Voice Dream - Text to Voice

Description of App

Apple Design Award Winner! Voice Dream - Screen Reader lets you listen to PDFs, textbooks, Web pages, emails, and books using advanced AI Text To Speech!

Featured by Apple as Best New App and App of the Day in 81 countries. Voice Dream - Screen Reader is also part of App Store Permanent Collections in Education.

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“Both experts recommend Voice Dream Reader as the best app in the text-to-speech space.” - Wired

“This app is one of the best educational finds of my entire career.” - Forbes

“As a user myself and as a mother of a child with dyslexia, I am blown away by the features of Voice Dream.” - Quartz

“Voice Dream Reader is hailed by many as the best mobile text-to-speech (TTS) app.” - Examiner

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Text-to-Speech
- 36 built-in iOS voices in 27 languages are also available for free.
- 200+ additional premium voices in 30 languages from Acapela, NeoSpeech and Ivona available through in-app purchases.
- Correct pronunciation with your own pronunciation dictionary.
- All voices work offline and play in the background even with the screen locked.

Supported Document Formats
- PDF, Plain text, MS Word, MS PowerPoint, RTF, and Google Docs.
- Textbooks
- Web articles.
- Bookshare Books.
- EPUB eBooks. (DRM-free books only. Kindle, iBooks and most commercial eBook platforms are not supported.)
- DAISY text-based books and audiobook.
- Audiobooks in MP3, MP4 or zipped MP3 format.
- Rich text and image support for all documents.

Built-in Scanner
- Scan paper documents with the camera for text-to-speech.
- State-of-the-art A.I. is fast and accurate, even in poor lighting conditions.
- Works entirely on device: No need for internet and your data stays private.
- Only languages using Latin alphabets are currently supported.

Reading Styles
- Tee-up a list of articles and play while you drive, walk or run.
- Spoken word is highlighted to improve comprehension and retention.
- Auto-scrolling and full screen, distraction-free mode to help reader focus.
- Finger reading. For beginners to read by at running a finger under each word.
- Pac-Man. Harvard and MIT developed speed-reading method for everyone to read at 2x speed with no loss of comprehension.
- High contrast and large font size for low vision readers.
- Optimized for VoiceOver, Braille and switch control.

Tools
- Recognize text for scanned PDF documents.
- Bookmarking, text highlighting and annotation. Highlights and notes can be exported.
- Full-text search.
- Built-in dictionary.
- Automatically skip text in PDF header and footer.

Content Sources
- Native support for Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud Drive, Pocket, Instapaper and Evernote.
- Native access to Bookshare.
- Safari extension to save Web pages and Web addresses.
- Support for Box and OneDrive via iOS Document Picker.

Library Synchronization
- Your entire library, including folders, reading locations, bookmarks and annotations are synchronized across all your devices using iCloud Drive

Version

4.23.4

Free or Paid

Requires Subscription

Apple Watch Support

Yes

Device(s) App Was Tested On

iPhone

iOS Version

15.6

Accessibility Comments

This is a very accessible app, and the developers seem truly committed to improving it. Organizing content is somewhat difficult and may require sighted assistance, but downloading and reading content works very well. As of the latest release, 2.7.2, the developer has fixed the issues noted below with regards to the inaccessibility of the text box. It is now possible to read by words, characters and lines through the text with voiceOver.

VoiceOver Performance

VoiceOver reads all page elements.

Button Labeling

All buttons are clearly labeled.

Usability

The app is fully accessible with VoiceOver and is easy to navigate and use.

Other Comments

The samples for peter (happy) and peter (sad) which previously did not play are now working properly.

App Store Link

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/voice-dream-reader/id496177674

Developer's Website

http://www.voicedream.com/

Developer's Twitter Username

@voicedreamapp

Recommendations

40 people have recommended this app

Most recently recommended by Michael Hansen 2 weeks 6 days ago

Options

Comments

Kindle

Amazon is not an owner of the content. As such it is constrained in its contracts with 3rd parties with contracts that it has with content owners.

Authors allow Amazon to use their work in printed form in Kindle. They don't allow their work to be sold in audio form as that is part of another contract they may have.

As such no one should be able to legally deliver Kindle in audio format.

But there comes the catch that blind people and people with some other disabilities can't use printed form. As such in most countries they are allowed to use alternative ways to access the content if necessary. This may be used as a legal loophole for this purpose. But as this is loophole I do suggest everyone to consult legal expert regarding that - for example Amazon may suggest that VoiceOver with Kindle is sufficient and using of other tools is a legal breach. And as there are slight differences in legal framework in each country whether this is correct may even vary per country.

Whether the individual may be responsible in such case is fairly complicated and one would need to study Voice Dream terms of service in details for that and I haven't done that.

If VDR is acting like a…

If VDR is acting like a browser, which I think it is, I would assume this is perfectly legal. Stripping DRM and adding it to Eveleven Eleven Labs Reader would, on the other hand, be a grey area, dependent on regional laws.

the best way to approach this is to get books from BookShare, the US version, or if you're lucky enough to have access, the RNIB BookShare, though that only seems to be available through education. You can then legally use your device to read the downloaded material as long as it is for your use only. The down side of this is some newer smaller press books are slower to come onto such platforms, if at all.

It's a difficult space, we're waiting for the libraries to work with the hardware which itself needs to be accessible. It's all a bit of a mess and VDR, I don't think, is the solution. If you can get it paid for, fine, maybe, but the features seem rather thin on the ground for the cost. I fear there are better and cheaper ways of doing it for those who have the luxury of time to find them.

Voice Dream Reader, as my dear gran would say, is all pump and no poop.

Browser

VD is acting like automated browser content scrapping tool, which isn't legal when applied to closed services like Kindle.

Calibre is likely doing the same, so it is as (i)legal as that.

You can't strip out DRM, you can just scrap the content and that is what both tools are doing, there might be slight differences and they may have legal implications, but the principle is the same and it is impossible that one thing is legal and another is illegal.

11Labs

Can you use the voices you acquire in 11Labs reader offline? I thought they required an internet connection to use? If not, then between 11Labs and Speech Central I wouldn't have a reason to keep VDR around.

There is a cloud version of…

There is a cloud version of the kindle reader. I'd assumed that it was using that. How the browser parses that info, using a screen reader, etc, I'd assume, was legal.

Also, the fact it does exist in a couple of places, VDR and Speechify, and still exists, suggests either amazon doesn't care and hasn't bothered to send a cease and desist notice, or it's within usage policies. It's acting as a window to the kindle system, not pulling down and extracting the data which is why, I think, it's so flaky. Each page that opens, Speechify or VDR has to process it rather than being able to process it as one continuous file.

There is no illegality risk

I am not in breach of any contract with Amazon if I use VoiceDream to read Kindle books. The party in breach, if there is any, is the Voice Dream developer. In addition, it would not make any economic sense for amazon to sue me. either:
1. Damages would only be nominal - justifying only a small claims track case in which only fixed costs are recoverable, so the case would be economical; or
2. Bingo would successfully defend the case based on the absence of privity of contract and/or a duty of care in tort and/or an absence of breach; or
3. Bingo would successfully argue that, worst case scenario, by allowing Voice Dream to access Kindle books, any losses suffered were caused almost entirely by amazon's own negligence. This would be a last resort aargument on the basis that it would reduce, rather than extinguish, liability. However, the economic illiteracy of going after Bingo would be compounded even in this eventuality.

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