#voicedream — Public Fediverse posts

For all those Voice dream reader users out there, I have a question. I'm trying to reinstate my 16 gb library after signing out anback into I cloud, but trying to do this in library settings simply gives me a progress bar stuck at 0% and an error telling me that it could not complete operations because other operations were running. Does anyone have any ideas? Contacted vdr support and haven't heard anything. #voicedreamreader #voicedream #IOS #VoiceOver #Accessibility

I'm in a bit of a state of mourning today. I have discovered that I can no longer convert my #Bookshare books into text files that I can read on my PC with my Braille display in the way I've done it for over a decade. I used to do it like this: I'd download the book from Bookshare to my PC. I'd unzip the zip file and access the XML file within the folder. It used to be that this file presented itself as a webpage using Internet Explorer. I'd select and copy all text, paste into a file, and voila! A text file I could read on my PC. A while ago XML files began presenting in Microsoft Edge, and it looked like a completely blank file. However, there was an option to open in Internet
Explorer mode, and it showed up as it always had. Now, though, even that has gone away. So now I'm scrambling to find ways to read Bookshare books on my Braille display. #VoiceDream is great, and I make extensive use of it, but there's nothing like actually reading a book in Braille. If anyone has any ideas, I'm listening. I will say that I have found reading books via my iPhone is problematic for me, as every time I get a notification it interrupts the reading. Any help in this endeavor would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your attention...oh, never mind.

Even though my #AmEx didn’t like the extra charge, I’m so glad I sprung for my new #Braille display! For the first time in probably over a year, I’ve got my reading groove back! I’m in the middle of five books at the moment. While I would never say reading audiobooks isn’t reading, because it is, I find that I retain things better if I read in Braille. Also, I have the very unfortunate and extremely annoying habit of falling asleep while reading audiobooks, and then I have to go back and figure out where I was. Not that I’m abandoning #VoiceDream and #Audible, not at ll. My display is just making it easier to read more.

Is anyone else experiencing an issue in #VoiceDream for iOS whereby certain words ending in "al" (A L) are mangled in the speech output? For example, "professional" gets spoken as "profession el" or something like that.

This is happening with or without my pronunciation dictionary in place, and with any voice. If you've experienced it, did you find a fix/workaround?

And there it came, I waited just because I wanted the renewal email for my records but now I think it's time for my #VoiceDream subscription to end. Sorry people it's not worth $59.99 to me.

#books I’m still making my way through Jonathan Alter’s biography of Jimmy Carter, His Very Best. #VoiceDream tells me I’m now 78% done with it. He was truly a great man who lived out his principles. I’ve always said that Bill Clinton would be fun to sit next to on a cross-country flight, though at some point you might want to put on voice-cancelling headphones when the talking gets too much. Jimmy Carter is a President who I just would have loved to meet and get to know. So sad that in 36 years we went from the best to the absolute worst, twice. Quite an indictment, I’d say.

The other day I saw someone post here about being able to use #AI voices on #VoiceDream. How would this work? My assumption was it would be in a #VoiceDream app update, but there doesn’t appear that there has been one. Could someone enlighten this curious one? Thanks!

In iOS 18, #VoiceDream is no longer usable for me because it jumps ahead by 1 minute and 16 seconds when I play or resume a book. If I pause, rewind, and then play, it jumps ahead by 1 minute and 16 seconds. If I rewind while it's playing, it jumps ahead by 1 minute and 16 seconds. This is Eloquence, set to 730 words per minute.

My opinion of #VoiceDream Reader has been reduced significantly. Today I was assisting someone in getting their Bookshare account set up as a student. Once that was done, I steered them to VDR. It was going to force them to sign up for a subscription. It was my understanding that they had backtracked on that, but it seems that was just for existing members. So I can no longer recommend VDR to them. Bookshare has its own reader app, but I’m totally unfamiliar with it. (1/2)

The content of my previous post was mostly factual, based on my own experience. As a follow-up, here's some wild conjecture and opinion:

Firstly, I'm not convinced that this is a feature Voice Dream's owners have developed in collaboration with Amazon. When you sign in, the web page clearly states that you are signing into Amazon's own Kindle web reader, rather than a third-party product via OAuth. There is no native #VoiceDream interface for browsing/searching through your library, it's all done via the web interface, suggesting that they don't have official API access to hook into.

So, what does that mean? If this feature has been developed without Amazon's blessing, it could stop working at any time. Either because access is blocked, because the structure of the underlying web page changes in a way that prevents book text from being scraped, or some other reason.

Meanwhile, I'm curious whether pulling text out of the Kindle web reader via a JavaScript bridge goes against Amazon's terms of service. I don't know; I haven't read them. But it strikes me as a form of "reverse engineering", which most commercial platforms explicitly prohibit.

For now, I'll acknowledge that the Kindle support is in beta, but also say that I'm underwhelmed. The Kindle web reader was not built, nor optimised for mobile devices running on battery, so the prospect of leaving it open and on screen is not appealing. The awkward user flows, and lack of wider app integration make it stand out, but not in a good way. And the speech pauses are irritating.

Is it better than reading with VoiceOver or Speak Screen in the Kindle app? I don't know; I've never done that.

Here are some initial comments:

Kindle doesn't appear in #VoiceDream as a standard content source. Instead, Amazon's web reader is embedded into the app, and the book text is extracted from the web page to be spoken.

This means that Kindle isn't deeply integrated into the rest of the app, and results in the majority of Voice Dream features being unavailable. You can choose a book and start audio playback, but not access bookmarking, text highlighting, annotations, full-text search, the built-in dictionary, etc. More fundamentally, standard book navigation (e.g. by heading) is not possible either. You can skip by page, and that's all.

I don't know if the features aimed at other audiences, such as finger reading and word highlights, work or not. I would suspect not, given the webview-based architecture, but I haven't been able to verify either way.

Meanwhile:

1. Playing a Kindle book doesn't register it as your "currently reading" item. If you relaunch the app, or close the Kindle viewer, you have to locate the book in Amazon's web interface from scratch.
2. Speaking of Amazon's web interface, selecting a book to read happens entirely within it, bringing all of the accessibility issues along for the ride that you may expect from Amazon in 2024.
3. While Kindle content is playing, the #VoiceOver magic tap gesture causes whatever non-Kindle document you were reading elsewhere in Voice Dream to resume.
4. You can pause the playback of a Kindle book on AirPods. But when you try to resume, you also trigger the previous non-Kindle document.
5. On the two books I've tried, there are large pauses in the speech stream at frequent intervals, lasting almost a second. These don't seem to line up with page changes, and I'm not sure what causes them. Maybe something related to scrolling.
6. I pressed "next page" four or five times in quick succession, to jump past all of the copyright information in a book. Unfortunately, this caused playback to completely stop working, no matter how many times I toggled it.

#VoiceDream apparently now has beta Kindle support in the main app, i.e. a beta version isn't required. There are reports on the mailing list that you need to be a subscriber to see it, that there should be a "Kindle beta" option in the "Settings" menu, and that you can't lock the screen or background the app while reading a Kindle book. I subscribed and updated the app, but it isn't showing up for me, so I don't know any more than that.

Hace un tiempo, una app que uso muchísimo en iPhone, VoiceDream, pasó a manos de una empresa. Hace un par de días, hicieron el gesto de cambiar el modelo de compra única a suscripción. 90 eurazos al año.
Se ve que sus clientes se lanzaron al cuello y han reculado para quienes ya compramos la app en su momento.
La accesibilidad es cara, pero esto es demencial. Y si ya lo han intentado una vez, será cuestión de tiempo para que hagan el cambio definitivo y les den igual las protestas de sus clientes.
Y podría hacer aquí una perorata sobre la relación entre modelo de negocio, tiendas de aplicaciones móviles y software privativo, pero como son temas que no conozco lo dejaré en que me cabreé muchísimo y es otro pasito más que me acerca a Android liberado.

#Apple #iOS #Accesibilidad #VoiceDream

If you don't feel the need to subscribe to #VoiceDream right now, but want to support future development with a donation, the developers have set up a "tip jar" where you can contribute an amount of your choice: https://buy.stripe.com/4gw5nweUg086b0Q4gp

Having gone to cancel my #VoiceDream subscription in the #iOS #AppStore while it is still a free trial, they sure do have an interesting list of plans. The monthly subscription options range from £4.99 to £19.99, and the annual options from £49.99 to £119.99. There is also an option labelled "Premium", which is also annually billed, at £79.99.

Quote from Kishin Manglani on the #VoiceDream mailing list:

"Following our recent announcement to transition #VoiceDream to a subscription, we received an overwhelming response from thousands in our community. Your feedback, along with the impactful stories shared about Voice Dream being a pivotal part of your daily lives, has led us to reverse this change.

We will continue to provide access to the app's existing features at no additional cost.

As we continue developing Voice Dream, some new features may be offered as part of a subscription, but the current capabilities will remain free to those who have already purchased Voice Dream.

For those who have already moved to a subscription, it's no longer necessary to continue using the app. You may cancel your subscription, but we welcome you to keep it active to support ongoing development."

/unquote.

Original source (login required): https://groups.io/g/Voice-Dream/message/116

(Edit: the announcement is also posted publically here: https://www.voicedream.com/subscription-pricing-update/)

@lynnskyi I know my opinion on #VoiceDream going to a subscription model probably won’t be popular. I understand why they did it, and I’ve already signed up. Reading is one of my life essential functions, and VoiceDream is an integral part of that process. It’s really no different in my mind than what Bookshare does. And if they do in fact integrate Kindle that, to me, would make it worth the price by itself.

It's been brought to my attention that the current owner of #VoiceDream Reader is the app acquisition company Applause (https://applause.dev), and not Applause App Quality, Inc. (https://applause.com). The latter company offers #accessibility testing services, the former does not, and as far as I know there is no connection of any kind between them other than an unfortunately shared name. This partially or entirely invalidates at least one of my posts on the subject which I'll leave up for posterity, but wanted to set the record straight.

I thought subscribing to the #VoiceDream mailing list might be a bad idea, but did it anyway. The first thread is people introducing themselves and describing how long they've been using the app. Next time I'll trust my instinct.

(Edit: this post is not accurate, as Voice Dream is actually owned by the app acquisition company Applause (https://applause.dev), and not Applause App Quality, Inc. (https://applause.com). The latter company offers accessibility testing services, the former does not.)

The current owner of #VoiceDreamReader is the Applause group, who offer #accessibility auditing and testing services to many high-profile clients. When Applause are paid to evaluate the accessibility of a product, they are expected to point out some of the exact issues that have been raised in relation to their work on #VoiceDream, such as controls that have no labels or accessible role information, images without alt text, etc.

This hints at a wider problem in the industry, where companies are "cashing in" on the market for accessibility-related services without actually being that invested or incentivised to do good work. Do Applause work with #disabled testers? Was anybody there tasked with testing the application with a #screenReader and other #assistiveTechnology? If not, it raises questions about whether their accessibility services are a force for good, or are actually causing harm.

hey @podcast I guess you could highlight the different tragectory persuit by the #voicedream app on #android. It's called "Legere Reader". and it's a one-time purchase, and according to some that used it, the developers are very responsive.
bookshare guide on installing https://www.bookshare.org/cms/help-center/voice-dream-reader-android-getting-started
the app webpage https://legere.io/reader/
playstore link,
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=voicedream.reader&hl=en_US

Completely bewildered by the #VoiceDream subscription announcement. The blog post links to #Stripe for making a subscription payment, but that's not how subscriptions to #iOS apps are usually managed. Meanwhile, I can't see anything in the app itself about an account, #AppStore purchases, or subscriptions. If I pay through Stripe today, am I supposed to assume that at some point, the iOS app will be updated to respect that new subscription?

In #VoiceDream Reader, does anyone know if it's possible to use Backreferences for group captures in a regular-expression-based pronunciation dictionary replacement? I've tried `\1`, `$1`, and `\k<1>`, but the syntax is always passed directly through to the synthesiser without the text captured by the group. #VoiceDreamReader #accessibility

@keao I”ve found what they call the i o s jam manual to be a great friend. It lists all things in order a to z. I leave it in #voicedream.