App Detail » SPEAKS from Callionica

Published by: Callionica LLC

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad

Price: $9.99
Current Version: 3.0
Released: June 03, 2016

What's New

3.0: A huge release for SPEAKS: 1) "Feeds" (RSS/Atom) 2) "Upgrade to HTTPS" 3) "Reading View Customization" 4) "Languages" 5) "Enhancements"

1. "FEEDS"
SPEAKS can split a single RSS or Atom feed into multiple articles and display each article in your timeline
SPEAKS can load multiple feeds or articles from an OPML file (or from plain text)
SPEAKS can download related articles or full content for feeds
SPEAKS can display related articles in the timeline

2. "UPGRADE TO HTTPS"
Now SPEAKS prefers to use HTTPS instead of HTTP. If SPEAKS knows that a site supports HTTPS, it will use HTTPS for all links to that site (even if you give SPEAKS an HTTP URL). It's automatic and makes your web accesses just that bit more secure. If you want to use HTTPS for all sites, you can change the "Upgrade to HTTPS" setting to "Always". This will disable access to any sites that don't support HTTPS so we suggest you leave the setting at its default.

3. "READING VIEW CUSTOMIZATION"
SPEAKS adds a lot of customization options to the Settings app. In particular, you can control how text selection works in the reading view. You can use extended selection (tap once on the first word, tap again on the last word) or single-word selection (tap on the only word), and you can configure an action to be taken automatically when the selection is made (show the dictionary or show the share sheet). If you're learning a foreign language or simply use the dictionary a lot, set "Text selection" to "Single word" and "Text selection action" to "Dictionary" to speed up your lookups.

4. "LANGUAGES"
SPEAKS now provides support for speaking single-language non-English content. SPEAKS can recognize the language of properly marked up HTML pages and will use an appropriate speaking voice to read it to you. We also provide additional support for unlabeled German, French, Swedish, and Danish content - we're able to choose the right language when the page is served from a domain that we recognize as associated with one of these languages.

5. "ENHANCEMENTS"
Version 3.0 features a ton of minor enhancements to make your experience even better. You'll probably notice that starting speech by tapping a paragraph in the reading view now displays the speech highlight in the current view. You may not notice that our support for AMP pages has improved or that we've fixed some bugs in our HTML parser.

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2.7: Safari for iOS 10.1 makes it easier than ever to share content with SPEAKS from Callionica
2.7: You can change the user interface theme from the Settings app (restart SPEAKS to see the effect).
2.7: You can use a larger text size in the reading view than in other parts of the app.

New settings in the Settings app:
If you rarely use the SPEAK NOW switch when saving articles, you can speed up saving by reducing the Minimum Sharing Time.
If you often use the SPEAK NOW switch when saving articles, but find the UI disappears too quickly, you can slow down how quickly articles are saved to SPEAKS by increasing the Minimum Sharing Time.

2.5: Better pronunciations and compatibility with more websites.
Special handling for AMP search results and META REFRESH redirects.

2.4: On iOS 10 you can choose the specific voice that you prefer or let the app select the best quality voice automatically for you.
2.3: Automatically selects the best accent to use when installed (based on currently installed voices); vocabulary enhancements.
2.2: Automatic voice selection ensures the best quality voice.
2.1: Vocabulary enhancements make SPEAKS even better at reading.

App Description

SPEAKS from Callionica lets you listen to the web. And you don't even need to be online. Read the web with your ears!

Using a high quality English-speaking voice, SPEAKS adds another dimension to the web as it reads web pages aloud to you.

(And SPEAKS can read German, French, Spanish, Swedish, and Danish content too!)

SPEAKS makes it easy for you to catch up on all the news and entertainment that you normally read. Even when you're exercising, commuting, doing chores, or just too tired to read. In any situation where you can't use your hands to control your device, can't use your eyes to read, or just don't have the concentration, you can use SPEAKS to read the web to you.

*** Choose from 4 speech styles: High Energy, Newsreader, Standard, and Storyteller.

SPEAKS stores all the pages you're interested in right on your device, so that they're ready for you at a moment's notice. Even if you don't have a network connection, SPEAKS is able to read to you and show you all your content.

*** Choose from 5 accents: English, American, Australian, Irish, and South African.

SPEAKS uses an advanced analytical process to recognize the main content of each web page, so that the audio contains just the stuff you're interested in. And we use that same analytical engine to show you only the important text on screen in a clean, minimalist layout that's pleasing to the eye.

SPEAKS has been designed for the best speech quality that we enhance and customize in thousands of ways. SPEAKS analyzes the text and adjusts the prosody and pronunciation so that the reading sounds as natural and fluent as possible.

SPEAKS can pronounce names and concepts from the worlds of science, art, literature, politics, and sport. And you can customize the reading by choosing one of four speech styles: Standard, High Energy, Newsreader, and Storyteller. Each style gives a different flavor to the reading.

SPEAKS is incredibly easy to use. Tap the SPEAKS extension in Safari to save an article in SPEAKS, and tap in the SPEAKS app to hear it. You'll soon build up a list of great content to listen to and SPEAKS will keep reading to you until you tell it to stop.

The app supports background audio and the system media controls, so you can control SPEAKS without switching to the app. You can even send the audio to AirPlay speakers or your AppleTV.

*** Hear and see the text with or without a speech highlight showing the words currently being spoken.

SPEAKS is very respectful of your data allowance and your storage space. If you load pages from Safari, SPEAKS does not download any additional data - it will simply store the page already on your device. If you load pages from other apps, SPEAKS will download only the data needed to read the page to you (just the page itself, no images or scripts). It even has an Article Update Policy setting that allows you to prevent SPEAKS from downloading pages that you have downloaded in the past. And Speaks can store around 200 articles in the same space as a single episode of a podcast. Very useful if your device doesn't have much storage, you've hit a bandwidth cap, or you're going on a trip where you might not have network access for a while.

SPEAKS can help you learn English. By taking any English-language text that you can find on the web and speaking it aloud to you, you can find just the right material to keep you motivated. And with the highlight showing exactly which text is currently being spoken, you can experience English in two ways at once without getting lost. Use the speech styles to pick the speed to match your level.