First eSpeak-NG Beta for iOS Now Available!

where do i select the voice to be used with voice over`?

So this will be a app that you can download on the appstore and then you can use the voice after installing or, how will it work once its released? I mean if its an app, the dev will have to pay $99 a year to keep it on the appstore. What I mean by this is, if its on the appstore, how will the devs keep maintaining it given the $99 yearly developer fee? I'm just thinking longevity wise, after everyone downloaded the app, how, what will be done to make it still be on the appstore and not get pulled do to insufficient funds to keep paying for the anual dev fee?

I am testing it on my iPad and As of right now, I do not see a way to incorporate it into voiceover, but you can type in text and let it speak it. I do not see a setting anywhere in the speech or voice settings that mentions ESpeak. So I think right now, will just have to type out text and let it speak it, and maybe they will incorporated into voiceover as more betas are released. After all, this is a very first beta.

Well, they could go the Distopia Reddit Route and only have it available via Test Flight...

*Update*

I removed my question referring to how many folks use ESpeak, as that may grimed some gears around here.

Even the first beta states it can intigrate with voiceover, so causing issues but so glad we can help shape this.

Yeah, Espeak appeared in VO for me as well. I am so happy that things that I was dreaming so much about become true! However, I noticed some bugs I am going to report: 1. Dictionaries aren't included for Russian language. 2. For some reason 2 variants of voices are displayed in Russian language and 3. I cannot find none variant in voice settings. Otherwise it's wonderful that we start to have that!

I've no experience of eSpeak, so don't know how interested or excited to be at this news.

Accordingly, I would love to hear what eSpeak might bring to the table (apart from choice, which is a given and always welcome).

Also, having had a quick look at the app, the number of locales and voice options was quite dizzying. Would somebody please offer some recommendation of a good voice that will be a good starting point and give an indication of how good the eSpeak voices can be?

Thanks ☺️

@Squirrel, Courtesy of Apple's infamously faulty implementation of VoiceOver languages and despite reporting it to Apple several times along with many other users, VoiceOver can't properly switch between languages or, oftentimes, it selects the wrong language. This doesn't happen with ESpeakNG at all. For instance, EspeakNG can switch between Persian and English without ever mistakenly switching to Arabic or never switching at all. With VoiceOver's Persian Dariush voice, language-switching doesn't work under most circumstances, or even if it does, it auto-switches to Arabic not Persian. Moreover, it is my assumption that EspeakNG offers more languages compared with VoiceOver, so for those whose language isn't supported, EspeakNG might be an unexpectedly welcome solution. Of course, I'm not a huge fan of how it sounds - it's definitely more mechanical than, say, Eloquence, but it does the job quite effectively.

I've never been a fan of eSpeak, but I still think this is awesome! The more choices we have, the better. I may try it just for something to do.

It works with VO, however I (or someone else) have some bugs to report as expected.
1. Pauses between chunks of text with VO is painful.
2. The Klatt-based voices like Adam and all the klatt variants just give the recorded consonants but nothing voiced.
3. Multi lang support. That'll probably be annoying, what with Apple not properly implementing language switching in VO. Both on ios and MacOS.

Well done for a first beta though.

Do to how the Mac is vs IOS after all, EsPeak voices (with this current beta) do not show up on MacOS 13.

Yes, the App itself does let you type in text and lets ya play it back of course. No issues there.

I'm on a Mac Mini 2020.

NB. I have not considered reporting it as a bug, as I myself have no idea how this TTS framwork for Mac Voices work. So, I'm leaving it to the more gifted geeks around here.

Hi,
Wow! I'm impressed.
Yes, there are bugs, such as a click when navigating my home screen, but this will not detur me from using the voice.
I'd like to see it come to the Apple watch.
Is that possible?

I much prefer the sound of eloquence. Now if anyone can tell me how to get it sounding more like Eloquence that would be wonderful

Hello! Has anyone succeeded to set eSpeak NG as a voice in voice over? For me, even after updating to the newest version, it doesn't show up in voiceover settings. Any hints?

hi reported, but the voice engine not showing up for me in the latest version of the app, but looking forward using this.

I found a bug that is really serious for multilingual users. I've reported it here. The problem is that if you set eSpeak as a voice in your rotor language setting and then try to type something, letters will be pronounced as gibberish. Steps to reproduce are described in the issue I provided above, so if someone encounters that please tell! I definitely encountered the same behavior with other synthesizers, but the problem is that this issue is really complicated and tricky to reproduce. So I don't know how to report it to Apple's accessibility.

Hello,
after updating to the latest release, I also didn't see it with VoiceOver at first, but then I closed the app in the app switcher and re-opened it and it started working again.

Also note that because this is a beta, whenever you update, the voice will for sure be gone from VO, but you must open the app, read the changelog and press the start testing button, after which it should work again.

That bug is definitely a priority though, but there are a few others. Someone mentioned a click when navigating, this happens on higher speech rates, in particular 80 and above. It seems like when VO finishes reading something, it tries to briefly start reading the last thing it just spoke again and then stops, thus a click like this is heard.

After several restart attempts, I am still clueless. I'm afraid I'm not even looking for the voice in the right place. My phone is in english as default, and I'm having hungarian added in the rotor languages. I can't see eSpeak neither between the english voices, nor when I select hungarian to change settings.

I'd say about half the voice cvariants don't work.
Gonna report it if it's not reported yet.
That being said, this is really impressive for a new beta.

[edit] The problem is now fixed in beta 04, apparently Klatt support was needed.

Hello,
when things are working correctly, you are indeed looking at the right place.
When going to VoiceOver settings/speech/rotor languages heading, choosing one in the list will give you a list of voices. There, you should see an ESpeak NG option, choosing that will give you a list of variants to choose from.

I don't know if it has been mentioned, but you must have iOS 16 to use 3rd party voices. If you are indeed upgraded to 16, you are probably encountering a different bug.

When restarting the device, before you launch the eSpeak app, VoiceOver will not see the voices. To fix, launch the eSpeak app.
This may be an iOS bug not an eSpeak one.

this is awesome!! I'm using max, and so far, it's sounding good with VoiceOver. now, will the app be free on the appstore once beta testing concludes?

Hi all, guys. I am developer of iOS version. As said in about screen of app, it will always be free and open-source. Thanks for testing and reviews. We all make open source world better.

Hello,

In VoiceOver, can we use a different variations of English, such as Scottish northern and West Midlands?

Thanks for letting us know. I have already sent beta feedback. Is it also available for MacOS to be used with VoiceOver? it would be cool if I could also use this on MacOS with VoiceOver. it would also be cool if I could also use with other accessibility features such as spoken content, and time announcement. eSpeak is much simpler to understand.

I hope you can adjust the inflection like you can with NVDA.

Oh and if it has the Robert variant count me in.

@kool_turk Robert is included.

The ability to access multilingual content on the fly with ESpeak is second to none.

@Will I’m not responsible for languages, I have just exposed all that espeak-ng supports and implements. You may request it on project github.

@JC yes, Mac version is coming, I wait to Xcode 14.1 release (it is still RC2). Track it on iOS project github issues.

Hi. This is really neat. I would really like to add the Afrikaans voice to my rotor, but whenever I try to do this, it never seems to appear under language on the rotor at self. Either that or the voice just doesn’t work. Thanks.

Hi,
I’ve had the same issue when trying to add the Irish language here. When I choose to add new language to the rotor, I can select Irish from the list. However, it doesn’t appear to actually get added.
Not sure if this is a bug with iOS itself, or with eSpeak.
Dave.

will it have more new speech synthesizer will be here soon?

I wish you could adjust the inflection, like you can with NVDA, but I have a feeling that is more of a screen reader thing than a synthesizer thing.

Apart from that, It's not bad.

just try it.
hope it can support more languages.
even it already can choose other languages .

Hello everyone! Does anyone else have issues when trying to write using eSpeak? Before and after each single letter, it says something like backslash tn spell equals "insert letter here" backslash tn normal. I spellt out the punctuations for better understanding. It's really annoing and frustrating at the same time, mostly because a lot of people don't seem to have this problem.

Are you typing with bsi or using the regular keyboard? With bsi i'm not getting this ishu.

I tried both. But remember, I have this issue not only while typing, but while spelling as well.

It would be cool if I could use VoiceOver at a rate above 76% or so.
However when I go 77 or above, the eSpeak audio becomes choppy. You hear a small bit of the previous utterance when a new one interrupts it. Also some voices produce weird clicking sounds a second or so after the speech stops. This is hard to explain, but hope I am making sense.

Don't use eSpeak in the rotor as a non-default language. Apple has added a bug in the past few iOS versions that ads the extra nonsensical characters when typing for non-default voices. One solution is to not even bother with the voice rotor at all and just set the default VoiceOver voice when you wanna change speech.

I'd report the bug to Apple, but from experience they really don't check the accessibility email address. So, unless one of us has a beta account and/or special rapport with Apple, not sure about a good solution.

no need for a dev account, just go to http://bugreport.apple.com and upload yrou sys diagnose file and all of that stuff.

Hi,
I just attempted to install the new eSpeak beta onto my m2 MacBook Air, & cannot find the voices in my voiceover options.
Is this a bug or am I looking in the wrong spot?

I think this is strictly for iOs for now. the dev could correct me fo rnow.

I think they mentioned somewhere in github that a mac version would be coming out soon. Either that or I read it somewhere.

Yeah, I wrote about this bug earlier here and also I reportee about that in github issues. The issue is called wrong characters pronunciation. How did you report that to Apple Accessibility? Because personally I have no idea how to report it, if you could post your letter here that could be great, I can also post it in feedback app.

well, when I enter text.
it is not reading the Character...
hope it can be fixed soon

I think I've mentioned above that it doesn't do this only with rotor languages, but with default languages as well, no matters how I use the voice. If it was the case, vocalizer would have said these plus characters as well, but it does not.
Seva, I haven't reported it to apple accessibility, wrote about the situation only in the feedback app, as well as sent an email to Yury himself, who answered very quickly and explained that the bug is under investigation.

hi all, I like the uk northern and west midlands variants of e-speak has anyone gotten these variants to work with voiceover? I am from the west midlands so want those voices