Voice Dream Reader for Mac now available: how I think it compares to my app Speech Central

Voice Dream Reader is a really good app. It is also reasonable for people to want to pay for a good app.

In the capitalism you are also free to price the app anyway you want it. It is legal.

I am just saying that my app Speech Central delivers more at 100x lower price (on 15 years time scale). That means you get almost one MacBook Air for free just for picking another app without any sacrifice. It is also sustainable as it is nearly for 8 years on the market. My app is free for the iOS when used with VoiceOver so you can check whether my claims are correct or not. I believe it is worth for anyone to try both and make the best choice for himself. I am quite sure that some people will pick Voice Dream Reader. That's why competition is great, there is the space for everyone and users get more in either case.

As there is official explanation you can read it here: https://www.voicedream.com/macos-reader-subscription/#more-3862

In short Voice Dream will be subscription based for all new products. It is not clear what is happening with the iOS version. Technically you cannot convert the paid app to the subscription based app unless you ask everyone to pay again and that won't happen. However it is not clear that there won't be the new iOS subscription app launched instead. We'll see, he is probably testing the waters with this and doesn't want to disclose that at this point.

I am not sure exactly where did I criticize the decisions? I have just quoted the facts and their official documents and presented my policies for the same things.

This is a usual practice in many industries, for example business-to-business sale is frequently performed this way - you approach the clients of another company and try to win them by presenting a better offer. There is really nothing unethical in that. It is less frequent in consumer industry, but even there TelCos, banks and insurance do that in some cases.

It is really hard to comment subscriptions in general way like Quin did. For example YouTube subscription is technically necessary as they need to pay fees to content owners and server costs. It is similar for Dropbox. It is technically impossible to sell it any other way.

It is much less frequent to sell software without some services as subscription. But even then it is not the same if you convert your pricing so that you receive your previous price in few months or in few years.

This is advice for voices on Android (as emmasey mentioned that), though you can apply it to the Mac and Windows too and hopefully in the near future you will be able to apply it on iOS.

If you buy voices buy them on Google Play, not in the app. Buying the voices in Google Play means that you can use them with any application including that you can use them as Talkback (Android term for VoiceOver) voice. Further more you are not limited to what app offers but to what Google Play offers. While it comes down to personal preference and habits I think that CereProc voices are better than Acapela and it seems that lot of people are in line with this as they have much higher ratings on Google Play.

As said both Mac and Windows have this capability too, just at the moment such voice apps cannot be provided through the Mac App Store as they need more access to the Mac than what the sandbox offers. But you can purchase them directly from vendors on their web sites (e.g. CereProc is available on all platforms).

Unfortunately iOS doesn't have this capability at the moment. It was reported that Apple has started to work on that at the iOS 14 time frame. Hopefully there are good chances that such improvement may be released this year. If you consider this as important (and it is really the only major thing where iOS lacks in accessibility comparing to Android) you may want to send feedback to Apple: https://feedbackassistant.apple.com/

Also it is very likely from the technical point of view that once Apple releases this for iOS it will soon be able to provide vendor voices on Mac through its App Store.

If you want to provide negative comments on Speech Central, I would appreciate that you use it at least for 15 minutes before doing that. It is completely free on iOS when used with VoiceOver as said above.

Further I am aware of the reality that Voice Dream is a stronger brand and that some people might not want even to try Speech Central. I am not happy for that but that is the reality of the consumerism and modern time. People don't have too much time and that they tend to rely on trusted brands and there is no one to particularly blame for that.

But there is no reason to make false statements without trying Speech Central just because you love Voice Dream brand. That is really not fair.

If you have installed Speech Central on iOS you would find that it is better in that particular field that you wanted to mention as the reason to use Voice Dream. So Speech Central has all those options but they are overall more accessible and there are even more of them (like that you can activate spelling of the current sentence). If you have the keyboard on iPad you can use keyboard shortcuts to access them even on iOS. You can use audio buttons on stock EarPods or AirPods to activate them. And that can be customized. Clearly on the macOS there are keyboard shortcuts for those ever since.

I can try to find one particular thread on this site where user has asked for alternative to Voice Dream Reader and after I have suggested Speech Central he has bought it (it was paid on iOS for everyone then) and in the further discussion he explained to other users why it prefers it for some use cases over Voice Dream. Among the things that he has mentioned there was that Speech Central is better designed. I am not sure if that will be the impression of every user out there as this is somewhat subjective, but this user has tried both apps and he came to that conclusion.

I apologize too - while the fact that you provided isn't correct it is quite different if you have tried. Then really there is not a word that I can put as a complaint except to correct what was wrong.

This function is available and it is provided in multiple parts of the app.

1. iPad keyboard shortcuts list is available with the standard system shortcut to display those shortcuts in every app but clearly it requires iPad keyboard so it might be interesting to everyone
2. In the Navigation Panel (called from the reader screen) those commands are listed under 'Seek'. If you are VoiceOver user you might just want to use this panel if you expect to frequently seek in the text.
3. If you long press 'Next' and 'Previous' buttons in the player you will activate the context menu with those commands
4. In the Settings under 'Button Functions' you can set those commands to audio buttons. As such you may customize the default function of Previous and Next button displayed on the screen (on the iPad or in the landscape on some iPhones there are also Seek back 30 sec and Seek forward 60 sec buttons that can be customized this way) and that way also customize what you do by calling those functions from EarPods/AirPods. Also those commands can be assigned to the Volume buttons on the device/EarPods by performing the gesture quick volume up/down or down/up.

Finally on the Mac this is listed under Playback menu and there are keyboard shortcut listed there too.

I truly appreciate your feedback. I was not aware of that functionality to swipe up down on some icons. I understand that it is useful and as such it might be essential for some users. Thanks for letting me know about something like that as I haven't seen reference to that functionality in Apple's VoiceOver documentation for developers. I am very interested to implement similar functionality in the future.

I also understand that some things are highly individual but I would like to provide some further clarification regarding them.

- In that particular use case when you want to switch from your usual unit of navigation to the bookmark (which is quite realistic use case), I don't think that Voice Dream is particularly more efficient. There you need to go to the navigation unit menu, pick the bookmark unit, go back to the play button do the swipes and then go again to the navigation unit menu to pick your standard navigation unit. If you want just to go to the next bookmark in Speech Central it is as simple to going to the Next button, opening the context menu and picking Next bookmark. If this would require multiple back and forth navigation then you can open the Navigation Panel/Seek (that subpanel will be opened automatically if you were there before so it doesn't require additional actions) and from there you can do that fairly efficiently. The fact that you don't have to set back to your original unit saves quite a lot of swipes. Voice Dream may save with that swipe gesture, but again it is highly unlikely to be much more efficient in any use case and in some use cases it may be even notably less efficient. Finally you can assign this to volume gestures so that quick volume up down and quick volume down up performs next and previous bookmark. In that case Speech Central is extremely more efficient and clearly it is also extremely more efficient if you attach iPad keyboard.

- I have studied quite a lot user behavior and statistics and I am confident that this is the best solution for most users, though it doesn't necessarily needs to be the best solution for everyone. Having two customizable speeds that you can quickly switch allows you to go very quickly between those two speeds if we talk about efficiency. Also Speech Central does have speed up and speed down function for those who need it. They can be called from the speed context menu so you don't have to go through settings for that. If you need something more efficient than that again this can be assigned to volume gestures too and iPad keyboard shortcuts are available out of the box.

Speaking of the Mac version I can confirm that there are keyboard shortcuts for all those functions. One thing to note is that in the current version if you want to use them and especially if you use the VoiceOver it is better to keep the sidebar closed (which displays chapters, titles, annotations, recent positions) when you are not using it. The problem is that supporting all Big Sur functions required splitting code in several parts and at the moment commands only work when the reading part has the focus.

In the help menu there is a short tutorial that points to this web page: https://speechcentral.net/speech-central-macos-help/

It doesn't particularly refers to VoiceOver users. I believe that for the VoiceOver users most convenient method to open the item should be to select it and then use the attached keyboard shortcut from the Playback/Play menu.

Some users that already use VoiceOver with Speech Central may correct me as I am not everyday VoiceOver user I just do some testings as a developer.

There is a new version of the iOS app published few moments ago.

Per great user suggestion above The app now has VoiceOver gestures on play and speed buttons. That means:

If you swipe up or down when the play button has the focus the app performs forward and rewind functions. By default that is skip forward 60 seconds and go back 30 seconds, but it can be customized to move across sentences or paragraphs and some other units in the Settings.

If you swipe up/down over the speed button you will increase/decrease the speed.

I’ll be happy very to hear for some more great tips like this!

Voice Dream syncing is based on the iCloud files storage, there is no technical limitation why it wouldn't work on the Mac version of the app.

I can confirm that you can sync reading position on Speech Central between Mac and iOS (it uses iCloud too, but the method is CloudKit which is more advanced).

Adam, I am very happy that you have continued with your feedback, it is very useful.

1. On the iOS you can hold the command key until the list of keyboard shortcuts appear. I think that Apple has implemented that only for iPadOS, though I have never tried what happens if you do that on the iPhone. Clearly those shortcuts will work on the iPhone too, but at the moment I don't have any other list than the one that Apple provides automatically.

On the macOS all keyboard shortcuts are listed in the menus.

3. While I don't think that there is definitive answer on that, all my thinking points out that the current implementation is correct.

When I say that there is no definitive answer I refer to the fact that the scrolling with mouse wheel is performed differently on the Mac and PC. And I am quite sure that all Mac users will say that Mac way is intuitive while all PC users will say that PC way is intuitive as they got used to it.

According to Apple's documentation it should be implemented this way. Swiping up is meant to provide the 'increase'. Increase is going forward not going back.

Further if you perform the scrolling without VoiceOver, you swipe up to move the content down, I think it really makes sense that VoiceOver gesture is the same.

Finally if we agree that the speed should be treated this way it is really more logical that the gesture for speeding up is the same as gesture for moving forward than if it was the same as moving backward.

4. I just refer to the fact that the selected tab in Navigation panel is remembered. If someone hasn't noted that he may be under impression that he needs to change the tab always which would make it harder.

5 and 6. I agree that those actions could be more optimized for VoiceOver. Unfortunately until iOS 15 Apple hasn't provided the control known as combobox (Windows) or popup-button (Mac) and this was usual way to provide such functionality through built-in capabilities of iOS. It was working like that even in Safari until iOS 15. I am not sure how it worked with VoiceOver as Apple could make some additional optimization, but visually it worked exactly like this. While this design in the app is likely to be subject to changes (one possible option would be to use those new iOS 15 controls but then it must wait for the moment when I am ready to drop the iOS 14 support) I can implement VoiceOver swipe up and down gestures on those controls in the next version. It will be out next week.

7. This is a bug. On the screen there is the proper text, in VoiceOver it should be "Quick volume down up". It will be fixed.

8. Quick volume up down (and down up) are gestures. It means that you press the volume up and you need to quickly press volume down after that to activate it. It is similar to double click - it is unlikely to interfere with your clicks.

9. Quick volume up down and volume down up can have different functions.

I have noted just before your question that VoiceOver doesn't respect the current request from the code to call this button 'Navigation Panel' so it may cause some confusion. I am not sure why it happens but there are lot of alternative ways to do the same so it will be fixed.

However further title on the next screen is correct, it is called Navigation Panel. Considering the Recent it tracks some your recent positions. For example if you have moved to some far part of the text you can quickly go back to your previous position from here.

Without VoiceOver most users create bookmarks by swiping the row left. Also on the iPad and on the most of iPhones in the landscape there is a bookmark button visible. I will consider to make those icons visible with VoiceOver in all cases.

Hi, I remember that question, I believe it was over email.

The text in Speech Central is organized as a table where each paragraph is a row. You are correct that in most of other apps the text is not organized in this way (I have seen it in few Windows apps) and that's why you see different behavior in other apps.

This is how VoiceOver reads the table. There is nothing that I can do regarding that aside from rewriting the app not to use the table which would hit many fundamental pieces of the app. But reading the table this wayt is incorrect. In some part I understand Apple's decision as out of box the app doesn't see the content of whole the table and they would need to perform some sort of scrolling in this action to get all the content. However if they are dedicated to the accessibility they can do this just it requires someone to spend some small time on that. Every table out there would benefit and it is not that tables are rare in the apps just they are not used for this particular purpose in other apps.

I have directed users to send them feedback, but I'll send them the feedback regarding this too. Though as always the more messages they receive the better.

I believe that it was answered regarding audio formats above.

I'll combine that answer with the answer for Bookshare. Bookshare support exists. It was added based on people's feedback. It felt like it was something big because many people have asked for it. After implementing it I can say that in last 3 months only 44 books were downloaded in the iOS version. And most of that is in the last few days for people that have tried the app because of this post, so they likely didn't have particular need to download the book but rather to test the feature. And also count in that there are people that downloaded two or more books so the number of users is even smaller. Also please note that I am not tracking any private data so I have no idea who those users are and what they read.

You'll never know until you implement so I am open to revise this in the future but everything points out that audio file support will be repeating this again. There are two problems that point out that this is likely exotic feature. First is that only one out of many text to speech apps has this feature. Second is that I have analytics of files formats shared into the app that could not be imported. That way I control if everything is well covered and get some new ideas. For the last three months no one tried to import an mp3 file and the only audio file was one ogg file.

I am not sure if my estimates regarding usage of this are correct, but I believe it is fair to be honest that I can't build a non-trivial feature that only few people would actually use.

Regarding the Dropbox or Google Drive built-in support, that is not a feature but rather a privacy and security loophole that should be avoided. I am saying that it is not a feature because both on iOS and macOS you can install their respective apps and access files on them through the system provided dialogs without any problem or through sharing files to other apps directly from these apps. This works and it is convenient and safe.

Giving your credentials to any other app is foolish. From the security point if any of those apps have at any point some unintended bug it may lead to data loss as it can delete files on your drive. Privacy problem is obvious as the app can spy on whole the content of your drive. And while I understand that people do trust the small developers, they shouldn't, even to the nicest of them. Even the nicest developer may decide to sell the app one day. Possibly because they are getting old and can't do the work anymore. And then it can happen that without any intention from this nice old developer a new developer finds that he can earn the most money by encrypting files on your Dropbox and asking for ransom.

So I'll never expose my users to such risks for no particular benefit. And I suggest users of other apps to avoid 'features' like this.

I have further reviewed the argument that the arrow down key on the keyboard should lead to forward and not to seek backward.

I must say that it was worth the consideration. But my final evaluation is that the things should be consistent and this is how Apple has decided to implement it everywhere, so it should be implemented here too. For example if there is a picker and you want to go down you press the arrow up as it is meant to increment position. I understand that this may be confusing to some, but the suggestion to opt-out of this and make one control to act differently would just add up to confusion. Consistency must be the first principle.

I have provided a detailed insight above regarding audio files support.

In the meantime I was thinking about possible solutions for those people that need this feature.

As far as I can tell by description the app Downcast already have all features that you need (I am not sure if they already support those zipped files but as they support podcasts with chapters and import of audio files that would be very trivial for them to add in the future if you send a request).

If someone tries that app it would be great to share experience whether it is as good for the audiobooks as I have predicted. Also as it is a paid app (3$ on iOS 5$ on Mac) you may want first to check with their support. I can't grant how they will answer but if you say that you will post about their app as the solution for this problem to this audience I would assume that they will give you a free license.

There is the section in the help in the apps that refers to the iCloud syncing, it is also available on this link: https://speechcentral.net/ios-help/#sync

Here is the copy of text from there:

To sync data across devices ensure that:

- You are logged in to those devices with the same Apple account.
- That the option ‘Sync across Apple devices’ is enabled on each device. There are two settings to enable syncing of Headlines and syncing of Books & Articles. On the iOS devices it is toggled by going to the Extras tab, then Settings. On the Mac it is available from the main menu on the top by going to Speech Central > Preferences

Please note that the sync is optimized for the energy consumption and real-life use cases. The item may not appear immediately on another device and if you keep both apps open you may need to perform the manual refresh (pull than on the iOS and use the menu File > Sync on the Mac).