Sometimes, it's better to listen than to read. When you walk, cycle, or drive, for example, it's safer to go along your eyes focused on the earth effectually yous.

Text-to-oral communication (TTS) offers an culling to listening to music, podcasts, or audiobooks. TTS tin be a slap-up manner to grab upwardly on articles you intend to read. For case, Mozilla's read afterwards service, Pocket, includes the ability to listen to articles.

TTS solves a slightly different problem than the assistive voice capabilities available for the major platforms, such as Android TalkBack, iOS VoiceOver, Chromevox, Windows Narrator, and Mac VoiceOver. These tools typically read everything on a page–content plus navigation.

The following four TTS apps specialize in reading manufactures and documents you choose. While all of these apps provide text-to-oral communication capabilities, each app serves a slightly different set of needs. Some apps testify the text equally it is spoken, while others offer a variety of voices.

All of these apps work on iOS, and support the capability to share an article from the browser to the app via the native iOS sharing organisation functions. Importantly, as of July 2017, all iv of these apps are nether active development: The iOS app for each was updated in June or July 2017 at least once.

1. Motoread

(iOS, Chrome, and Safari desktop extensions)

I think of Motoread equally a podcatcher for manufactures: Send an commodity to the app, then listen to saved articles afterward. There are Chrome and Safari extensions that allow you lot add an article to your Motoread list from your desktop browser with a click. (Every bit of early July 2017, an Android app is listed every bit "coming soon".)

The app reads manufactures in a single voice, although you may accommodate the playback speed. You tin likewise choose to display the text of the commodity equally you listen. The app is gratuitous, although you tin upgrade (for $1.99/calendar month or $19.99/yr) to become the ability to add an unlimited number of articles.

two. Voice Dream Reader

(iOS, Android)

Voice Dream Reader shows the text of the article being read, and highlights each give-and-take equally it is spoken. Since the app was originally developed as an assistive tool, you tin can adjust the size, font, spacing, and color of the text displayed during playback. Voice Dream supports adaptable playback speeds, and allows you to customize pause time between sentences, too. You tin can select from several system voices, and set a preferred speed, pitch, and volume for the voice. You can besides add documents to listen to from Dropbox, Google Drive, Evernote, and other sources.

Voice Dream Reader typically costs $14.99, and a wide selection of boosted voices are bachelor for purchase, too–at a cost of up to $4.99 per voice.

3. Speech Central

(iOS, macOS, Windows, Android)

Speech Primal works on more platforms than any of the other apps hither, with apps available for iOS, macOS, Windows, and Android (although the app is available from Amazon, not the Google Play store). It also supports the ability to read text from other formats, such equally Discussion, PDF, and more. On iOS, the app supports the organization voices, although yous can adjust the vox pitch, too equally the default 1x speed to be slightly faster or slower.

Speech Central shows the text, with a subtle colored vertical line displayed forth the left side of the text of the paragraph equally it is spoken. The app will denote the calculated reading time for longer articles, which may exist useful if you listen while traveling, and you tin change playback speed (betwixt .8x and 2x default speed). Oral communication Central also offers the ability to shuffle voices, so you don't have to heed to several articles in a row read with the same synthesized voice.

The desktop platform apps are non gratuitous, at $6.99 for macOS and $9.99 for Windows x, although the mobile apps are free, with an optional one-fourth dimension $4.99 upgrade that gives y'all the ability to add together unlimited manufactures.

four. Audiobook Maker

(iOS)

Audiobook Maker was the only app of the iv to properly pronounce the words "alive" and "livestream" with the default vocalism setting. All the other apps pronounced the 4 alphabetic character word "live" incorrectly for the context, as if information technology rhymed with "give." Audiobook Maker pronounced it correctly: "Live" rhymes with "hive."

Audiobook Maker likewise was the merely app with the option to display ane word at a time, centered in the screen. Information technology also offered an pick to highlight the word beingness read, while showing the surrounding text, in an adaptable size font. As with other apps, you lot can suit the speed, equally well every bit select from several voices and languages.

Audiobook Maker evolution is yet in process. For instance, the app also includes the ability to apply your camera to accept a photo of book pages to exist read. But when I took a photo of a page from a book, I saw a "less than a minute remaining" message that never left. To be fair, the iOS app is named "Audiobook Maker – Early on Adopters." That said, the core functionality of text-to-speech works and the app is free (as of July 2017).

Text to speech for developers

Information technology'due south as well never been easier to add text-to-speech capabilities to apps. Several large firms provide text-to-speech API services, such every bit Polly from Amazon, Bing Oral communication from Microsoft, and Text to Oral communication from IBM. At that place are smaller competitors in the field, like Responsive Voice, too. And search giants Google and Baidu take each released enquiry papers that tout their progress toward increasingly natural sounding text-to-speech capabilities, called Deep WaveNet and Deep Vocalism 2, respectively.

Do you use text-to-voice communication to listen to articles or documents? If so, what text-to-speech organization and/or app practice yous use? And if yous're a developer, accept yous integrated ane of above API text-to-voice communication services into your app? If so, let me know which service and why — on Twitter (@awolber) or in the comments below.