Quote:
Originally Posted by Jessica Lares
This is great news! VoiceOver is not for the casual user though, so it's not really good for us that just want Kindle Keyboard like text-to-speech. It makes using the device a nightmare. But good for those that REALLY need it!
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It is not that bad, you just need to make it easier to turn VoiceOver on and off (i.e. don't leave VoiceOver on all of the time):
- go to Settings, General, Accessibility, Triple-click Home
- set Triple-click Home Button option to 'VoiceOver'
Then when you want a TTS-ish experience in the Kindle app (or iBooks or whatever), open your book and triple-click the Home button to turn VO on. With VO on, double-tap does what single tap used to. Single tap reads out a single line. Two-finger swipe down initiates continuous reading. Then to turn off VO and return to 'normal' navigation, triple-click Home. (for iBooks continuous reading, you need to set the Theme text option to 'scrolling text')
Compared to Kindle TTS, there is a slight pause and a little squeeky sound at page turns (to audibly confirm page turns), and you cannot lock the screen and have it continue to read the text.
You can adjust reading speed and home button click speed in the Accessibility settings.
It will read out text in any language iOS supports, but you need to set the device Language to match the text language (Settings, General, International, Language).
It works with all (reflowable) books without regard to whether TTS is enabled for that title.
The Author's Guild is not going to complain about this, since the primary focus of VoiceOver is making the device accessible, this is an iOS feature, iBooks does it, etc. They will run afoul of ADA (American Disability Act) watchdogs and look like big bullies if they do make a stink. They'll be fighting Apple as well as Amazon and the US government (ADA).