First eSpeak-NG Beta for iOS Now Available!

As of the latest Test Flight Beta, you can find all Espeak NG voices via VoiceOver Utility>Speech>Customized language>Voice>Espeak NG), or via the Speech Atribute>Voices rotor .

Do note however, (unless I myself need to completely do a reinstall of MacOS 13), the "Intonation/Inflection" rotor does not work properly with both Espeak and native Macintalk voices at this time.

It's not showing up for me. plus, when I open the app, I receive the following error: the beta app, eSpeakNG, is no longer available. The provisioning profile is invalid.

How do I use the app on mac? I have a intel mac, is easpeak available for m macs and intel macs?

I am beta testing this app right now on my iPhone, and it's crazy amazing how they put this together! I love that I have the espeak voice which I used to only get on my android, windows, and Linux devices!

I am curious though, how does this work? I'm not a developer by any means, but I thought that Apple didn't have a speech or synthesis API that other developers can use. I thought getting a third-party synthesizer required a device that was jailbroken. But did this change with iOS 16?

If Apple is allowing Third-party speech synthesizers into the App Store, that could open up the possibility of having other open source, or paid, speech synthesizer options? Think about it, you could have acappella or Ivona voices in the App Store that you can download and work with voiceover.

since amazon bought ivona, that probably will not happen. I have not tested the eSpeak as of yet, I will do so hopefully this weekend.

Apple added a new API in iOS 16 and macOS 13 Ventura to allow developers to add speech synthesizers to the system. This works on my 2013 MacBook Air, though it seems to be quite buggy. VoiceOver takes forever to start after I installed this but I eventually got it to work. I'm waiting for DECtalk!

Now that would be cool!!!

I aI have ht e current beta release but not seeing it on my system I have a MacBook Air m1

it still wouldn't open. I received the same error message that says the provisioning profile is invalid. Once again, I sent another email to the developer. plus, the voices still wouldn't show up in VoiceOver utility> Speech> Voice.

GotE speak showing up in Voiceover. with the latest build.

How did you get yours working?

My MacBook Air has the M1 chip first of all/ and had to uninstall the previous beta , and install the newest beta . had to play around with it a few times before it randomly showed up.

Here's the error message that I received after opening:

eSpeakNG no longer available.

The beta app, eSpeakNG, is no longer available. the provisioning profile is invalid

hi all, apart from max that I like, why are there please multiple say adams, alex etc? I assumed that as all of the voices have been exposed to the Api that we'd see west indies, northern english, and other variants but still can't find them?

The speech rate issue with choppy audio above 75% has been fixed as of the latest beta. You have to use the rate slider in the app though, to increase or decrease it you double-tap, hold, and slide left/right.
I have VoiceOver at 50% and the app around 500. Of course, you can still increase VoiceOver's speech rate if you want, but with higher settings VoiceOver does the choppy effect.

The names of some of the voices, like Alex and Reed, match the names of Apple/Eloquence voices. I think eSpeak devs were trying to imitate those voices with eSpeak but couldn't. I say just rename them. I do know there's a way to create eSpeak variants as I've read of people doing it before, but I'm not sure how to do so and never uploaded anything to GitHub.

I'm posting this instead of him, because he doesn't have an applevis account:
Hello,
It'd be nice to use mbrola for in eSpeak for iOS as well. Is this possible? Personally I think it should work because nvda versions under 2019.3 supported an mbrola addon that ran with the help of eSpeak. That didn't sound 100% like the original mbrola regarding the way it pronounced stuff but the voices were the same. I think it'd be nice for not just me to have that!

the error message still shows every time I open the app on MacOS.

I am really happy that this tts came to iOS. Can anyone let me know how to install this application in my iPhone?

Well this si odd. I installed the new beta, set the voice and do not see it i n my voiceover rotor. I chose US english and adam as the voice. this actually has not worked since the inception of the beta a few weeks ago for me.

When I first installed NVDA I was like why does my computer sound so robotic? lol then I learned of eSpeak. I personally wouldn't use it for everyday use, but I download this to play around with it, this is cool.

So, with the latest e-sleak, can we get the regional variations to work in voiceover? still unsure, how the app is showing the accents like english scottish etc. can show up in the app? but in Uk english they all seem to default, the names, to Us, or Uk? but basic rp voices, not the carabean etc. any thoughts? Wil a

I want to use my native language Turkish and espeak with the sounds it supports in this language, but local sounds cannot be selected in betas yet.

Hi @Emre!
I tried right now, when you selected “Turkish (Turkey)” in app VoiceOver Languages screen, it appears in VoiceOver languages as expected.

Folks, eSpeak-NG is now on the iOS App Store - macOS release coming soon - according to Yury Popov, its awesome developer. Here's the URL: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/espeak-ng/id6444089174

Hello. I'm not sure whether I'm the only person who has observed this bug but in the latest Espeak compilation there are unusually long gaps between phrases separated by a punctuation mark. It's quite noticeable, especially when reading messages or longer written texts. I contacted the dev regarding this issue but I'd like to know if anyone noticed that as well. For the time being, I'm going to stick to the last version free of this problem, which is compilation no. 1.0.9.

what I wonder is this. what if I accidently close the app while the voice is selectedunder voiceover. will I lose speech completely? if so that needs to have a fall back somehow.

Closing the app keeps the speech. Only when in the app itself, VO falls back to the other voice - Samantha in my case - but this behaviour can be changed in VO settings under "Rotor Languages" by choosing Espeak as default.

Well, since I can't choose the speach except wiht vo, what happens when if I exit the app, will it fall back to something? My bf actually chooses the deault in settings / accessibility / voiceover / speech / espeak / voice name. We both don't see it in the router option, unless we have to manually add it.

I guess the language to which you want to assign an Espeak voice has to be added to the rotor first for it to be selected from there.

Hello.
Thanks for giving us the oportunity to test espeak.
I am very happy to be able to use espeak on my iphone.

I have got some questions.
Espeak was the first app i tried before it was released to the app store and I found the experience very exciting.
I still use version 1.0.11 from test flight.
This version hasn't been updated since Saturday if I remember right.
Is it going to get any more updates, or do we need a new link to be able to try new versions?
If we want to install the app store version, do we have to uninstall first the beta, or do we install over it?
The same question applies the other way round, from the app store version to the test flight version.
Thanks
Nikos

Nikos, simply install the App Store release - it will replace your Test Flight version. And as soon as a new Test Flight release becomes available, you can install it and it'll update your App Store app. So the app gets updated based on which source makes a new release available later unless, of course, you decide to opt out of the app's beta releases in Test Flight. In closing, the developer has indicated that beta-testing will continue once new features or fixes are implemented. So we'll get Test Flight releases in the future.
HTH.

Thanks a lot Amir for answering my questions.

@Nikos You said you're using the latest version of Espeak right now. Have you noticed the issue I pointed out a couple of days before that with long pauses between phrases? I'm interested to know if it's the problem with my installation of Espeak or is it due to some changes introduced by the developer.

Hi.
Yes you are right.
There are some strange pauses in espeak, but probably this is a bug with ios 16 in general.
I was getting some of those, when I was using the UK English, siri male voice before espeak was available.
I reported this to the developer as well, but I think they existed from the beginning of the beta.
Hopefully with ios 16.2, we won't have them.

Well, Id don't think it's an iOS bug whatsoever. I've stopped updating Espeak and am still using version 1.0.9, which has no such problem. No strange pauses, everything's working very smoothly. Hope that dev can find a solution.

It may be because I'm using a higher speech rate in the app, 300, along with a lowered speech rate in VoiceOver. So try increasing the speech rate in the app, turning off and on VoiceOver before closing the app, and then modifying the rate in VoiceOver for eSpeak-NG to see if it makes any difference.

Hi to all. Is it possible to use ESpeak on Apple watch?

No, as far as I understand this new API doesn't include apple watch support. So eloquence and other third-party synthesizers aren't supported there.

the appstore page if you open it on macos, the same link you gave for the ios version is going to download the macos version. so basically the macos version is available on the same link.

Just installed it on my Mac Mini 2018 from the App Store. Of course, you need to have MacOS Ventura for it to be detected by Voice Over.

just installed the appstore version, and it finally works on M1 Mac! It's absolutely awesome! I have it set as default for VoiceOver, and for time announcement.

Now that many versions of decTalk source code are available thanks to all decTalk companies being dead and abandoned and former employees releasing the source code to github, could we possibly have decTalk on IOS and mac?

Hi,
Will this also be coming to the Mac at some point? What about the Apple Watch?