Android text to speech

Can anyone tell me if it’s reliable and pleasant enough to listen to logos books via text to speech/ voice ov er or similar on android? I’m thinking of getting an android phone. My iphones battery just isn’t good enough so im thinking of a moto g7 power. 

If there is a way in the Android app to do that, I haven't found it yet. I've read about something like that being available on Amazon Fire and IOS devices but even that is not from within the Logos app but rather from the operating system.

I hope I'm wrong.

The UserVoice petition was last updated back in 2014, which is half a decade ago at the time of writing this reply. Concluding from this silence, I think it is safe to assume that nothing more is going to happen anytime soon. 

So a more relevant question is whether there are any workarounds.

I have been unsuccessful in getting the system TTS to work with Logos. It reads GUI elements and the page number, but that is all. I have not tried any third party screen readers, but I suspect they will fail as well. 

A different approach might be to export book sections from the desktop app, and make the screen reader use the resulting document. I have not tried this yet, but I might. I do not know what the export limit is, but I have sometimes printed out entire chapters in order to read them from paper. It might be worth the attempt. Also, perhaps one can find a screen reader that can bee tweaked to read bible references correctly.

Reading other posts, I think faithlife kind of regrets the existence of the feature and feel it prevents sales of audiobooks.

Please share the "other posts" you've read and explain your reasoning. I've never read any posts that imply what you've said.

For me this is an accessibility feature and it is a huge disappointment that faithlife are not willing to make it happen.

How do you know that "faithlife are not willing to make it happen"

Faithlife responded to you regarding this issue many years ago: https://community.logos.com/forums/p/41565/528418.aspx#528418 . Nothing has changed since then.

The explanation on the thread you mentioned is a bit daft.

Indeed. It was several years ago, but I still remember it for its epic silliness.

John, I know you just purchased an Android phone, but iOS has a system-wide speak screen function as an accessibility feature. I use it almost every day to read Logos resources when I work out at the gym. They have voices you can download in many English dialects. If you are within your return window and would consider an iPhone, it could do what you want.

Whoa! Looks like somebody's got a bad case of the Moondays! You're clearly emotionally invested somehow, so keep the cheese; just let me out of the trap. If I'm wrong, don't send it in to Guinness, just forgive me or sue me. I am however, flattered you've kept a dossier on me.

Your Ad hominem is showing.

I expected you weren't able to respond with facts. Have a nice day.!

For the record, I don't even like hominy, you can ask my wife.

What I found 'silly' about the post linked above is the stated difficulty with extracting surface text. While I certainly don't know how to do it, someone at FL certainly does, since it appears on the Android screen and Read Aloud reads aloud the surface text on Desktop. It appears that both platforms use the same resource file (same name, apparently the same file size).

Regarding the 'kill-switch': 

you will still be able to use Logos. However, it's unsupported, which means that if you delete it off of your device, you won't be able to get it back.

'You won't be able to get it back' either means a guy named Guido will come to your door and stop the re-installation on the reset phone, or there is some online mechanism that rejects the APK or prevents log in to the reinstalled app. If you don't like the term 'kill-switch', you can call it a kumquat; it is what it is.

What I found 'silly' about the post linked above is the stated difficulty with extracting surface text. While I certainly don't know how to do it, someone at FL certainly does, since it appears on the Android screen and Read Aloud reads aloud the surface text on Desktop. It appears that both platforms use the same resource file (same name, apparently the same file size).

Okay, so you've decided Faithlife is lying to you about Text to Speech on Android since "someone at FL certainly does [know how to do it].?" Interesting. Could it be that the Windows, macOS, Android and iOS implementations are all radically different? Could it be that you don't have enough information to determine a valid conclusion?

'You won't be able to get it back' either means a guy named Guido will come to your door and stop the re-installation on the reset phone, or there is some online mechanism that rejects the APK or prevents log in to the reinstalled app.

This is absolutely false! There are multiple ways to "get it back" - it's just that you won't be able to install old unsupported versions from the Google Play Store. (The Apple Store allows one to do this but Google Play doesn't.)

Recommendations:

1. Before January 1, 2020 install the latest supported app(s) and version(s) and save the APK's somewhere. If you ever need to perform a factory reset on your device you can sideload those APK's and they will run just as before.

Faithlife *will not* prevent you from installing, signing in or running the apps unless there is some unforeseen circumstance (like the TLS 1.2 security issue that happened over the last year that affected Android and Windows but not iOS).

2. You can download and install older Faithlife Mobile app APK's from any of the many third-party APK stores.

3. You can call Faithlife Customer support and they may be able to work with on a case-by-case basis to "get back" older unsupported versions of the Android Mobile app APK's.

If you don't like the term 'kill-switch', you can call it a kumquat; it is what it is.

I'm sure we can agree that words and definitions matter, otherwise why would we bother using Logos Bible Software?

The standard definition of "kill switch" when related to software means (for example) that on January 1, 2020 Faithlife will permanently disable any currently installed Faithlife Mobile apps on Android 5.1 (or below) from running, starting, etc. In other words those apps will be inoperable even if you install them again (from a backup or another store) because Faithlife will remotely kill them like an emergency shutoff switch at the gas station. Faithlife doesn't do that, has never done that and never will do that.

rejects the APK or prevents log in to the reinstalled app.

That summarizes my two experiences trying to side-load old Logos Android APKs.

'Kill-swith' in my reply in the older thread meant what the context clearly states: a prevention of installation of the old APK.

3. You can call Faithlife Customer support and they may be able to work with on a case-by-case basis to "get back"

'You can call Customer Service and they might help you get it back' is not the same as, and in fact is totally opposite to, 'you won't be able to get it back' or 'no support'.

rejects the APK or prevents log in to the reinstalled app.

That summarizes my two experiences trying to side-load old Logos Android APKs.

'Kill-swith' in my reply in the older thread meant what the context clearly states: a prevention of installation of the old APK.

3. You can call Faithlife Customer support and they may be able to work with on a case-by-case basis to "get back"

'You can call Customer Service and they might help you get it back' is not the same as, and in fact is totally opposite to, 'you won't be able to get it back' or 'no support'.

- "Kill switch" doesn't mean what you think it does.
- Side loading apk's isn't supported (and never was). I was just trying to help you.
- How valuable is your time in dollars per hour?
- Would it be more profitable for you to keep complaining about things that you can't change, or just purchase a new device?

but my statement was not false... perhaps not quite accurate enough but voiceover support was removed by faithlife and yes it was linked to an update.

Actually, your statement was false.

VoiceOver support was never "removed" by Faithlife. A new display implementation (Scrolling View) was coded and VoiceOver support wasn't immediately supported in Scrolling View.

VoiceOver support was never "removed" from the existing default Paging View implementation and VoiceOver support still worked as expected while using Paging View.

When Scrolling View became the default display setting it turned out that VoiceOver didn't work - not because it was "removed" from Scrolling View but because some new development work was needed to make VoiceOver work in Scrolling View.

In short, VoiceOver support wasn't "removed" from Scrolling View because the code wasn't written yet. One can't "remove" non-existing code.

It definitely took some careful persuasion that this was a regression

No, it didn't. It wasn't a regression because the code to implement VoiceOver while in Scrolling View didn't exist yet.

the impact of audiobook sales was brought up by faithlife.

When and where was this brought up by Faithlife? Links, emails, etc?

The problem is, I can see just how close to wonderful Logos is for accessibility and how it opens up a world of possibility for certain people. I do believe it is low hanging fruit that could be a tremendous blessing to many folks and I can't be sure but I expect would win some extra sales that would be worth it compared to the development outlay.

Accessibility is anything but low hanging fruit. Sorry, just telling you the truth.