Hi Chris, On Oct 15, 2007, at 5:43 PM, Chris Blouch wrote:
I wonder if some of the price drop is being driven by competition from Apple's new voice in Leopard. From what I've heard the quality is really good.
No, it has very little to do with that. You can hear the new Alex voice in Leopard here: http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/features/ accessibility.html
This is the only new voice in Leopard, it is male and American English only. Anyone who wants a female voice, kids' voices, British English voices or voices for another language will need third-party voices. If Alex was the reason for the price drop then only the American English Infovox iVox would have been lowered in price. No, it is really as I stated in my previous message, the interest in natural-sounding voices from consumers, students and educators who responded to the recent promotion prices has shown that there is sufficient volume to be found at the new lower price level to convince Acapela Group to lower the price and benefit everyone instead of aiming at just the accessibility market.
david.
