to get to it.

Since iOS 9 (almost 8 years ago), you can access any cloud storage from the Files app / flies browser that is available in most of the apps including in Voice Dream Reader.

You need to have that particular cloud storage app installed (e.g. OneDrive) and to enable it in the Files app.

This is how you should access all files, as everything else is a security risk. E.g. if you use built-in option to access Dropbox files, you leave your Dropbox completely unsecured. That means that some bug in the app may delete your files (not too likely), but also that if the app is sold to some malicious company (still unlikely but not impossible) someone might try to moenitize your files in various ways.

For several versions of the app now, I have been unable to read books with my preferred voice, Alex. When I press Play, the app either switches to another voice, or is completely silent, even though the button has now toggled to Pause. I am able to switch to other iOS American English voices with no problem, for example: Allison or Samantha.

This is occurring on an iPhone 8 plus, running various versions of iOS 16, and with several versions of the app now. emails to the developer have gone unanswered.

Is anybody else experiencing this?

I don't understand what happens with VoiceDream. I think it was sold or something, but I think there was no oficial information about that. ICloud syncranisation works simply horrible and support never answers.

Seems like a lot of us have been having trouble contacting support for this app lately.

Has anyone had success in recent weeks and, if so, how?

I bought the pack containing Voice Dream Reader, Writer and Scan.

A little while ago I noticed that Voice Dream Scan had been renamed VD Scan. Which is certainly not an app I would want someone else to find on my iPhone! (Well, maybe it's a UK thing, but it now sounds more like a somewhat sensitive medical app to me)

In the release notes I did get the impression that the name had changed because the Voice Dream brand had been acquired by someone. But not 100% sure of the details.

Hello this is Ahmed the VoiceDream apps specifically VD scanner and writer had Ben acquired by a developer named Opus Noma LLC I just want to keep everyone informed as to what’s going on

You can find the correct and full information on the Voice Dream Twitter.

In short Voice Dream Reader is sold to a company Applause Group that will be responsible for its development. For the start they made the app subscription based (current price should be 80$/year but they experimented with several prices already) and made all Acapela voices free. Also you get the Mac app as part of the subscription. Old users generally don’t need to pay the subscription, but they won’t get the Mac app.

The old developer hasn’t sold Scanner and Writer apps, but as he has sold the Voice Dream company and trademark, those apps are moved to a new company and have new names.

I can definitely reproduce this, and as far as I can tell it's an iOS16 and Voice dream issue. I remember the developer complaining about some kind of change to the way speech works last year, but I don't know why it's made such a mess of Alex in particular.

The workaround that works for me most of the time is, when you first open Voice Dream, read a short file of some sort. In my case it's usually a 30/45 minute ePub. That will usually work, and at that point you can pause it and start reading what you actually want to read. It doesn't work every time and you might have to try again occasionally, but it usually does. So basically, keep a short file of some sort in your library to kind of kickstart Alex.

Based on that, it seems to be some kind of timeout issue or size issue or something, not sure which.

Has anyone else been having issues with the app freezing or being really slow to respond? It's also taking hours or days to recognize books that have been downloaded. I download something from Bookshare, it says it's downloaded, but when I go to my books list the title is grayed out and stuck in a loading loop. Restarting the app doesn't solve anything, redownloading the book doesn't do anything, it just randomly decides I can read my book after a few hours or days, but sometimes never. It does this with files imported from my phone too. If I had to pay $60 a year for this I'd be done with the app entirely. It's very disheartening, this has been such a good app with no problems until this past year.

Not sure if this is the same when skipping by paragraph or page. When skipping backward or forward by sentence I experience a bit of a lag. Not sure if this is a new thing because I am only using the app in this way for the first time but, is there anyway to eliminate this. When flicking up or downward to skip backward or forward by sentence there is a lag in this response time, for example I can flick it down three times and have to wait a second before it actually finishes the process of skipping backward or forward

I've not used the app but I'm assuming it's using a sepret process to voiceover and I doubt that will change.

I agree with Lottie, I personally don't see the point of this app, yes you can use it to read things all in one place, if it works, but it almost seams like the maker of the app doesn't understand that you can do that in other places too? I'm not sure.

This app... I have a love-hate relation with it. The only reason why I bought it in the first place 1.5 years ago was because of the accapela tts voices. Sync is still and probably be horrible and slow forever and especially with the new price tag now... It's a hard sell.

Hi all. I updated VoiceDream to the latest version and noticed that something strange happened with it. I didn't purchase the subscription to use new voices, but reading with old voices became really strange. Before I had the speed 180/200 words per minute for years, now when I have such speed set by default my acapela voice speaks extremely slowly. Did anybody purchase a subscription for new voices? Are these new voices from acapela that they suggest?

I had the same problem. Updating the app again fixed it, unless the app has been updated yet again. Can't speak for the quality of the AI voices, but I have my doubts. Someone else can chime in here, but I personally think it's a marketing ploy to coax the reluctant ont their subscription model.

Yes Voice Dream does have new AI voices. Unfortunately, rather than come out with their own voices or new voices for AI use, they tried to make AI-enhanced voices using the existing Acapela voices. In my opinion, it is a complete waste. There is hardly any difference, and I have never been a fan of the Acapela voices to begin with, so these do nothing for me. Your mileage may very, but using these as a the basis for a subscription is a really bad idea.

I saw this and initially thought it could be cool. I use Acapela Ryan with VoiceDream and really like it, for what it's worth. I wasn't expecting to lose that voice, which I bought for $3 or whatever. Anyway, now when I open VoiceDream I no longer have access to the old Ryan - instead I need to subscribe to unlock the new one, which I don't even like as much. I was anticipating versions of the voices with and without AI enhancements, much as Apple / Nuance offers compact, advanced and premium VoiceOver voices. I rather dislike what they did here, not only because they took away the voice that I bought, but because they keep renegging on the promise for older customers that they will not have to subscribe, only to pay one time per additional voice. I bought the old voices with that in mind, not to mention with my own money...

You can (still( access your older voices; it's just not made obvious how. For some strange reason updating VoiceDream uninstalls your previously purchased voices. What you do is find the forward button and forward to where it says my voices. That should take you to a list of your voices, which you should be able to download. I paid my own mony for the product and intend to hang on lie grim death to what I paid for for as long as possible.

I think the best thing I can say to encapsulate my feelings on this feature is that it was like buying a bottle of Chateau Margaux 1987 yesterday, looking forward to it for the rest of the year, uncorking it on christmas Day and finding that the wine had reacted with the cork rendering the contents similar to what you'd find in a chemistry set. Rubbish rubbish rubbish! Granted, I am not a fan of the Acapela voices (Queen Elizabeth? Seriously?) and I do not understand why anyone is; but I do accept, for the benefit of all you 'that's your opinion' merchants, that some folk out there are fans of sad Peter and Happy Will and that that our ancestors fought for their entitlement so to be. No no, it's not that. My point is that the AI-enhancement makes about as much difference as a handbrake on a canoe. I'll stick with Ivona Brian. The time is coming, Mr Speaker, when I will need to consider whether to bung the Voice Dream lads more money. at present this is a budget cut that's polling well.

I love how accessible you keep your references, Bingo. :)

I was looking at this earlier. Eleven Labs reader is free and superior. You can't log into BookShare, but if you're okay to load the books in, it's pretty good.

One thing that VDR does seem to have is a beta to use kindle books. it's basically opening a rapper to the cloud version of kindle. I've tried this elsewhere with Speechify, but the experience was sub-optimal... Like a poorly wound spool of ABS.

To which reference are you alluring, as frank Spencer would have it? are you taking issue with my chateau Margaux reference, which was at least direct, or to my chemistry set reference, or to my indirect reference to former Attorney-General Sir Geoffrey Cox - As in: "But the time is coming, Mr Speaker, when even these turkeys won't be able to prevent Christmas." Now, come to think of it, Sir Geoffrey cox would work very, very well as an AI-enhanced reading voice.

I'm not that keen on VDR's Kindle support. I find it is very inconsistent and sometimes I'll be reading a book and lose focus. blown off course, Mr Hornblower. Like a Kindle in the wind.

Using Kindle this way is generally illegal as it breaks Amazon terms of service. Speaking of that you do need to approve that you will use it for the purpose of accessibility which may be legal in some countries by their local laws.

However if you qualify under those laws you should be also eligible to use tools like Calibre that transfer the Kindle books in PDF and then you can use them anywhere. It is the best to consult some legal expert, but it should be like that.

Regarding ElevenLabs, their official information is that the app is in the testing phase and that it won’t be fully free in the future. While they do promise generous free tier, it is not clear what it means. On their website that generous free tier is 10 minutes a month and for reading some bigger book you need to pay $100 a month.

bingo doesn't need t to consult with a legal expert. bingo this year celebrates 20 years as a barrister in England and wales (no no no, not in Britain - scotland has a separate legal system - and not in the UK - Northern Ireland has a separate legalsystem). anyhow, to respond directly to your point with lashings of legal expertise thrown in, I presume that VoiceDream Kindle support is implemented pursuant to a contract between Voicedream and amazon. If that's correct, t hen there is no illegality. If it is not correct then you are right, Voicdedream would be acting illegally, but the illegality would be theirs, not Bingo's. amazon could bring a civil action but, again, not against Bingo (Or, at least, I suppose it's theoretically possible to sue anyone for anything but there would be no merit in the case and Bingo would be confident of not really having to stretch his intellectual abilities to have the matter dismissed). Judgment for the defendant, with costs. Local laws don't enter into anything if a contract specifies by whose laws it is to be governed. Most multi=nationals opt for english contract law as it gives more contractual freedom than exists in other countries. anyway if they are up to anything illegal, it ain't worth it. Not working well, mi' boys; not well at all.