As multiple people have asked questions regarding the ethical side of Speech Central marketing, I will post regarding that and I won't discuss this topic further.
First I do confirm that I did a competitor comparison marketing. I also understand that for some people it may be controversial.
Second I have not invented this and I have done it in much lighter form than most of the companies do. Apple had series of commercials for years of PC and Mac guy when it literally mocked Microsoft. Microsoft did the same when it wanted to present Surface devices as superior solution. I have never ever mocked up Voice Dream Reader and I have tried to my best to do only objective comparisons. You can see in my comparisons that Voice Dream Reader is better than Speech Central for some specific purposes.
Third, the only reason that I did this is because I was exposed to a wide social ghosting by community leaders (and even some members of the community), which is also a form of bullying by all standards.
When I say that let's look into some facts, one by one:
- Speech Central was in active development for almost 10 years. I dedicated 10 years of my life to improve accessibility.
- There wasn't a single blind user who have tried the app and who didn't say that the app is reasonably capable and could be compared to Voice Dream Reader. You can see various independent posts on this web site that confirm that.
- I have made my app completely free when used with VoiceOver to help this community. I commit to stay like that as long as I own the app (as Winston I will get old one day and I can't develop it forever, but I hope to do it for few more decades)
- I am the first to encourage the people to try all apps and use any app that they like. I am aware that not everyone will pick Speech Central even if it is free and Voice Dream Reader costs 60$/year, and I am fine with that.
- But the truth is that this community leaders (and sometimes even members) encourage restriction of choices to only one or two apps and social ghosting of developers that bring new choices.
- Don't you find it odd that there are literally thousands of web pages that promote Voice Dream Reader to blind people in various forms - podcasts, articles, links to recommended software and literally just a couple of them that mention Speech Central? Again I wouldn't mind even review that would completely trash Speech Central based on something objective, but there isn't that, there is just ghosting that lasts for many years.
- I have sent probably thousand of emails so that some people that review the apps for blind people would take a look at Speech Central. Maybe just three of them did that. It should be their job to test different solutions and review them for the community even without any email, but they prefer ghosting.
- Just for the comparison I frequently recommended my app to people on Twitter that were looking for Speechify and NaturalReader (apps that are generally not used in this community). I have received many thanks for that and not a single insult. For Voice Dream Reader I have sent at least 100x fewer tweets and I couldn't count the insults for promoting the choice.
- Finally I'll tell you on the episode of how Bookshare has ghosted me as their partner app (yes even that can happen). I must stress that this wasn't right from the start and initially I had a very good communication with one their employee that soon left the organisation. After that strange things started to happen. My test account stopped to work, so I couldn't test or implement new features (according to them this was because they have changed some their policies and I needed to sign something to have access again, but they have around 10 partner apps and they haven't informed me regarding that). As Apple requires demo account for testing by App Review, I got into the problem that I couldn't pass the app review anymore. I had a solution either to get a test account or to remove the feature. I had emailed to them through all contact forms on their web site and all other emails I have ever had or could find and I have never received an answer. I considered to purchase the account to be able to pass the app review, but it was impossible. I had to complain to their parent organisation Benetech that they were ghosting my messages at which point I've got the reply and the form to fill to get the test account.
- To conclude I don't mind if someone says "I have tried Speech Central and it is that bad because of this and this that you would need to pay people to use it". But I do mind people that say Winston deserves 60$/year for his work and from their silence you can conclude that I don't deserve anything for the same work. Not even few minutes of time required to try the app and use it for free if you like it. I don't say that all people here act like this and I think that majority don't, but for those that do they do perform a form of implicit bullying.
Let's end it by saying that it is true that my marketing wasn't up to the highest possible standards. I understand that now is not the time to expect words like sorry from anyone. But I do hope that in 10 years someone will come back here and say that I helped the blind community more than most people and I did not deserve to go through everything that I went through.
Comments
Thoughts.
Hi, I don’t know enough about the history of this story to feel like I have a valuable or even informed opinion, I’ll leave that for others but I would like to recognise that you have made your app completely free to blind users and that is a much appreciated action. Hopefully people will find your app now the alternative is unreachable for many many blind people especially in less wealthy countries but even in the wealthy countries. Free use of resources will be helping many people who sadly don’t have the same earning potential and therefore lack access to resources their sighted peers have a higher probability of using.
I am sorry that you went through this.
Hi.
I am really sorry to hear that some shitty people behaved like that.
I really like speech central.
I would even consider donating, but my budget is really limited for now.
when I will can, I will donate somehow, probably once for a month.
@Charlotte
Thats a fantastic idea. Someone is going to be first rolling chat gpt into a reader. Why not speech central? Would also potentially solve the issue of marketing. The first one with Chat gpt summarising texts will definitely get a bunch of free marketing and the word of mouth factor will probably be off the scale.
One more fan
"After following this discussion for the last couple of days, I have to say that I like you more and more with every one of your posts. First of all, what impressed me the most was the honest and objective comparison of Speech Central and VDR. Second, I downloaded your app, and it's the best one I've used. Remember that the higher you fly, the smaller you seem to those below you ;) Besides, people are bound to be mad when you are giving out for free what they are charging $60 per year for. I can't thank you enough for the 10 years of your life you have put into keeping Speech Central accessible. Keep up the good work and don’t let the words of small-minded people distort your perspective on the general feeling about this matter. I am sure that the wider community greatly appreciates your time, effort, and the product you deliver."
agreed
While speech central for mac is payed, I don't regret buying it one bit. Its amazing both on mac and ios once you get the hang of things. Also, just my opinion here, but yes, you do get points from having the, pay once, and that's it model imo, at least on mac, and on ios its free so... yeah. But from my side, points for that for sure. Thanks for all your great work, keep it up!
Feedback
I appreciate everyone's kindness in this thread. I have also received two emails with similar content, thanks to those people too.
Regarding the new features, there is a new version of Speech Central in the works that is written from the scratch - not a single line of previous code is directly copied. It will be the biggest update that any text-to-speech app has ever had. Literally much more than any competitor update did receive in the last 5 years cumulative. I can't disclose much yet, but few aspects can be shared:
- Currently the app has more than 40 settings. The new app will have more than 100 settings.
- As said I can't disclose some big features at the moment, but I think that people here will be happy to hear that the Find feature is now accessible and also you will be able to use VoiceOver read all feature for the text control. Those were the requests of users regarding accessibility that were not implemented in the current version. One thing that I can disclose too is that it is planned to have much more advanced, comprehensive and reliable syncing (though this hasn't been worked on yet while previously mentioned things are already implemented).
- There is some possibility that the Mac app may be free with VoiceOver too. I do consider to publish a completely new Mac app as part of the family that currently includes iOS, watchOS and tvOS app. At which point it would be covered by the same license (which would be probably more expensive than just iOS app, but a bit less expensive than both apps) and it would be free for VoiceOver users too. However that is a distant possibility as it comes with range of issues, most notably that the new app starts from 0, so I have to give up of more than 500 global ratings on the App Store that I currently have. And at some point I would have to stop to update the old Mac app which wouldn't be fair to some Mac-only users.
- Finally I will need to set minimal versions for this update to iOS 16 and macOS 13 as it uses some quite new technologies from Apple. That specifically makes it troublesome to talk about exact publishing date. The code should be ready sometimes by September at earliest. But it is not certain that enough users will update to those OSes by then, especially for macOS.
- As part of this effort new Apple Watch app has been already published for testing (https://testflight.apple.com/join/7vK4ptgz) and it is working on that completely new code. While it certainly shows some potential, the real big surprises will be in iOS, iPadOS and macOS.
Speech Central doesn't really replace VDR
I only use Voice Dream Reader as an audiobook player, and as far as I can tell, Speech Central does not offer this capability at all. Therefore, it's not really a substitute or replacement for VDR.
RE: Speech Central doesn't really replace VDR
@Jeff, while I understand your position, let's look from this perspective - if VDR did cleaning of floors and Speech Central wouldn't do it, would you still say that Speech Central did something wrong?
There is not a single other text-to-speech app out of few thousand in existence that does that. It is entirely different category of software and there are few other apps from that different category that could do something similar (I think).
Again I fully understand that it doesn't replace VDR for you, but I am not sure why is that a question at all for a text-to-speech app. You can search for another app in that category if you need one (or you can stay with VDR if it is fine for you, as said I really don't mind even if people that use VDR for text-to-speech decide to continue to use it).
Also I do appreciate that you provided the feedback on why you can't use the app, I understand that it was meant to be in a positive way.
speech central
I have two versions of the app on my iPhone. I realized one was meant for schools. But I use them both. I couldn’t find one of those versions when I went back to the App Store so I’m assuming it’s gone. But I kept them both just because they worked well. I use them primarily for Bookshare.
https://apps.apple.com/app/id1127349155
https://apps.apple.com/app/id1290457452
Don’t blast voice dream reader
If you’re coming pairing voice dream, reader to speech Central, you shouldn’t last voice dream reader because they’re more expensive.
That’s not cool.
There hasn't been any blasting, its more
I wouldn't say blasting has occured, necessarily, its more out of concern, but definitely not blasting. Ferthermore, when comparing things, yes, price does in fact, play a big roll, its not just features, there's also the price of x and y to take into account. Just my take, but especially in the software industry, where the motto, the more expencive something is, the better it is, seems to be prevalent in 95percent of cases... when this isn't necessarily true, hell its usually not how things are if we're beeing honest, and when a lot of people abide by the above motto... comparing price becomes even more important. I can definitely point cases where I fell foul of the, the more expensive it is, the better it is and I found out the complete opposite was true. A piece of software costing hundreds of dollars was garbage, plane and simple, and a competitor was only 60 and the competetor was, is, I should say; amazing. For those curious, i'm talking about audio editing software, although I have experienced it with other pieces of software, I.e, composition software, amung others.
I'll put it to you like this, look at these two apps. Rs games on pc or mac, and the rs games app for ios. The rs games on pc and mac is completely free, where as in ios you have to pay for each game after the 7 day free trial expires... and the ios app, despite the fact it is payed... is just... bad. Compared to the pc and mac versions, the ios app leaves a lot to be desired, and yet, going off the above motto, the more expensive the better it is right? Going by that logic, one would assume that the rs games client on pc and mac would be well, worse than the ios app, because its free and the ios app is payed... when, in fact, the opposite is true. That's what I mean.
Speech Central: a new user
Well, this week's fun and larks has prompted me to download Speech Central for myself. One thing I really, really like (and I don't think VDR offers this) is the ability to turn TTS files into audio files. That's something I've wanted to do from time to time and it's useful to be able to do it now. As for the rest of the app, in all honesty I know very little about it at this stage so couldn't say what else I'll be using it for. I don't myself see it as a VoiceDream replacement but that doesn't bother me - plenty of room for both apps.
I have to say I think the treatment of the developer of this app has been quite unfair, not on this thread but on another one. it's not a sin to market one's own app, even if that app is free. Pointing out things that your app does better than a direct competitor is fair game, isn't it? Equally, profit isn't a sin either - I've no objection to the VoiceDream developers making money out of their efforts. I don't offer my legal services for free, save exceptionally, precisely because the law ain't my hobby.
Re: Don’t blast voice dream reader
@Dominic I highly prefer people to talk negatively on Speech Central than not to talk at all, so I appreciate that you have stated your opinion.
Speaking of that, as far as I understand your claim I am guilty that I have made a good app, made it free for blind people and spoke in public regarding that. Yes, I did mention Voice Dream Reader and quoted some facts, but I don’t see that it changes the point, and even if it does it is literally just one small detail in overall story that you can ignore if you don’t like it.
As a human bean of 40 something, I still don’t understand that. Could you provide more details of what exactly is wrong in that?
Also one implicit question - Voice Dream Reader has risen the price for blind people for around 100x. As you were talking on coolness I would like to hear your opinion on whether that is cool or not?
Thanks Labsii!
Hi Labsii!
Thanks so much for creating this app. Its clear that its a labour of love, and a great value-add to the life of many people.
I'm a long-time VDR user and greatly appreciate it, to the point that I'd be happy to pay a reasonable sum of money to use it.
On the other hand, I've only recently become aware of Speech Central and am working out how best to integrate it into my life. My impression is that its going to be great for catching up on items that update on a feed, which I'm really excited about. I've also enabled it to use Microsoft neural voices, which I think is absolutely wonderful, especially as I understand that this could then be used to create recordings of text to audio conversions, so that one doesn't need to pay for the neural voice usage twice.
I just wanted to write this down as encouragement, from a long-time VDR user, who certainly sees the value in your wonderful work and is keen to explore more.
Thanks to everyone
I have promised to say thanks to everyone who just downloads the app, irrelevant of his opinion on it and whether and how much he is going to use it.
As such I am very happy with both Bingo Little and Laurent Cadet de Fontenay comments even that they clearly stated that they are also Voice Dream Reader users and will continue to be, but they also had some nice words for my app.
They both found one good point and that is that Speech Central can do some things that Voice Dream Reader can't and there is no reason not to use them both.
Regarding the complete replacement of Voice Dream Reader with Speech Central I would like to point to few things. People that have used Voice Dream Reader for years cannot have the same level of proficiency in Speech Central for few minutes. They didn't have that level of proficiency in Voice Dream Reader for that time interval either. On top of that Speech Central might have a slightly higher learning curve for blind people as they might need to customise audio buttons which is not something that is extremely hard but the alternative might be easier to discover in Voice Dream Reader. I might consider to have different defaults when VoiceOver is on, that should be helpful, but I also need some community input on that.
Overall I understand if some people don't have time to invest in this and there are no hard feelings regarding that. I would never blame any regular user for that. However for those people that take themselves as community leaders, that recommend products to many people (sometimes even to thousands), the case is quite different, and this is intended mostly to them. I do hope that one they they will feel a shame on how they acted to me.
Also I do praise Winston for everything that he did and no one can deny that he contributed greatly to accessibility and to the blind community. I don't think that even now with this price hike Voice Dream Reader should be delisted from web sites that talk about tools for blind people. But I do think that Speech Central deserves at least some place on at least some of them. And it doesn't. It would be nice if someone asked some of those people on why is that.
School version
@gregg the school version is available on the App Store at the moment, though it is correct that it was pulled for some time.
It was intended for the educational market mostly for elementary schools. It didn't have much of a success and it might have confused some people so that is why it was pulled recently.
But now that Voice Dream Reader is making moves that are very education-unfriendly I am bringing it back to the market to see if schools might be interested in it this season.
It has some specifics that are important for schools:
- it doesn't collect any data (not even anonymous data) and as such it is the only app of this type certified by Apple for use for kids. Voice Dream Reader never had this and this in particular should have been a red flag for elementary school usage but no one cared
- it is more limited on what it can do on the internet
- it is a paid app so that schools can easily deploy them on many devices (deploying in-app purchases or subscriptions on many devices is hard for schools and they avoid such products at the very start).
Mural voices.
How do you access mural voices? I’ve looked but can’t find them. The Microsoft mural voices in windows 11 narrator are incredible and they are only 12MB.
Re: Neural voices.
In the help there is an article on how to setup Microsoft Neural Voices: https://speechcentral.net/ios-help/#azure
I agree that it is not placed at the most prominent position, but if I provided a direct link inside the app Apple would say that he needs 15% cut on what Microsoft gets, so such thing couldn't pass the review...
On top of that I downplayed this at start intentionally - this can be optionally setup on Microsoft portal as a paid service and charged per consumption and as such there were always chances that something could go wrong and I could be blamed for that. But half year later I don't think anything went wrong (both for users that set it as a free and paid service) and it is a good thing to share.
There is no difference between their paid and free service aside that on the free service you are limited to half million characters a month (which should fit most of the books).
Ethical Questions of Speech Central Marketing
Labsii, I think a lot of the problem you're experiencing is because of inertia & complacency, & it's a biggie. I know if I have an app that I use & am reasonably happy with, I'm likely not going to try anything else, simply because I really don't have either the time or the desire. I feel like I spend half my life searching for accessible solutions as it is, &, when I find 1, I don't want to devote any more precious time to that particular problem. I've seen posts about Speech Central here in the past, but I really didn't see that it could help me very much, so I went on my way. All this stir has definitively made me more curious, so I'll likely download the IOS version & have a look.
I don't know what to do about ghosting. I feel I've been fighting that for years. I have a friend who's developed this great musical instrument you can play from a computer keyboard. It's brilliant. She's experienced similar treatment. I've seen wonderful musical instruments die for the same reason.
I think it's fair to compare (& contrast) Speech Central w/any other app that has or seems to have, similar functionality.
I do web development & web hosting for a number of internet radio stations. Please contact me on brightstarsweb.com w/your private info, & I'll check w/some of my folks to see if they're interested in interviewing you on 1 of their shows. I suspect they'll jump at the chance.
Meanwhile, I know how discouraging it is to put your heart & many hours of time you'll never get back into something & then all you hear is crickets. I wish I could say I didn't, but I do. All I can do is send love & positive thoughts & prayers your way, & contact my friends if you provide your contact info & give me permission to share it w/them.
Please accept my very warmest & sincerest wishes for your success.
ps. After I sent this, my husband was hospitalized. Thus, if you do contact me--& you're more than welcome to--please be advised that I may not be as responsive as either of us would like. Thank you for your understanding.
Re: @AbleTec
Thanks for all these analysis, I quite agree with everything that you said.
Even more important, I hope your husband is doing well and I wish him a quick rehabilitation.
You've made me think of some things that I would like to write, but no need to hurry to reply, actually even just your current message is already more than great.
As said your points are all very well made, but one of the reasons why I've decided to talk regarding this isn't because I felt lost, but rather because I see that times are changing and now is the time to tell this - when you get on the top you will mostly forget that it hurt and you will probably not be motivated to talk about that. But one should talk about that not just because of himself but because of everyone who was or will be in that position.
When I say that times are changing there is really nothing that can keep Voice Dream Reader where it is now. Not because I like it or hate it but for the plain facts that I'll explain.
This is one of the markets where everything starts from education market. Kids get tools at school and it is almost certain that they will continue to use it. While that is a totally different market, that is a top reason on how Mac got established in the US.
Voice Dream Reader has left the education market in full. Maybe they did it intentionally or maybe they are still not aware of that, but there is no turning back. You can't have a product with in-app purchases or subscriptions in school as you can't manage such things through Apple's portal for iPad management. And once they did it they can't revert this decision except to launch a new product.
But then we come to the second problem and that is the pricing. Schools pay for iPads with keyboards around 300$ with discounts that they get. I can't say what is the maximal amount that some school would pay for a text-to-speech app, but it is certainly below 100$ one time payment. And I don't see this company selling the software at that price.
As such new kids will grow that will never hear of Voice Dream Reader and slow the population will change.
I just wish Speech Central…
I just wish Speech Central made more use of the rotor on iOS and MacOS, and the Actions rotor on Android, for things like rewinding, changing speech rate, scrolling throughout a page, all that.
Also one thing I really like…
Also one thing I really like is how responsive the developer of speech central is. I don't know if you're on Mastodon yet, but on Twitter I asked about adding Bookshare support to SC on Android, and it was done! Even though they did you dirty.
Great app.
I downloaded speech central about half a year ago, and just got to test it after voice dream added subscriptions.
I have to say, the app works great even on the Apple Watch where most if not all other apps fail to impress.
I really hope you keep up the good work.
RE: I just wish Speech Central…
@Devin, I am not sure if I completely understood your request, but if you refer to swiping up and down to perform those functions when some controls do have focus the app already does it on iOS.
I have checked on Android and I think that it is impossible to do that. It was a long time ago since I was looking for that data so I don't remember all details clearly. But as far as I remember I have found statements by developers that tried to do that and found it to be impossible and I also couldn't find any documentation from Google that would present that accessibility use case (that is certain).
Regarding the Mac, there are keyboard shortcuts for all those actions. Other than that, the future version of the app is being built in SwiftUI, so most of the code will be shared among the platforms. Apple did amazing thing with this technology that you can share almost all code with literally no compromise. As such all those things implemented on iOS will be available on the Mac too (as long as macOS supports it/has equivalents).
An issue I have with the app
Hello,
When I am reading a bookshare book, there is a four to five second pause between chapters. It is enough to make me think that the app has stopped playing the book. It is a bit disconcerting. Other than this I do like the app.
adding ability to play audio files to Speech Central
Hi, could this please be added?
Re: @Dennis Long
I think I have already answered this above, but let's add some details.
Currently Speech Central is being developed as text-to-speech app. I am not going into other categories until I see that there is nothing meaningful and important to add to the text-to-speech experience.
As such one day the app might consider to be something wider like "audio experience app". But that day is not today.
For example I had an email from one user yesterday. He said that he has asked that there can be mode when text is read but not saved. Few years ago I have denied that as there were too many more important things to do. But I think I will add this in the next big version now.
But for now you've got to accept - I want to make the best text-to-speech app. Not the app that does other things well while being also text-to-speech app.
my reason for adding audio files
It would put you on par with Voicedream and would probably get more users.
RE: my reason for adding audio files
I do agree with your statement, but implementing anything will bring more users...
There are clearly some people that need and use this, but then if that audience was big every text-to-speech app would have something like that. And aside from VDR no text-to-speech app currently has such a feature and there are thousands of them if you count small apps too.
Just for the record I made a Bookshare integration because I was asked here to do so. At the end there were months with no book downloads. I can't develop software for individual users that use the function rarely.
Obviously there is nothing wrong in asking, you cannot know of general statistics of something and whether there are millions or just few people that follow that pattern. Frequently requests turn into a great feature.
Bookshare
To make it clear regarding the Bookshare as it is sensitive topic here, I'll try to contact them and see what they think regarding the current situation. If they are to represent Speech Central equally with other apps that they regularly promote to users then I'll certainly put much more effort into this.
I'll also check if schools get interested into this for the next year in light of current events.
But if things go as they did I can't say what is the future of Bookshare integration. If the usage is kept at least on this month level, I'll put the effort to keep it. But as before that it was literally just dozen books a year - I guess that if it ends like that those users that still use it will have to download books from their website. I cannot rewrite this in some short time and if no one uses it it is better to put time into features that people actually use.
apple watch app question
Hi Labsii, as far as the apple watch app, I understand now its in beta, kind of, do to technology ishues or something, when I download the watch app, not via test flight, it says something along the lines of, do to some Technology ishues with watch os or something, that users have to download the app via test flight. Will this always be the case, or will we be able to download normally at some point without using test flight? I don't mind downloading it via test flight, but was just wondering.
bookshare is ok,
but what's not to like about zlibrary?
Watch App
I have previously mentioned that the completely new app is in the work. As part of that effort you can use the Watch app from that product through TestFlight. That wasn’t the plan but it was the only way to provide the Watch app at the moment.
In the few months there will be just one app with TestFlight for the new version of it aside from the current Watch app you will be able to test the new iOS app and the new Mac app. And then at some point that TestFlight will be released into the main app and there won’t be TestFlight at least for some time.
HI, There are people like me…
HI,
There are people like me for example who haven't tried Speech Central just because they bought Voicedream years ago.
So in a nutshell, I didn't feel the need for it.
However, sticking to one app is generally wrong.
You have my word that I will try it and if I like it, I will make a podcast about it on one of the most popular sites in Italy that talk about technology for the blind.
I'm going to download it!
@Simone
Thanks Simone. I had one great blind user from Italy. He certainly recommended the app to few people he knew. Overall Italy was a great place for Speech Central - could be because I am fairly near, in Serbia.
Other than that I also appreciate your answer in another thread. I wanted to talk about that before too.
I gave up as empathy is at historical low in todays society and most people will end up thinking "I am not affected it is fine for me, let others think for themselves". That's not a pattern just in this community but in todays society overall. No one should be blamed for acting by community standard - he can be educated for the better, but certainly can't be blamed.
Maybe few decades ago that wouldn't be surprising to anyone, but today your line "I am not affected but I need to think of other people" is standing out, it probably brings you to top 1%, and you should be proud of that.
Speech Central App
After reading this thread I started exploring Speech Central on IOS and Mac OS. I am a long time Voice Dream user and I love the app, especially when combined with Voice Dream Scanner. I purchased the apps some time ago, but I would be willing to pay a small subscription fee if I hadn't purchased the apps.
Having said this, I find Speech Central works great for reading items such as restaurant menus when they are posted as jpegs on restaurant websites. With VDR, I have to add the images to my photos and import them into VDR from photos. With Speech Central, I can import them directly into the app from my downloads folder, or via the share sheet. It did a great job in recognizing the text in the image. I may find other uses as I play around with Speech Central. It's great to add another tool to my toolbox.
However, the Speech Central Mac app is not playing nice with my Mac. When I start it, it locks up my machine, and I have to force quit it. Not sure what is going on here.
Thanks for engaging with our community.
Mac trial
I haven't heard thus far that the app wouldn't run on the Mac, but if someone wants to avoid that potential case the app is also available through Setapp where you have the free trial. It is legitimate if you use Setapp only for free trial and then end up buying the app on the Mac App Store.
just downloadeg the app
I recently gave Speech Central a try, and honestly, I never paid much attention to it until now. It's somewhat similar to Voice Dream, although I understand it doesn't play DAISY or audiobooks (note to my dear Oliver, you might think it's basic because you don't use most of its features). Despite that, there are some glaring issues.
After testing it for just ten minutes, I noticed that the Spanish localization could definitely use some improvement, as there are oddly translated phrases. For example, it sometimes verbalizes the end of sentence punctuation. There are fewer voices (yes, Voice Dream's voices are expensive, but optional), and you can't play a book directly without opening it first. Perhaps the most annoying issue is the "magic touch" gesture – a double tap with two fingers – which frequently stops working when you navigate to the app's settings or move around the interface. As a result, you have to return to the book to resume reading.
With all these issues in mind, and considering the way the app is promoted – which I find quite dubious due to its insistence and slightly paranoid tone (I believe the global conspiracy in favor of Voice Dream exists only in your head) – I must say the app isn't bad, but it still feels like a cheaper version of Voice Dream. It's great that it exists, and I might even become a user myself, but I totally understand why some people would prefer Voice Dream and why it has received more promotion. For starters, it came out first and does things well.
feature: audiobook reader
Hello,
I downloaded the app just 1 hour ago, so for now I don't want to express opinions...
Just a little question for the developer, Labsii.
Do you think it will be possible to have audiobook reader feature?
For example, a zip file containing lots of mp3?
I am not a developer, but all in all it shouldn't be that difficult to have a player that plays files chronologically.
For what I see for now, it is the biggest feature that is not
available.
Thank you anyway for your efforts.
RE: audiobook reader
I have answered regarding that above in more details and the thread is long, so I'll answer again but a bit shorter.
There are no plans for audiobooks. That might happen in some distant future. But in general those are different categories and everyone who wants audiobooks can find the app does that as there are likely hundreds or even thousands of apps that do one of those things, but just one that does both.
It is like asking why the TV set doesn't come with the game-console built-in. It isn't completely unrelated and makes some sense, but it isn't tightly related either and mostly those solutions are provided by different vendors.
@Alan
I do appreciate your time.
I am not sure exactly how I could made up in my mind that I have received dozen of insults from blind people on Twitter while mentioning Voice Dream Reader, while I haven't received a single insult from Speechify or NaturalReader even if number of those contacts was significantly higher. If you put my mental capabilities that much in question, I'll decline to comment. But if you put this into question you either think that I am a liar or someone who has a very deep psychological problems.
Anyway I do agree that Voice Dream Reader offers voices that were last updated around 10 years ago and were amazing technology at that time. Speech Central has Microsoft neural voices that makes those voices sound like 10 year old technology, as they are. I understand that this omission was not intentional and I still appreciate that you have shared your experience.
Speech Central was never intended to be a cheap copy of Voice Dream Reader and as such you can't expect copies of VDR interface or its features. Speech Central is certainly a very bad copy of Voice Dream Reader as it isn't a copy at all. But it doesn't mean it can't be a great text-to-speech app in its own, and in most use cases at least as good app.
My thoughts on speech Central
after reading through everybody else's thoughts, I thought I mentioned a couple of things here in regards to my own personal use of voice stream reader. over the last three or four years, voice stream reader has been heavily marketed towards sighted users as well. when I was in college with my sighted roommate and partner, she said that she was also marketed to in such a manner and as a result, has downloaded and bought voice stream reader as well as all the premium voices for it. She really appreciates Voicestream Reader for its ease of use And simple layout but she especially loves it for its feature where text is highlighted as you read using one of the text to speech voices. As somebody who often had trouble in college with respect to staying focused in completing readings, she had found that reading textbooks and course readings through voice dream reader has really helped her to stay focused as having the voice output in addition to the text highlighting was extremely helpful in ensuring that she understands and Comprehends what she is reading. Does speech central offer this feature to those who are cited? meaning, will text highlight automatically as one reads using text to speech voices?
With respect to any other tactics happening, I'm afraid this is a common thing that us small businesses have to deal with on the regular. If you think this is bad you, you have seen nothing in comparison to what myself and others who are self contractors have to put up with when we deal with competitors who are much bigger and with much more resources. unfortunately this is just how it is in either choose to move on and stick to your mandate or you could give in and try to stir the pot to expose some of the bullying that's happening. However, I must caution you that this may not work out in your favor So take this with a grain of salt.
Lastly and this is my opinion specifically, I am strongly against implementing audio audio audio book reading in this app. We we already have well established apps such as dolphins easy reader who can do this extremely well. why even bother trying to add this capability to an app where you're mandate is specifically text to speech. if your intent is to compete with the likes of voice dream reader, I suppose that is one thing But doing so may actually hurt your product as opposed to increasing its value. one of the best ways to become successful is to stick with your initial mandate and keep at it. this is how you build a committed and loyal support based moving forward. Once you are much more established, then you can look at implementing audio book reading. But trying to add it now just because voice dream leader has it to me makes no sense. I hope these thoughts were helpful to you in some way and thank you so much for what you are doing. Based on the feedback here, it looks like there is plenty of support for this app and development moving forward So good luck.
@Michael
I appreciate your writing and support and I do agree with lot of writing above.
You have properly mentioned that apps like this are not for blind people only.
As such your arguments of underdog are clearly valid and they do play a part in this, but they should be the same for every market. But I have done reasonably well on other markets in many of the aspects mentioned above, while I have made the app free for the blind people and met with the backlash instead of better receipt than on other markets.
old voices and all that jazz
"Just to clarify, what I mean now is that when people ignore you, it's not necessarily because they hate you, but because they simply lack interest in your product. As you mentioned earlier, you have experienced ghosting before, and I believe it's more about disinterest than hate.
I understand that the voices on Voice Dream may be old, but let's be honest, a big percentage of your users will still use older, even lower quality voices like Eloquence. So, it's more about quantity than quality, even if all your users decide to switch to Azure's voices.
The point is, if you don't like being seen as a 'cheap copy', why do you keep posting on Voice Dream topics saying 'hey, it's my app, just like Voice Dream, but cheaper!' It's a bit counterintuitive. Of course, you don't deserve all the hate you're getting.
If you want more people to use your software, regardless of whether it's a copy or not, you need to solve those small problems like Magic Touch not functioning properly. And if you want help with localization to Spanish, I can provide it.
For ten years you tried a strategy, being... expeditive? Yep, like Apple against Microsoft. It worked for Apple, somewhat. Perhaps after ten years it is"time to change your strategx, obviously it doesn't work for you.
Lawyered
What you said with your third sentence contradicted your first. do you think that he is getting ghosted or hated? don’t argue for the sake of argument and do not discredited the guy for no reason.
Keep going dear Labsii you’re doing everything right!
@Alan
I did have some new inputs for some specific points that should be improved that aren't used widely by every VoiceOver users.
That is certainly welcome and I'll take a look at that. I can't say exactly how many people with VoiceOver had Speech Central installed before, but I assume that it is around 2,000 with some of them not being active users (but I would guess that half would be active). The fact that no one among them has complained for years and some of them were frequent users and pointed to some other problems means that for most people this isn't issue that breaks their usage pattern.
On the other hand I do certainly consider that as a valid input and certainly it is something to be worked on. Based just on the description I would assume that this will work without the problem in the SwiftUI version of the app that should be launched by the end of the year.
I did order translations from the same source, it was from agency that contracts professional translators. Multiple mine close friends that speak some of those languages natively said that the translations that they have checked were excellent. As a fun fact before being accepted Spanish translation was checked by one blind user in Mexico and he confirmed it to be very good. But if you think that there are some things that can be improved I can send you those to check.
Karl Jung said that you can't help the people that don't want to be helped. So I don't think that any particular strategy would have worked. The only thing that has changed is that community is now open to receive the help.
Also I really try to read your comments from the bright side, but it is puzzling on how you think that users that were buying a couple of VDR voices at best had access to more voices than few dozen per language that you get from Microsoft by simple sign in?
Magic tap
I found the issue and I understand why no one reported it yet.
You will get the issue only if you don’t want to adjust settings with VoiceOver gestures but rather you enter the setting and only while you are in the middle of changing the setting that way.
As the next major version won’t have the same interface for changing settings there won’t be such a problem.
But even now you won’t have a problem if you use VoiceOver gestures to change the settings (which is easier and preferable way for VoiceOver users). And while I do agree that every bug should be fixed, I really can’t see some big use case of someone needing to pause the anudio exactly while he is in the middle of changing the setting.
audiobook
HI,
I fully understand the question and thank you all for the replies.
Unfortunately, it's always the same story: I used Voicedream to read audiobooks. To tell the truth, I had even tried it with Vlc, but Voicedream was more comfortable for me. After that, I'm a chicken. Yes, I completely forgot about dolphins easy reader.
I absolutely have to try it again, see what happens? When you find an app that basically does almost everything, then you lose touch with the apps that maybe specialize in just one area.
Anyway, back to us, I'm starting to familiarize myself with Speech Central, it has a lot of potential. I have a very annoying bug in reading but this is not the place, I reported it to the author through the site.
Some Of My Thoughts
I downloaded Speech Central some years ago while it was fully commercial. i tried to use it a few times but the whole interface at the time was totally confusing to me so I continued to use Voice Dream Reader. I colaborated with Winston on Croatian localization and since 2012. VDR was my only app since it supports text, audio and daisy format.
For the last two and a half years I was on Android platform and few months ago I got myself an iPhone again. When I started to use Voice Dream it wasn't so smooth to use as it was before so I started to explore other solutions. I tried Dolphin's Easy Reader and Speech Central. Both apps are usable and I can read with them although some learning curve is needed.
But to stay on the topic, I welcome Speech Central is now free for the Voice Over users, that's a nice gesture. I don't know what are your thoughts on localization. Some years ago I got the info from one person you refused to make localizations for regional languages but I'd like to hear your position on it.
Regarding audio books i read what you wrote before and understand your point but perhaps you could think about it. i personally and the most of other users hate to gather multiple apps for similar usage and surely we'll be happier with one quality all-in-one app. From the blind user view, Voice Dream Reader is the only usable app for audio books. I tried some other but they are either half accessible or totally ilogical so I'll surelly welcome another app with audio books capability.
RE: Some of my thoughts
Hi Octocorn,
thanks for your comments.
Regarding the audiobooks, I can confirm that something like that is ruled out this year and most likely next year, but it isn't ruled out forever just at this point I can't say that it will be implemented and when that may happen.
Regarding the localisations, the app currently has UI translated in 13 languages on iOS (14 on Android). That's not a small number and while VDR has more of them (26 as I count at the moment) there are some languages that SC supports and it doesn't.
Currently there are two more localisations planned for this year. As such I would say that your general information regarding localisations wasn't correct.
However I do rule out user translations, I did one translation to my language myself and I can say it was a very complex task for me even as I provided all terms myself and the other language is my native language. So I have a high doubt in allowing a random user to translate it - it can get very well but it can also get very bad. All those 12 translations of SC were done by professionals and then authorised by some users (as clearly I can't check the quality myself in most cases).
That is the first point, it costs around 100$ per language and as such I must also check how much I earn from that language and whether it makes even remote sense to invest that much.
The second point is similar. Adding new features is more complex when you have more languages. You might need to spend an additional hour or two just two collect all translations and place them where they should be and something may go wrong in that process which then may add additional time. So there must be some usage to say that it is OK.
Finally, there is one more rule and that is that I don't want to localise for the language that doesn't have text-to-speech support in the app. Croatian was ruled out based on that till the last year, but now it isn't ruled out.