Hello Esther, I have downloaded iTranslate, and am unable to switch the from and to languages. I only see a typing qwerty and cancel button on the bottom half of the screan, and no settings buttons.
The imgSpeakerTouch buttons are dimmed. The same goes for the English and Greek buttons. I am only able to do any translation from English to Greek, if any at all. The switch language button is also dimmed, and I am left with something that does not function very well at present. Are there suggestions from you on how to make this work? Sincerely, Antonio Guimaraes On Nov 8, 2010, at 6:29 PM, Esther wrote: > Hi Dean and Brian, > > I haven't wanted to weigh in with a suggestion for a Spanish translation app, > since I have only rudimentary knowledge of Spanish, but if you're looking for > a translation app that runs through Google Translate (with all the usual > limitations and caveats about machine translation and the need to use this > through an internet connection), I can certainly recommend a more accessible > alternative, with more features, at least based on my reading of the > description of iTranslate - Spanish from Bizmosis, Inc. I'll describe three > apps: iTranslate -- the universal translator (free, but $1.99 to buy a voice > through in-app purchase to have translations read out with text to speech) by > Sonico GmbH, iSpeak Spanish ($1.99) by FutureApps, and Trippo Voice > Translator Plus (free for text-to-text translations, free trial > text-to-speech use for 14 days, extendable by in-app purchase; $4.99 for > permanent license) by Cellictica. All three are available internationally, > and probably one the first two would be best suited for Brian's translation > needs. I'm going to cc this to the Macvisionaries list, since it may be of > wider interest, even though this answer is specific to the iPhone, iPod > Touch, and iPad. > > • iTranslate -- the universal translator by Sonico GmbH > For a general purpose app based on Google Translate, I'd recommend iTranslate > -- the universal translator by Sonico GmbH. It does require an internet > connection to use, and it's for text based input and translated output, > however you can purchase a Loquendo voice for text to speech for $1.99 to > read out your translated text. These voices are very good quality. The > iTranslate app itself is free, and it can handle translations in 52 languages > with voice options to support text to speech in 17 languages. There are 3 > Castilian Spanish voices (1 male, 2 female) and 2 American Spanish voices (1 > male, 1 female) to choose from. You don't have to turn VoiceOver off at any > point to access the text boxes. If you want to listen to the text to speech > version and you have purchased a voice, you just flick right to the "IMG > speaker touch" button that follows the text box for the translated field. (I > usually mute VoiceOver with a three finger double tap after I've flicked to > the button, and just before I double tap that button so that it's > announcement doesn't obscure the beginning of the translated speech, then I > unmute with another three finger double tap). If you want to mail, text > message, or tweet the translated text, or to save it to history (if you > purchased the "plus" version upgrade for $0.99 that allows you save a history > of your translation inputs and outputs), you just flick right again to the > "IMG action touch" button and double tap. A menu comes up with options for > Save (with the plus version of the app), Email, SMS, Twitter, and Copy. If > you double tap "Email", for example, the translated text is included in the > body of an Email message. I would recommend that you get iTranslate Plus > version of the app for $0.99, which will keep a history of your recent > translations and also allow you save and organize your translations into > favorites lists by categories that you can customize. If you want to start > by getting the free version of the app, you can upgrade to the iTranslate > Plus version by in-app purchase. However, if you ever need to restore the > app on your device, you're going to have to remember to get the free app and > update it by in-app purchase. If it were me, I would simply buy the > iTranslate Plus version (for $0.99) directly -- even if I first tried out the > free version of the app, so as not to get charged again if you end up trying > to restore the paid version. If you have the "plus" option, if you flick > right past the "IMG action touch" button you'll reach the "Favorites" button > in the bottom left corner. This allows you to access your history and the > favorites you saved. Finally, there is an "Info" button in the bottom right > corner that lets you access your Add-ons and Settings. For example, you can > control the voice rate with a slider from the "Voices" setting, determine > whether you want Auto Correction or Auto Capitalization set on or off for > your text entries under the "Keyboard" setting, and increase the Font size > of the input text (if you are a low vision user) in the "Font Size" setting. > The "Text-to-Speech" entry under Add-ons lets you browse samples of all the > voices available for in-app purchase. Otherwise, if you simply double tap > the "IMG speaker touch" button beside your translated text and you haven't > purchased a voice, you'll be shown a menu of sample voices for that language. > The button won't appear for languages without a supported voice. I gave a > full description of the layout of all controls on the iTranslate Plus screen > in my archived list post "Chinese Input with VoiceOver on the iPhone" > (paragraphs 3 through 5): > http://www.mail-archive.com/macvisionaries%40googlegroups.com/msg24706.html > > In this older version of the app, Chinese voices weren't available; they are > now. Another feature addition in the latest version of this app is "swipe to > paste". I've actually used this, and it's kind of neat. This is a standard > gesture, so if you have copied text from some other app to be translated, and > you have toggled VoiceOver off, you can just swipe your finger to the right > in the top half of the iTranslate screen to paste into a blank text box, and > when you toggle VoiceOver back on, the text (and its translation) will appear > in the text boxes. In general, this is the app that I've found to have the > most different language options with good quality supported text-to-speech > voices for languages. And for some languages, like Russian, they offer male > voices that aren't available in other apps that support that language. It's > very accessible, allows you to control the speaking rate options, has a range > of features for saving and emailing the translations, and is reasonably > priced for the features. > > For iPad users, there is a very nice, recent, free (ad-supported) version of > the app called iTranslate for iPad. This has built-in voices for English, > French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified and > Traditional Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. You don't get to select the > voice, and it doesn't cover all the languages with voices (in the regular > iPhone app) that you can get, but it's really nice to have these voice > options built into the free app. You also don't have the same range of > options to text message, tweet, or copy, but there's a button that lets you > email your translation. And you can always use the iPhone version of the app > on the iPad. > > • iSpeak Spanish ($1.99) by FutureApps > I can't directly review iSpeak Spanish, but this is one of a series of iSpeak > translation apps that FutureApps offers using the Acapela Group's Infovox > voices for the text to speech. I use these voices on my Mac, and they're > very good. This app comes with a built in pair of voices for each language, > so you don't buy anything additional through in-app purchase, and you get the > English U.S. "Heather" voice along with the voice for your specified > language. There is only one unlabeled button in the app, which is the Info > button that lets you set the iSpeak Options for the Voice volume and Voice > speed sliders. This button is at the top left corner of the app. Everything > else in the app is well-labeled and perfectly accessible. It has the same > basic layout as the iTranslate app, in that the top half of the screen has > the text box for the "translate from" language and the bottom half of the > screen has the text box for the "translate to" language. Like the iTranslate > app, you can switch the translate "from" and "to" languages (and text) by > double tapping a button at the far left side of the screen, midway between > the top and bottom translation "from" and "to" halves of the screen. On the > iTranslate screen this is labeled "button switch lang". On the iSpeak screen > this is just labeled "swap". Only the text in the bottom half of the screen > can be spoken with text to speech (by double tapping the "Speak It!" button > in the bottom left corner). If you want to hear the "from" text spoken with > text to speech, you'll have to double tap the "swap" button and then double > tap the "Speak It!" button. With both the iTranslate app and these apps, > double tapping the button for text to speech ("IMG speaker touch" or "Speak > It!") starts or stops speech. The iSpeak implementation is a little cleaner, > since if you double tap this button after VoiceOver has announced it, you > don't get any additional speech from VoiceOver. With the iTranslate app, > after you double tap the button for text to speech there is a brief overlap > of the repeated button's name with the start of the text. I don't actually > find the muting a problem; with iTranslate I touch the screen (in the bottom > translation text boxe), flick right to the speaker control, do a three finger > double tap to mute, then double tap to start up the speech. If I want to > stop midway, I double tap again. (The button still has focus). If I want to > unmute speech, I do a three finger double tap to unmute. However, you might > find it simpler to locate the "Speak It!" button in the bottom left corner of > the screen. > > The iSpeak apps also let you save or email the translation. Flick right from > the "Speak It!" button in the bottom left corner of the screen to the > "Action" button and double tap. You'll find options to "Save translation" or > "Email translation". One nice feature of this, is that when you Email, both > the original text and the translated text get sent. (In iTranslate only the > translated text is forwarded in mail, text messages or tweets, although for > saved entries you get access to both versions). To access saved text, flick > right from the "Action" button to the "Saved" button in the bottom right > corner. You can search for matching terms in the search text box, and find > matching saved entries in the list under English to Spanish or Spanish to > English. If you double tap the listed item, you'll be taken back to the > iSpeak screen with both the original and translated text. However, unlike > iTranslate, you cannot group categories or favorites. Also, one annoying > feature that is particular to the iSpeak app used on the iPad (still under OS > 3.2.1 at this time), is that if you leave the app, any contents you typed > into the translation field are cleared off, so if you didn't "save" the > entry, you won't find be able to bring up your input again. This doesn't > seem to happen on the iPhone or iPod Touch, so maybe it's due to OS 3.2.1 and > the issue will go away under iOS 4.2. However, this problem isn't present > with iTranslate. Also, iSpeak hits the translation word limit faster than > iTranslate does, although I think they both use Google Translate. (It might > be total number of characters, but I hit this with a document that had 263 > words in iSpeak.) Another annoyance with the iSpeak app used on the iPad, if > you hit this limit, the app informs you that you've exceeded the limit, but > doesn't exit nicely as it does on the iPhone or iPod Touch. Instead, once > you dismiss the warning, it tries again to run the translation and goes into > an endless loop that requires you to exit the app. Of course, on the iPad if > you haven't saved a copy of the input text somewhere else, it's all lost. My > feeling is that this is likely to get sorted under iOS 4.2, either with the > release of the operating system or with a fix to the iSpeak app. > > I think that either of the above two apps would work as a translation app for > Brian. I'm using these apps mainly to get the language functions working for > my iPad until it finally gets the language rotor working in iOS 4.2. So the > translation apps are being pressed into service for things like reading > Russian and Chinese, and generating the non-Roman text. I can paste in text > excerpts much longer than can be translated, and use the voice to speak the > text. For actual reading text in other languages on the iPad, I'm using the > Speak It! text to speech app ($1.99 includes 4 English voices; $0.99 for each > other language voice) by FutureApps. Here's a link to an old archived post > that describes Speak It!: > http://www.mail-archive.com/macvisionaries%40googlegroups.com/msg19914.html > > Finally, I think that Dean might like to try Trippo Voice Translator Plus by > Cellictica. I'm not recommending this as Brian's translation app, because I > think the other two apps will be easier to use and operate more robustly for > his purposes. Trippo Voice Translator Plus is a free version of the Trippo > VoiceMagix app that I have. This app can use speech recognition from the > Nuance engine that Dragon Dictation employs to input the text to be > translated (you can also type or paste this in), and it has built-in text to > speech voices for French, Spanish, German, Italian, Dutch, Greek, > Portuguese, Polish, Russian, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Japanese, > Hindi, and Thai. It also supports text to text translations in languages that > the iPhone does not. However, the speech recognition only works for English > as an input language. Originally it was only released for the U.S. The > present version works with a free 14-day trial (for the text-to-speech use; > the text-to-text translation works indefinitely). I think you can purchase a > permanent license for $4.99 and if you want to use the speech recognition > feature on a long-term basis that costs $0.99 for an in-app purchase. It's > not as smooth to use as these other apps, and it requires an internet > connection for the translation, but it is using Cellictica's servers, I > think. This is not Google Translation. It's closer to the way that Jibiggo > works, but through a server connection and not bi-directional. The fields > are close to the way I originally described the app in the linked post: > > http://www.mail-archive.com/macvisionaries%40googlegroups.com/msg23454.html > (Trippo VoiceMagix -- new speech recognition and translation app for the > iPhone) > > But the screen has been slightly re-arranged. You can still double tap the > "BTN arrow show" button just above the home button to get information about > the "Help" (leftmost button) and the "Settings" (rightmost button) -- where > you can adjust voice rate and default use configuration. Read down the > thread of the archived linked post for more details. Mac users can use > Control+N to read the next post in the thread. For other browsers, use the > appropriate access key for the shortcut (e.g. Alt+N for Internet Explorer; > and Alt+Shift+N for Firefox, I think). The main points for Trippo Voice > Translator Plus are the wealth of text-to-speech voices and its coverage of > languages (and scripts) not normally supported on the iPhone, and the use of > speech recognition for input. It also is truly a different translation option > that Google translate. On the other hand, the interface is less polished > because this is a relatively new app. (This comment has nothing to do with > accessibility, but more with the user interface design. You can copy the > text, but there are no built in features to email, text message, tweet, or > otherwise save, etc.) > > HTH. Sorry to get sketchy on the Trippo Voice Translator Plus description, > but I'm running out of steam, and a lot of this was described in my older > linked post. Cheers, > > Esther > > On Nov 7, 2010, at 16:11, Dean Martineau wrote: > >> As I mentioned in the thread regarding Jibbigo, I would avoid this >> expensive app if your translation needs are at all serious. Here I >> will describe ITranslate - Spanish from Bizmosis, Inc, which can be >> used but has a few limitations. >> >> When you want to input a translation, the edit field does not come >> up. You have to turn VoiceOver off and tap in the lower half of the >> screen, then turn it back on. this invariably works. >> >> When the app translates a sentence, it closes, so you have to re- >> open it. >> >> the translation is not available in writing, only verbally. It is >> desirable to use an external QWERTY or braille keyboard here, as then >> you can easily turn speech off, then press the Hear Translation >> button. Otherwise, VoiceOver speech obscures the beginning of the >> translation as you try to silence it. the app supposedly will e-mail >> your translations to a designated mailbox, but it never did so in my >> tests. >> >> this app requires an Internet connection. It may simply run the >> sentence or phrase through the Google translation service, as in one >> test, the results of it and Google were identical. >> >> >> >> Brian Miller wrote: >>> Good evening all, >>> >>> A week or so ago I asked for recommendations for a app that does >>> English-Spanish translation, and someone recommended Jibbigo. I looked it >>> up and it indeed seems like an awesome app, but it is also $24.99. While I >>> might pick this up sometime, this is a pretty penny as apps go. >>> >>> Can anyone recommend something priced a little lower? >>> >>> Thanks, >>> >>> Brian Miller >> > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MacVisionaries" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en.
