Re:Show HN: ReadToMe (iOS) turns paper books into audio
by riscy on Tuesday February 06, 2024 @08:48PM
(#39283488)
Why not use Siri / the native TTS solution on iOS?
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Re:Show HN: ReadToMe (iOS) turns paper books into audio
by gnicholas on Tuesday February 06, 2024 @09:14PM
(#39283648)
The native TTS is not great. It doesn't sound like Siri — it's much robotic.
Re:Show HN: ReadToMe (iOS) turns paper books into audio
by unfoldedCravat on Wednesday February 07, 2024 @12:38AM
(#39284912)
It can sound significantly better but there’s a couple hoops you have to jump through - and even then it’s decent, but not the same as Siri.
You need the user to download ‘enhanced’ or ‘premium’ voices in the settings app. (Settings -> Accessibility-> Spoken Content -> Voices -> [Language of choice] -> [Voice of choice] -> Enhanced or Premium)
In the app you have to search for the enhanced or premium voices when doing TTS.
Heres an Objective C example, I’m sure there’s an easier way to write it in Swift. https://github.com/osmandapp/OsmAnd-iOS/pull/1156/commits/0b...
I’m not sure if you’ll find this acceptable from a UX point of view but there’s an option to play with if you’d like.
Re:Show HN: ReadToMe (iOS) turns paper books into audio
by gnicholas on Wednesday February 07, 2024 @01:26AM
(#39285194)
Yeah, I use a premium voice but was still disappointed when we added the feature to my reader app. I decided to leave it in the app since we'd already built it at that point, but it's kind of a bummer since obviously they could use Siri-level TTS if they wanted to.