An idea that I have been thinking about is the possibility to have the eloquence voice in iOs. I don't know the foreigners' voice preferences, but what makes me prefer eloquence instead of the one that comes with the iPhone, is because it speaks more clearly, faster and pronounces the words correctly, in this case, I am talking about the Brazilian portuguese voice, which is the one I use most of the time.
I have read (correct me please if I am wrong), that Apple bought nuance. Since I know, nuance has the rights over eloquence (and again, correct me if I am wrong), which in theory, would be possible to include the voice in the iPhone.
As many of us have noticed, we have been experiencing some voice lags in iOs 5 due the high quality voices, a lighter voice would solve that, I guess.
What do you think about this idea? What makes it possible / impossible?
Comments
Good idea!
Since Apple used the
eloquence is a good voice for
Eloquence is pretty much impossible
Why a replacement?
Alex and Such
reply
You'll all hate me for this, but...
New Apple voices either in
Contacting Apple Directly
Vocalizer voices
A Cool Idea, but Unlikely
Yes, I'd certainly use
Less Robotic is Great, But...
Agreed. and since nuance runs
Agreed. and since nuance runs eloquence, actually no longer supports it, and they have plainly said no to other screen readers including nvda on the windows side of things (shame as some of us donated to fund this project) I can comfortably say that this will never happen, at least not in my life time.
More Voices and Choices
I'd love to have Eloquence on iOS and Mac. I'm hard of hearing and have been using Eloquence for so long, I understand it better than I can understand my own family. Human-sounding voices tend to mumble a bit and be less clear than robotic ones.
I have no problem with having lots of choices, and I hope Apple will add more voices including Eloquence but also human ones for people who like that.
Accessibility is only as good as the number of people's needs that get met. I know that was an awkward sentence but...
I really wish Apple would add a male voice to the US English voices because the female voice reminds me of an annoying backseat driver or a GPS.
Alex on the Mac also has some really weird pronunciation and manages to mumble at low speed. So yeah, if Eloquence were added, I'd switch to it faster than you could say "go Apple!"
Sara
I woudl think newance has the
I woudl think newance has the choice to licence it nd since they already said no ap the NVDA fols as they are no longer supporting the voice I would not be surprise if apple got declined if they also asked for it. Also, the synth is prown to many crash words, none of which I will type here as I will probably get removed as fast as someone can sneeze. So in the end I don't think elequence is a good idea in the long run.
not happening, unfortunately
I know my response here will make people angry, but I'm all about being realistic. As popular as eloquence is in the blind community, lets face it folks, it is old technology. The first time I heard it being used was when JAWS for Windows version 3.2 came out, and that was in the late 90s or early 2000s. It's 2014 now. It would make little to no sense for Apple, or nuance for that matter, to include a voice synthesizer that is 15 years old. This is why people might be able to use it in other screenreaders, (unofficially of course), but that's because someone took ttime to make a modification for it, and sadly, Apple and Nuance aren't going to go for this. They'd be more likely to use something a lot more modern like the accapella voices, the IVona voices or something else like Alex, which as we know will be included in iOS 8. I know that people have been able to jailbreak and get more voices, but not everyone wants to do that. Bottom line folks...don't look for eloquence any time soon.
The fact that Android, with
The fact that Android, with no modifications, is offering eloquence contradicts your points. Then the x86 architecture is old and everyone still uses it, extended but bbasically the same throughout the years ... samething for eloquence: mainstream screen readers use it such as JAWS and window-eyes. It is popular in the blind comunity but voiceover is designed solely for use of this very same comunity ... so while I agree it is not likely to happen I reserv myself the right to disagree with you when it comes to the reazons ... and these are just two:
1- Apple does not want to do it. And that is because they want their screen reader to sound diferently from others, byut their voices are regretting, staying dangerously near the unacceptable with each new release of their system!
2- Neither nuance does want, because the contract for a more natural voice is possibly more rentable.
While this makes me sad and, if android some day get as good as IOS this very characteristic will make me do the switch for Android, I will keep saying that eloquence is the very best voice ever made for fast and eficient reading. Apple did open a keyboard api. May be it will open the speech api one of these days and then may be we will have a chance of having eloquence running on it.
Marlon
Eloquence definitely not for me!
Hi! I am well aware that many people in the blind community prefer Eloquence, so I can understand their wish to have it in VoiceOver on IOS, which is made for people like us who can't read the screens of our i-devices, but, speaking for myself, if Eloquence ever comes to IOS, which seems highly unlikely as far as I can tell, I would prefer it to be an option I can ignore, and not the default voice. During the ten years or so I used JAWS, I never took to Eloquence myself, as I have always had a preference for more human-sounding voices: I found the slight lag from using such voices less difficult to put up with than having to use a voice I didn't enjoy hearing. I don't have a hearing problem or a wish to hear text spoken at extremely fast speeds, which I know would justify wanting Eloquence for some people. I've heard that Alex will be part of IOS, FOR 64-bit devices at least, and, having heard him on friends' Macs as I don't have one, I look forward to him being on my next iPhone, but otherwise I'm happy with the Vocalizer voices, although it would be nice to choose their gender as someone suggested above. I don't suppose the ivona voices will ever end up on IOS except as part of apps like Voice Dream Reader, but I agree that they are excellent, and for me they would be a better alternative to Vocalizer than Eloquence could ever be, as I have personally never liked the latter. But each to their own taste in voice synthesisers, and I can see where Eloquence fans are coming from, even if I can never agree with them about that synthesiser myself!
The thing comes to this:
The thing comes to this:
We need options. Eloquence is not a heavy voice. Some of nuance and ivona voices are not either.
If one does not want to redistribute all of them, let them be downloaded on demand.
The very same thing Apple already does on the mac should be done on IOS.
Marlon
That makes sense!
Having extra voices which are downloadable on demand makes sense, although VoiceOver should still come with pre-downloaded voices so that it can be used straight away, especially important for new IOS users who have no experience of exploring the IOS settings. I don't suppose this download-on-demand option is ever going to happen, but there's nothing wrong with saying how good it would be to have it.
If nothing else, virtualization or emulation may be an option
Pretty much just what the subject says.
Running eloquence through an emulator to utilize it as a native speech engine has been done on the mac side, if nothing else that, or virtualizing it, could be a last resort.
I suspect it would require a jailbreak though, and not sure about the state of wine or something like it on iOS.
Post edited to reflect proper terminology.
Malthe.
Not an option I guess.
Not an option I guess.
As far as I know mac is x86 while IOS is ARM. If this is true I hardly believe that such emulator could be easily constructed.
As for the mac, the speech engine is too slow ... I suspect that using an emulator is going to make it even slower.
It works fairly well on mac.
Eloquence has already been emulated on mac, though I'm unsure of it's legal status, so I won't link directly to it here.
As for iOS you may be right. Parallels have done some virtualization products, but they may just be mirroring a VM on a computer. I haven't looked into it much
It is very much eligal as I
It is very much eligal as I stated as newance is not supporting the voice anyware now and they don't want it to be used anyware but there they say it will be used, plus the risks of crashing the synth are too high for this person who does not like crashing tts engines
Eloquence
I would love Eloquence on the iPhone. I have Eloquence on both Android devices I have although CodeFactory refuses to acknowledge or do anything about the fact that Eloquence does not work correctly on my S5 running Lollipop. Anyway, I have been thinking that Eloquence even as an optional download on iOS would make a lot of good sense. Most people are quite comfortable with it and can have the speech rate very quick and still understand it. I have Samantha up at about 80, but I have Eloquence set to at least 90 on my computer and both Android devices and can still understand it very well.
Reality Check
I can certainly understand why some posters want Eloquence on their iPhone. I've also seen remarks like this before if some psople feel that the voices are, in their eyes, not meeting expectations.
Face it, I struggle with this as well, but I'm not afraid to face reality.
It's likely anyone longing for Eloquence is looking for a voice that reads at high speeds and is understandable. However, I also recognize that that is not the direction text to speech is going. The overall trend is to go for a more realistic voice. You do give up speed, and while many are attempting to find a middle ground in this area, there is just no way there is going to be a perfect solution that will work for everyone.
Sure, some of the new voices on the iPhone are less responsive, but I also recognize that Apple will work on that. For now, though, if anyone does care about memory, you do have the compact voices on your iPhone. You do lose some quality, but you will gain speed. There are always trade-offs.
Just to give my opinion on Eloquence, I used that voice for a long time, since that was what I had available on my PC. It did its job, and I recognized it for what it was.
I also recognized the direction TTS was going, and I decided to stop using that voice last year. I've never looked back.
As I have said in other posts, I don't use the Samantha voice on my phone, just because I know it's on everyone's unit. If I'm in a workshop and everyone's using that voice, it would sound like I was in an echo chamber. That is why I like to stay with the Alex voice.
TTS isn't going anyware tts
TTS isn't going anyware tts users aren't going.
Voices are not multual exclusive, there might be more than one available on the same device.
And so we have that elderly people becoming blind and wanting a natural sounding voices and so on .... good but, again, if one voice would somehow prevent the other this argument would be acceptable, but this is not true. As I said in another post, the only reazon Apple won't implement eloquence on the devices is they do not want to do it ...
That's crazy reasoning
It doesn't make financial sense for them to purchase the rights to an antiquated synthesizer that, while still useable on the Windows and, apparently, the Android platforms, hasn't been updated in forever. Why would they purchase the rights to this voice when they already have a huge portfolio of voices that they do have the rights to?
agreed with the last comment
Agree with the last comment.
Agreed, and plus newance
Agreed, and plus newance alrdeady told nvda no that they were not going to give them a licence to eloquence So I see no point in this synth beeing in ios at all.
re: That's crazy reasoning
I, actually do think that eloquence is still better than most human sounding voices out there. So personally, it doesn't really need any more updates as much as many other voices. I would be fine if eloquence is not updated. Why? Because other than more languages, there's nothing to be updated.
I think so, too
I also believe the people who really, really want eloquence on their devices should consider an android device, if you have enough cash to have that in addition to the current iDevice you have. For this type of thing Android is more open and allows for more customization, obviously a lot of people on here want that. But Apple, without using jailbreaking is a case of set the options you want, the way you want, and get on with life. That's just how the user experience is.
nuance voices on iOs
Honestly, part of me wonders if apple's possession of a nuance license has expired. I mean, Vocalizer has received many updates within the last few years but neither mac os or iOs have received them. As much as I'd love to have eloquence on iOs, I highly-doubt it will ever become a reality.
It's definitely a very good
It's definitely a very good idea.