Capti Voice

I haven't tried this version out yet, but it sounds really neat. Of note, Capti now claims support for Bookshare.

What's New in Version 1.7

You asked – we listened! Check out the awesome new features added in this version:
*Big news! You wanted to listen to your content on more devices – you can now use Capti in the Firefox browser on Windows and Mac computers (English only). Please visit www.captivoice.com in your Firefox browser, open the “Download” tab, and install the Capti Firefox add-on
* Now you can also add web pages to Capti from almost any browser – simply install the Capti Bookmarklet from the same “Download” tab at www.captivoice.com.
* We are putting a lot of effort into making Capti more useful: now you can read the content of the Playlist tracks visually and read along with Capti as it highlights every word it reads.
* You can now add content from your Pocket account to Capti Playlist
* We also added Bookshare – a resource with almost 300 thousand books and periodicals restricted to our users with print disabilities (please contact Bookshare to check if you qualify).
* You can now enjoy books in DAISY format!
* Our extensive collection of adult voices has been expanded with: Indian English (Raveena), Turkish (Filiz), Swedish (Astrid), Portugal Portuguese (Cristiano), and German (Julia).
* In addition to American English child voices (Ivy, Kenny, Nelly), we are happy to add new child voices speaking with British English accent (Harry and Rosie) and American English accent (Ella and Josh). Try them for free – your kids may enjoy listening to other kids reading to them!
* Finally, you can now share Capti tracks with your friends via AirDrop.
Stay in touch and keep sending requests for features and improvements to feedback@captivoice.com.

Here is an email I just sent to the app developer.

"Hello. I am pleased that you have added Bookshare support. However, I am having a problem with it. I logged in with my Bookshare account and went to search for Stephen King. When I did so, I got four results, even though I know that there are at least 60 books on Bookshare by Stephen King. I searched for "Stephen king", "Stephen King", and "King, Stephen" with the same four results showing up every time. Can you help me with that? Thanks for all of your work towards accessibility...Scott"

What's New in Version 2.0

We are happy to announce a major update of Capti 2.0:
- Now you can read track content visually, and Capti will highlight every word it reads
- You can use the table of content or navigate by page, sentence, paragraph, heading, etc.
- With Capti extension, you can import content from Safari, Chrome, Opera and many other apps by using the Share button
- You now have access to over 49,000 free books from Gutenberg
- Import your documents from Microsoft’s OneDrive
- Try our full-text search – pull down on the Playlist
- Configure the speech rate for each language individually
- Capti is now fully compatible with the iPad – synchronize with your iPhone playlist
- Capti is also substantially more reliable
- Free Voice Upgrade: the top quality voices are now even better
- Try the new amazing high-quality voices: Sharon and kid Justin (U.S. English), Lisa (Australian English), Rhona (Welsh English), kids Jonas and Lea (German),
kids Emilio and Valeria (U.S. Spanish and English), and Rodrigo (Spanish)

Hello. This app looks awesome and I really enjoyed the audio walkthrough accompanying this entry. I have a question about .pdf support. First off, I want to mention that I just created an account this morning with your support desk, but I'm in no way trying to gain the system by asking this. Has anyone here--besides the developer of this app of course--used the .pdf functionality and if so is it possible to navigate by character, word et cetera? I just downloaded a .pdf file this morning and am excited to get going with this app.

I'm back to politely ask if anybody's still using this app and if so, could somebody please please respond to me either here or privately regarding my last reply? Is the developer still around? I've contacted him too but he won't respond with instructions. I know this app is still being updated, because it did so last week on my system. I need to use this app for work, but I can't figure out how to load a pdf document into it. Eagerly awaiting any responses. This app seems pretty cool, and you can't beat the price of the free version! I cannot recommend it though until I've used it a bit.

Hey. If I remember this right, you have to share the PDF files with Capti, then they should automatically load into your playlist on your phone/iPad. If I don't have that right then post something cause I don't exactly remember what you have to do with PDFs as I just use Ibooks for them and it does what I need them to do.

What's New in Version 2.5

With this major update, you can now:
- Add photos and images to Playlist
(OCR is available to organizations only)
- Export your annotations from the tracks
- Change speech rate directly in Playlist
- Navigate text by bookmarks and time intervals
- Hear earcons when Capti cannot navigate

Thanks Justin. I'm actually trying to read and navigate a Wall Street Journal article that was sent to me by a colleague and is in .pdf format as well as some other pdf documents and things that I've encountered over the years. I tried reading this article using iBooks, but no dice. My brother actually tweeted a post to me that is from another blog and may be of some use. I'll admit I'm not that good yet at some of this advanced computer stuff. I suppose it doesn't help that there's nobody in my area who has been trained on VoiceOver. Well actually there's a high-school guy who lives about 25-30 minutes from me who uses VO, but I'm not sure I'd be able to get to him independently. I guess that's why sites like AppleVis exist though even with the occasional--or not so occasional--spelling mistakes, and I really appreciate that. But I digress. I'll try some of these other things and see what happens.

True, true. lol! I think your best bet with reading PDF files is to OCR them with an app like prismo. It seems to do a decent job of OCR.

I think I'll try out that app then. But it seems rather odd to me that people are raving about Capti on here, and the developer was even actively engaged in this topic. Yet when I posted, he never responded and neither did anybody on here until later. I have attempted to contact them numerous times both via email and Twitter, but absolutely nothing has come of it. An update to the app was also installed on my system, so I'm about 99.9999% sure it is still being developed. I'm wondering again if anyone would care to look into this? I realize it's the holiday season, but you'd honestly think that people could do better.

What's New in Version 2.6

Usability is the most important aspect in any app. We have taken your suggestions to heart. An we’re introducing our brand new iOS interface!
With an engaging color scheme and more intuitive functionality, you will be able to use Capti with more confidence than ever before. You can now:
* Customize the order of tracks within each of your playlists
* Open the track’s content and tap anywhere to enter the full-screen mode
* Organizational account subscribers will also enjoy higher quality OCR
and be able to upload tracks from physical worksheets and textbooks
...More

This app has so much potential, but I'm having a few hangups with it.

First, when browsing Bookshare, there doesn't seem to be a way to get more book info before downloading? Double tapping a title downloads it, but what if you want to read the synopsis before grabbing it?

Also, when reading a book, the "previous" and "next" buttons say null, which means they can't be used. I can choose the navigation unit, paragraph, sentence, etc, but it won't let me move forward or back.

Lastly, is there no way to use the Alex iOS voice in this app? I see a few other iOS voices, but not good ole Alex.

As I understand it, you should be able to sync your reading position across multiple devices using Capti Narrator, and that's a major plus for me. Sadly, these downsides are keeping me from switching to this app as my primary reading method.

If anyone has workarounds I'd greatly appreciate it.

Thanks

There seems to be a discrepancy with this app, because I haven't gotten it to work quite right either on my MacBook Air. I think this app entry needs to either be removed altogether, or some sort of clarification needs to be made regarding the app's usability.