Want Your iPhone 3Gs / iPodTouch (3rd) to Read to You? Use Built-in Text-to-Speech.

If your iPhone or iPod Touch is capable of Voice Over, you have a nice handy method of using text-to-speech on your iPhone without downloading a single app. The method has PROS and CONS, but I thought I'd pass this on, as no one else seems to have commented on it.

SCENARIO: You're reading a long web article in mobile Safari and suddenly you're on the go and would rather listen the the rest of the article instead of reading it. What to do?

If you have a VoiceOver capable iPhone or iPod Touch, the answer is a few taps away. Here's what you do:

1. Go into "Settings..." > General...
2. Scroll down, towards the bottom you should see "Accessibility"
3. While most all of these accessibility options should remain deactivated or "off", scroll to the bottom where it says "Tripe-click Home" and choose "Toggle VoiceOver".

Now we're in business! The next time you want a webpage read to you, (or just about anything else, as this works in almost ANY iPhone application, including dedicated news apps like NYtimes, WSJ, HuffPo, Bloomberg, etc) just follow this two step process:

#1. Scroll to where you wish it to start reading, and Tripe-Tap the Home Button. You should here your phone say: "Voice Over On!"
#2. Tap the paragraph to start, then with two fingers, stroke the screen in a downward motion (To STOP, simply Triple-Click the Hone Button again.)

Action #2 simply tells the phone to start reading, and the two-fingered stroke tells it to continue onto each element that follows the last. In the case of text, you will see the phone hop from paragraph to paragraph, reading each line until it finishes.

PROS: Works in ANY iPhone application that has accessible content. Built-in, nothing to install. Turns on/off with ease. Auto-advances in a way that gets at all the "good stuff" effortlessly.

CONS: Requires iPhone 3Gs or iPod Touch (3rd generation) with VoiceOver. With VoiceOver on, ANY action is narrated, and breaks the act of reading your text, including but not limited to: locking your phone, changing your phone's orientation, touching the screen again in any way (requiring you to leave the phone "unlocked" if you wish to put the phone away while listening). Only one "voice". Triple-clicking can be a tricky proposition. One extra click and you're closing your application, one less, and maybe (like me) your iPhone now thinks you want to take a picture or launch your iPod.

VERSION REQUIRED: 3.1*
*I'm guessing at this really. Looking at this screenshot, I just realized that this may well be a 3.1 feature, as the shot shows an iPhone 3G running with VoiceOver and NO "triple-click" setting.

~ CB

ihonda said:

how the hell do you scroll once this is enabled? now i cant scroll down or anything
i cant get back into my accessibility menu to disable this crap SON OF A BITCH!

Click to expand...

LOL. Once you do the two-fingered stroke, it will "scroll" automatically to the next section as it speaks. If however, you want to scroll anyway, you can use three fingers.

I suppose its not for everyone. Remember: Just triple-click to turn it off, if VoiceOver mode stars freaking you out.

~ CB

ihonda said:

nope 2 fingers dont work, i had to sync to itunes and go into universal configure access

Click to expand...

Ok. I'm going to go ahead and assume you shouldn't be using this feature. I can't troubleshoot it for you, but I can assure you that two fingers work fine. If you follow the directions in my original post, you shouldn't have any problem as far as I know.

:: groan ::

~ CB