Speak It! Application Review

Speak It!, developed by FutureApps, is a very useful tool when you are unable to speak. The main functionality of Speak It! is that it converts text to speech with incredible realism. There are a few menus within the application that I would like to go over. The first screen is the text entry screen, which is displayed when you first open the application. Below is a picture of the aforementioned screen:


You can see the standard iPhone keyboard, and above that are two buttons: “Say it!” and “Done.” When you enter text into the above box, you can press the “Say it!” button to hear your text turned into spoken words. But, the fun does not stop there. If you press “Done,” the keyboard disappears and you are presented with a scrolling wheel of “Select Voice” options, seen below.


There are four options: Male American Voice, Female American Voice, Male British Voice, and Female British Voice. All of these voices sound very real and not automated at all like some text to speech programs (*cough* Mac OSX Alex *cough*) sometimes do. At the bottom of this post are audio samples of the voices used by the application. Now, with any application, there is also a settings page. While there are relatively few things to customize in this application, there is still a settings page, which you can see below.


There are two options within this menu, one being “Voice Volume,” and the other being “Voice Speed.” While these are pretty self-explanatory, just to clarify, “Voice Volume” adjusts the loudness of the output voice, and “Voice Speed” adjusts how fast the selected voice reads your inputted text. There is also a How To guide built right into the application if you are still unsure about something. The next feature I will be talking about is one of great usefulness. This is the ability to save your currently entered text for future use. That way, when you need to use that text again in Speak It!, you do not need to reenter it. The “Save It!” button can be seen below.

You can then access your saved phrases by going to the “Saved Phrases” menu, shown below.



When there is a saved phrase in the menu, all you have to do is simply tap on it. Then, Speak It! will load the text and you can modify the voice, change the text, or “Say It!”

Overall, I was very impressed by the realism that this application brings to the table. I have never heard such clarity in even a Mac or PC application and I must congratulate FutureApps for putting so much power in such a small device.

Ratings:

Functionality: 9.9/10
Aesthetic Design: 10/10
Intuitiveness: 10/10
Speed: 10/10

Total Score: 39.9/40

Explanation of Ratings and Closing Comments:

While I previously said that the functionality of the application is great, there was one feature missing that I would have expected in such an application. The first is the ability to export the generated audio so it could be used on a computer. This criticism is also a compliment in disguise. The audio generated by this application is just so crisp, clear and real that I would like to be able to use the generated audio elsewhere. Aesthetically, this application is beautiful and I found no flaws in it. The intuitiveness of this application is great and it truly resembles the feel of Apple, many easy to use buttons and scroll menus, and it presents them in a sleek, easy to use manner. As for the speed of the application, I saw no lag during all of my testing and nothing ever froze, even when I entered a long entry of text. I would definitely recommend this application to anyone looking for a text-to-speech application for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Audio Samples: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=FUUWZ6IU

If you liked this review, visit my Youtube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/Tigercat212.

iPhone Push Notifications Enabled -- For Developers

According to this MacRumors article, apple has finally enabled push notification for the iPhone, allowing developers to test the service with their applications. Push notifications are making their way to the iPhone in the upcoming 3.0 software upgrade.

This feature has been delayed many months, with the original launch planned for September of 2008. 

Push notification is Apple's answer to background task, which allow applications such as an instant messenger to run in the background. Only, Apple is using technology that will send the information from the application, to "the cloud" (a.k.a. Apple servers) and then Apple, will send push the information to your iPhone.

Traditionally, this process is done on the phone itself, but Apple claims that it compromises both performance and battery life.

Let's hope everything works as planned when the 3.0 software update is released this summer. 

Skype - Coming To An iPhone Near You

It's official! A true Skype app for the iPhone will be released to the app store. The rumor is sometime tomorrow. Being a true Skype addict, I am very happy about this.

The interface is very much iPhone.

With this application, you can do both text and voice chats. There are a few limitations however. As with the desktop application, you can make free calls to someone on their computer, or make low cost calls to a landline on a pay per minute Skype plan. Although, with the iPhone you can only make calls over wifi. (Not surprising. They are not going to interfere with AT&T cell service. IM's however, will work over 3G) Another minor gripe of mine: The iPhone is capable of taking part in conference calls, however... the iPhone user can not initiate a conference, instead... they must wait to be invited.

Those minor details aside, I cannot wait for this application. 

Why Choose The iPhone?

There are so many pros and cons with apple's iPhone but here are four reasons you should consider buying:

The Touch Screen
The beautiful touch screen is probably the main reason I chose the iPhone over so many other smart phones on the market. It's display is not only smooth to the touch, but incredibly responsive. Other devices feature touch computability, but lack a glass touch display which makes the device much less responsive. The iPhone's touch screen is also heat sensitive which I noticed was a small, but great feature when I compared the iPhone to the Voyager and Dare. Why you might ask? Because the Voyager AND Dare can automatically unlock themselves in your pocket from loose change or pens touching the screen or lock button. The phone then calls people, goes on thewebor downloads something without the user's permission.

The App Store
While other phones like the Storm (by BlackBerry) and other smart phones running Windows Mobile do have a store for purchasing and downloading applications for the device remotely, Apple obviously tops their stores by far. The App store not only reaches a wide variety ofusers, from teens to adults, but offers applications that take complete advantage of the phones other hardware and software.

The iTunes Store
Purchasing music on the go is something that has been offered with mobile phones for quite some time now. However, none of them offered purchasing from the #1 music provider world-wide until now. With the iPhone, you can purchase any some from the iTunes store with just a tap of your finger. Even though it has a different layout, it still has all the functionality of buying from yourdesktop. I mainly found the store useful when my friends and were hanging out possibly at dinner or watching football and there was music playing. With the iTunes Store app, and after asking someone what the song was, I could buy the song straight from my device and not worry about writing it down or forgetting it later.

The Price
Finally, the pricing. I will admit, just for all those haters of the iPhone out there that the original price of $600 was outrageous. However, now that its merely $199, the pricing is no different between say the iPhone and a BlackBerry Storm. The plan is expensive just like any other smart phone's plan would be. However, unlike other phones, the iPhone has built-in WifiNetworking. So, whenever you're in a Wifi zone, you can save a little money on your phone bill while other smart phones can't.


Just a few reasons why YOU should choose iPhone.

iPhone 3.0 Software On The Way

Apple has just announced  that they will be holding a special event for the release of iPhone software update 3.0 on Tuesday, March 17th. Not much is known about the event, but Apple is calling it an "advanced preview". So, I don't think we will be upgrading our iPhones just yet.

There is no word on who will be heading the event