What happened to VoiceOver Support? PLEASE fix this!!
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I've already given you at least one "deal breaker" preventing this from coming. Some publishers won't allow it. Open up any Zondervan title on your desktop app and try to use "read aloud."
Also, even if this were the case, there's no reason mobile can't use the same check that desktop does to see if "read aloud" can be used for a particular resource.
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There are different angles being played here. One is an accessibility issue, which isn't what the OP is asking about... although he is using an accessibility feature. The heart of the question is "why can't I have a computer generated read aloud feature built into the app." Kevin said that they were going to try and restore the ability to use VoiceOver. I am explaining why Logos is unlikely to provide "full support for read aloud" (outside of audio books).
EDIT: It wouldn't surprise me if "read aloud" came at some point, but the publishers would have to be appeased. This is why I don't see this as a priority for Faithlife at this time... especially when it can't be monetized and competes against the new audiobooks coming.
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There are different angles being played here. One is an accessibility issue, which isn't what the OP is asking about... although he is using an accessibility feature. The heart of the question is "why can't I have a computer generated read aloud feature built into the app." Kevin said that they were going to try and restore the ability to use VoiceOver. I am explaining why Logos is unlikely to provide "full support for read aloud" (outside of audio books).
EDIT: It wouldn't surprise me if "read aloud" came at some point, but the publishers would have to be appeased. This is why I don't see this as a priority for Faithlife at this time... especially when it can't be monetized and competes against the new audiobooks coming.
I disagree. I'd consider the accessibility issue the same as what the OP is asking about, seeing that it is also specifically what he's actually using and asking about... The "Read aloud" functionality is not even mentioned, though I can understand why people would confuse the two.
Most of us don't really mind if Logos doesn't support "Read Aloud" in the mobile app for legal reasons, since we're content with the (admittedly complex) accessibility feature equivalent of VoiceOver offered by iOS. This may be considered taking advantage of something that could be monetized if built into the app instead, but that would be unfair to those who need it because of vision disabilities.
Even if Logos does develop "Read Aloud" functionality on a resource-by-resource basis depending on whether or not publishers are ok with it or not, that doesn't mean that the separate accessibility functionality should be rendered ineffective. Why? Because "Read Aloud" will never achieve the same as Voiceover does in guiding the visually impaired to be able to operate the app in addition to reading content.
I don't think individual publishers should have a lot of say over accessibility functionality. Accessibility functionality is simply considered good practice. Frankly, I would hope that Apple would require accessibility support for the sake of the impaired. That I can (and admittedly do) take advantage of that same functionality should be considered merely incidental by Faithlife in their effort to support those who need it because of vision impairments.
I'm happy to see that apparently Faithlife does consider accessibility functionality important, if it is true that they're working to restore voiceover compatibility as was suggested earlier.
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I've already given you at least one "deal breaker" preventing this from coming. Some publishers won't allow it. Open up any Zondervan title on your desktop app and try to use "read aloud."
I hadn't realised this as I don't use the Read Aloud feature much on the Windows desktop app. I don't have many Zondervan resources in Logos and all but one have Read Aloud disabled. However, I do have several of the Zondervan Counterpoint and NIV Application Commentary series, both of which both of which were fairly recently on special offer at $3.99 each for Kindle. They are all marked as Text To Speech enabled and work great with VoiceOver.
I will be pleased to get the rudimentary VoiceOver support back; in fact it worked fine except for the spurious page turning issue. I would be very happy if that was also fixed. VoiceOver is great for the unattended listening of books being read when you are driving, walking or doing chores etc., even if you are also planning to study them more closely later. Also, as a Christian company, I would have hoped that Faith Works would be especially sensitive to the accessibility issues: enabling the blind to 'see'.
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But again, perhaps I'm missing something?
I've already given you at least one "deal breaker" preventing this from coming. Some publishers won't allow it. Open up any Zondervan title on your desktop app and try to use "read aloud."
I can see that Zondervan doesn't allow the "read aloud" in Logos, but it doesn't seem to be consistent when you bring up a Zondervan book in my Kindle app on my iPad. If I activate VoiceOver and select a Zondervan Kindle book, I can listen to it. I assume Apple doesn't allow for restrictions such that an item can or can't be accessed with VoiceOver. So at least with Amazon Kindle, Zondervan doesn't seem to have an issue with VoiceOver. So I would think that Logos could make an argument that this restriction is a moot issue on ios devices.
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I can see that Zondervan doesn't allow the "read aloud" in Logos, but it doesn't seem to be consistent when you bring up a Zondervan book in my Kindle app on my iPad. If I activate VoiceOver and select a Zondervan Kindle book, I can listen to it. I assume Apple doesn't allow for restrictions such that an item can or can't be accessed with VoiceOver. So at least with Amazon Kindle, Zondervan doesn't seem to have an issue with VoiceOver. So I would think that Logos could make an argument that this restriction is a moot issue on ios devices.
That's why I said above that there are two separate issues. Logos can't start advertising "HEY EVERYONE, YOU CAN HAVE ZONDERVAN TITLES READ ALOUD BY USING VOICE OVER!!!"
No one has argued that Logos took away voice over due to licensing agreements... It was a bug / unintended consequence of changes which added scrolling. (There is a potential fix in the next beta, by the way). What I tried to say is that Logos has to be careful about read aloud features (not voice over!) because of some publisher restrictions. Also, Logos is hoping to monetize audio books, so creating a computerized "read aloud" feature (not voice over!) would be counter productive in that endeavor.
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Personally I don't think voiceover is counter productive to selling audio books. I buy plenty of audio books when I get the chance. If anything I think it will give people the audiobook bug.
גַּם־חֹשֶׁךְ֮ לֹֽא־יַחְשִׁ֪יךְ מִ֫מֶּ֥ךָ וְ֭לַיְלָה כַּיּ֣וֹם יָאִ֑יר כַּ֝חֲשֵׁיכָ֗ה כָּאוֹרָֽה
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Personally I don't think voiceover is counter productive to selling audio books. I buy plenty of audio books when I get the chance. If anything I think it will give people the audiobook bug.
I agree. I'd MUCH rather have a quality, human-recorded audiobook instead of VoiceOver/Text-to-Speech. But when there's no audiobook available, VoiceOver/TTS is a good fallback.
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A friend of mine has Voice over on his Android device and it sounds really robotic. However, the one on iOS is far more pleasantly closest to a human voice. Its the typical voice associated with SiRi. I'm sure apple intends on improving her as well. I did not update my iPhone 5 to iOS 8 until the purchase of iPhone 6 plus. I was impressed on the improvements they added. THe little tick when a page is turned I personally like. I will open a book in logos on my Mac then open the book in my iPhone, turn on voice over, turn the speed up fast, and follow along. I can read books so much quicker this way and when it skips a page I see it and can correct it quickly. I have found that its happening far less. I do wish Logos would fix that issue all together to fully support voice over to serve those in need. One poster said giving sight to the blind.
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For the impaired and for students, voice over is the way to go and Logos should fully support that. As far as the audio book thing, that is different. Students are using voice over for study purposes and speed reading purposes. For Logos to be the best, they need to be flexible and versatile in all angles with the app. Zondervan I would think knows about iOS voice over and has for some time. What Zondervan I would also think is aware of is that no one ever advertises voice over. I too have Zondervan books in Kindle and use voice over all the time with them and its great (use while driving or exercising on the treadmill).
I guess I'm a bit stumped why Logos would not "choose" to support voice over fully. For the most part, logos I'm sure has a huge customer base that is academic: pastors, teachers, professors, students of all walks from undergrad, high school, MDiv, and PHD-THD-DMin., etc. and many I know use voice over.
I guess Logos could be fearful of Apple really polishing voice over so well that an audiobook is unnecessary.
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Good news, everyone! The "rudimentary support" has been returned to the Verbum iOS app! I don't see it yet for the Logos or Vyrso apps, but I'm sure that the same updates for those apps will become available very soon.
And even though Faithlife has yet to "officially" support VoiceOver (it would still be nice to have line rotor support on top of the current container rotor support so that you could select a specific line to start reading from instead of just on a per page basis), this rudimentary support is actually better in my opinion than before it was accidentally removed! Here's why: VoiceOver now works both on the Scrolling View and on the original Page View (Scrolling View turned off)! This means you have two different options for using VoiceOver now instead of just one.
- With Scrolling View off (Page View), VoiceOver auto turns the page as it used to.
- With Scrolling View on, VoiceOver auto scrolls up a page's height and continues reading from where it left off.
I have to admit that this is even better "rudimentary support" than I anticipated. This also means that the main bug people have been frustrated by in the past with VoiceOver where the page sync gets off (it would start reading a different page than it was showing on the screen) is likely not an issue anymore. If it still is a bug with the Page View (anybody want to test this and let us know if this bug still exists?), then hopefully it shouldn't be a bug anymore with the Scrolling View. I tested VoiceOver on the Scrolling View just now on my iPhone 6 Plus for about 20 minutes and it kept up nicely with each page scroll!
Good work, Faithlife mobile development team!
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