Few questions about Read2Go and InDaisy

By Amir, 22 February, 2012

Forum
iOS and iPadOS
Hi, all, I’m considering getting either Read2Go or InDaisy for my iPhone 4S. However, I want to know which one offers its bundled TTS engine without requiring an in-app purchase. I believe Read2Go requires an an-app purchase in order for Acapela to work, but is the same true for InDaisy? If so, would it be possible for us to keep the separate TTS download for future installations? I’ve also noticed that Read2Go’s installer is, according to iTune’s App Store, considerably larger than that of InDaisy. Is there a particular reason behind this? Finally, do you think Acapela sounds better compared with VoiceOver? Or is there a place to hear Acapela for iOS in action? As mentioned earlier, I’d rather get something without the need to purchase the accompanying TTS engine separately, so your help would be quite appreciated.

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Comments

By Roberto Perez on Monday, March 5, 2012 - 10:30

Hi: read2Go coms with two Acapela English voices, so you don't need to purchase it separately. even though if you want to purchase other languages there is no choice to do it, or at least I haven't found how to do it. I don't know InDaisy, but read2Go works very well for me.

Read2Go is $20 at the time of this writing. That includes two voices, which is why the app is so large. You cannot purchase the voices separately. Personally, I am not a fan of the Realspeak voices iOS uses or the Acapella voices Read2go is bundled with, but I prefer the Acapella somewhat. Unfortunately, there is no way to get a really nice voice, like Ivona, for a daisy app, at least not yet, so you are stuck with either VO's voices or Acapella. Hope this helps.

By Amir on Monday, March 5, 2012 - 10:30

Thanks for your helpful comments. So I think Read2Go would be the way to go. I also like to see Ivona voices enter the not-so-crowded iOS competition.

Amir - Did you get a chance to get Read2Go? I am really interested to hear your experiences with it. rober555x and mehgcap - We are considering additional voices for Read2Go. It is on our roadmap. Ivona voices are also nice. My personal favorite is the female australian voice. BTW: I am the senior product manager for the Read2Go at Bookshare.org

By mehgcap on Monday, March 5, 2012 - 10:30

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team
I really like Salli over all the other ones, but tts voices are among the most subjective, individual things in the computing world - it is rare for two people to enjoy the same voice, let alone an entire user base. I'm glad to see that you are monitoring "real-world" feedback, and I look forward to future updates; I know you must have tons of suggestions by now. If you could just fix the memory problem, the app would be great. To the original poster: that is one thing I forgot to mention. On my iPod, the app will report that there is "low memory" after anywhere from five to 30 minutes, even if I have it stopped (not reading) for all that time. When this happens, you must close the app and re-open it to start reading again, and you only get a few more minutes out of it when doing so. I have heard that the iPhone 4 and 4S, plus the iPads, do not have this problem because their ram is double what is in the iPod, but I have not been able to test this first-hand. It happens even if the app switcher is completely empty; it almost seems like a leak somewhere. Still, if you have an iPhone/iPad, you should be okay and not run into this (again, that is based on others' reports, not my own observations). Don't get me wrong - the app is really well designed and has good low vision features in addition to TTS, but you will probably get frustrated after a while if you use it on an iPod, at least until an update fixes the problem.

By Amir on Monday, March 5, 2012 - 10:30

Thanks, Shajey, for your comment regarding the addition of new voices and engines in the near future. I've not yet purchased Read2Go, but hopefully will be doing it today or tomorrow. Just one more point: as I'm also a big fan of Ivona TTS (US Sally and Joei in particular), I'd like to know if we should pay an extra charge to be able to also use them. Put simply, would they be available for previous Read2Go users free of charge? I'd rather have them instead of Acapela voices which have never been my favorite TTS engine. Thanks again.