subject:"RE\: Making everyone pay for voice dream"

I would’ve been willing to pay  Winston
Why he would’ve engaged with us.  He would’ve probably had a monthly option.  
This company doesn’t engage with us.  Sometimes they can’t even put out proper 
release notes.  
“bug fixes” what “bugs” did you fix?  They were called out on this more than 
once.
 
From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of Kerry 
Macdonald
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 2:57 PM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream
 
That’s true, however, Winston was very much engaged with the blind community 
and talked to us about what worked for us and what did not. These people are 
not engaged with us at all.
 
Subscription models are becoming way over the top, and these businesses are 
engaging in them due to greed nothing more. You can keep an app going without 
charging outrageous, yearly subscription fees Winston did it for 10 years, and 
yes, he may have had to charge subscription fees, but as I said, he was much 
more willing to work with us, and look at our needs as a community.
 
Kerry
 
Sent from my iPhone



On Mar 26, 2024, at 1:25 PM, Richard Turner mailto:richardr_tur...@comcast.net> > wrote:

Again, and this should be my last post on this topic, Winston was going to 
start charging because the one-time purchase model is simply not sustainable.  
 
So, you would be making the same charges against Winston had he not had the 
good sense to sell when he did.
 
 
 
Richard, USA
"It's no great honor to be blind, but it's more than a nuisance and less than a 
disaster. Either you're going to fight like hell when your sight fails or 
you're going to stand on the sidelines for the rest of your life." -- Dr. 
Margaret Rockwell Phanstiehl Founder of Audio Description (1932-2009)
 
My web site:  <https://www.turner42.com> https://www.turner42.com
 
From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
Dennis Long
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 9:37 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream
 
More over this company doesn’t keep their word.  They said when they took over. 
 That grandfathered  users wouldn’t have to pay. Again as others have said I 
would consider it.
 
From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
Corey Cook
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 12:23 PM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream
 
I have a friend that is a grandfathered user and she got an email this morning 
informing her as of May 1 she would have to pay.




On Mar 26, 2024, at 12:17 PM, llump...@austin.rr.com 
<mailto:llump...@austin.rr.com>  wrote:

It’s not clear to me where we older users are grandfathered into not paying or 
not.
 
 
From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
Feliciano Godoy
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 11:11 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream
 
Hi all,
It's unfortunate that this is a new subscription model for New users but I 
understand developers need to get paid for their work  for such app. 
Considering Voice Dream inclusiveness with Accessibility, it's worth supporting 
in my opinion if you use the app daily. They get continuous updates and the app 
is very robust. There are other apps that do similar   things like speech 
central and speechify.  
   I did a bit of research and this is what I found...
11 months ago
Hi all, Voice Dream Team here. Existing users should not be affected and will 
continue to have access to the app. We are migrating to a subscription model 
only for new users. If you have any issues please feel free to contact our 
support team.
1.   
 
 


 
<https://www.applevis.com/forum/ios-ipados/voice-dream-reader-ios-now-5999year> 
Voice Dream Reader for iOS is now $59.99/year
 
<https://www.applevis.com/forum/ios-ipados/voice-dream-reader-ios-now-5999year> 
applevis.com
 
<https://www.applevis.com/forum/ios-ipados/voice-dream-reader-ios-now-5999year> 

 
 
 
 From Voice Dream, Feliciano 
For tech tips and updates: 
LIKE www.facebook.com/theblindman12v <http://www.facebook.com/theblindman12v> 
Follow www.twitter.com/theblindman12v <http://www.twitter.com/theblindman12v> 
Follow www.instagram/TheBlindMan12v <http://www.instagram/TheBlindMan12v> 
those who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who 
do. -Steve Jobs 





On Mar 26, 2024, at 8:56 AM, Ron Canazzi mailto:aa...@roadrunner.com> > wrote:
Hi Group,

I  would be willing to pay up to twenty dollars yearly, but this is ridiculous. 
I could afford it, but it is still way too high for an app on an Ap

Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

2024-03-26 Thread Kerry Macdonald

That’s true, however, Winston was very much engaged with the blind community and talked to us about what worked for us and what did not. These people are not engaged with us at all.Subscription models are becoming way over the top, and these businesses are engaging in them due to greed nothing more. You can keep an app going without charging outrageous, yearly subscription fees Winston did it for 10 years, and yes, he may have had to charge subscription fees, but as I said, he was much more willing to work with us, and look at our needs as a community.KerrySent from my iPhoneOn Mar 26, 2024, at 1:25 PM, Richard Turner wrote:Again, and this should be my last post on this topic, Winston was going to start charging because the one-time purchase model is simply not sustainable. So, you would be making the same charges against Winston had he not had the good sense to sell when he did. Richard, USA"It's no great honor to be blind, but it's more than a nuisance and less than a disaster. Either you're going to fight like hell when your sight fails or you're going to stand on the sidelines for the rest of your life." -- Dr. Margaret Rockwell Phanstiehl Founder of Audio Description (1932-2009) My web site: https://www.turner42.com From: viphone@googlegroups.com On Behalf Of Dennis LongSent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 9:37 AMTo: viphone@googlegroups.comSubject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream More over this company doesn’t keep their word. They said when they took over. That grandfathered users wouldn’t have to pay. Again as others have said I would consider it. From: viphone@googlegroups.com <viphone@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Corey CookSent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 12:23 PMTo: viphone@googlegroups.comSubject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream I have a friend that is a grandfathered user and she got an email this morning informing her as of May 1 she would have to pay.On Mar 26, 2024, at 12:17 PM, llump...@austin.rr.com wrote:It’s not clear to me where we older users are grandfathered into not paying or not. From: viphone@googlegroups.com <viphone@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Feliciano GodoySent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 11:11 AMTo: viphone@googlegroups.comSubject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream Hi all,It's unfortunate that this is a new subscription model for New users but I understand developers need to get paid for their work for such app. Considering Voice Dream inclusiveness with Accessibility, it's worth supporting in my opinion if you use the app daily. They get continuous updates and the app is very robust. There are other apps that do similar things like speech central and speechify. I did a bit of research and this is what I found...11 months agoHi all, Voice Dream Team here. Existing users should not be affected and will continue to have access to the app. We are migrating to a subscription model only for new users. If you have any issues please feel free to contact our support team. Voice Dream Reader for iOS is now $59.99/yearapplevis.comFrom Voice Dream, Feliciano For tech tips and updates: LIKE www.facebook.com/theblindman12vFollow www.twitter.com/theblindman12vFollow www.instagram/TheBlindMan12vthose who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do. -Steve Jobs On Mar 26, 2024, at 8:56 AM, Ron Canazzi <aa...@roadrunner.com> wrote:Hi Group,I would be willing to pay up to twenty dollars yearly, but this is ridiculous. I could afford it, but it is still way too high for an app on an Apple device. As mentioned before, the average price of most apps usable with IOS devices is between five and ten dollars US. Allowing for the smaller market, I could easily pay double yearly, but not sextuplet!On 3/26/2024 3:49 AM, Dennis Long wrote:They aren't considering that a large number of blind people can't afford $60 a year. They aren't also considering that a large number of blind people aren't able to find jobs in the USA. More over if it were more reasonably priced maybe and it’s a big maybe. It would be a big maybe because the only reason they would lower the price is they terribly misjudged the market. -Original Message-From: viphone@googlegroups.com <viphone@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of regina alvaradoSent: Monday, March 25, 2024 4:17 PMTo: Viphone <viphone@googlegroups.com>Subject: Making everyone pay for voice dream Just received a message voice dream is going to cost 59 dollars a year now. A pet peeve of mine is everything requires a subscription. I see nothing in there reasons for this that affects me. So, nice I had it for so long. It was a wonderful app, but I am done with it. As with MBraille I was one of the first to buy it for I think 5 dollars. Makes me want to cry to lose it, but much more important places to put my money. On Social Security with a guide dog and so guess it goes away. Still want to cry after all the books from Bookshare it has read to me. Reggie Alv

RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

2024-03-26 Thread Corey Cook

They did grandfather old users, however now that timeframe is over. It is 
called a business decition

Corey Cook

-Original Message-
From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of Dennis 
Long
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 1:26 PM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

they did two things wrong 
1 they said current users would be grandfathered in that is not the case now. 
2  they didn't give a monthly option or have a lower price for just the iPhone 


Dennis Long
Sent from my iPhone 15  Pro Max

> On Mar 26, 2024, at 1:23 PM, Chris Chaffin  wrote:
> 
> 
> What I think is that originally the new owners thought that they would have 
> enough new subscribers to keep it going, and that is why they originally 
> stated that current owners did not have to subscribe.  But now that a year 
> has past, they did not get as many new subscribers as they planned, so in 
> order to keep it going, they are having to make everybody subscribe, even 
> those owners that existed when they bought the company.  
> 
> One thing to keep in mind is that the Mac version has always been a 
> subscription, and that price is $60 a year.  If I remember correctly, Winston 
> set that price when it was released.  All the owners are now doing is 
> including the iOS app within that subscription.  So now for $60, you get both 
> the iOS and Mac versions.
> 
> I do think Voice Dream is worth the subscription, especially if you are 
> someone that uses it all the time.  I will say that there has been a lot of 
> updates over the last year.  So the new owners are not just letting it sit 
> and stay as it was when they got it.  The only thing is, I do wish they would 
> give you an option to pay by the month.
> 
> Chris
> 
> 
>> On Mar 26, 2024, at 12:36 PM, Arnold Schmidt  wrote:
>> 
>> I agree that $60 a year is a bit much, but I think people are going to be 
>> surprised and disappointed at what they can get for alternatives. I admit 
>> that I have yet to try Dolphin Easy Reader and the Bookshare reader for 
>> myself, but reading the reviews are not encouraging. It is one thing if a 
>> few reviewers don't like an app,  another when only a few reviews say an app 
>> is good.  There just aren't that many daisy readers out there. I wish 
>> Bookshare would bring back the reader they had years ago. It was a good 
>> reader, for a time it actually was better than Voice Dream. But then, Voice 
>> Dream got better, I got it, and Bookshare dropped their reader of that time. 
>> Voice Dream does a lot of things really well.
>> 
>> Arnold Schmidt
>> 
>> Sent from  Arnold's  iPhone S E 3
>> 
>> On Mar 26, 2024, at 12:16 PM, llump...@austin.rr.com wrote:
>> 
>> They're going to switch to a subscription model for everyone and we either 
>> like it and pay or don't.
>> 
>> 
>> -Original Message-
>> From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of 
>> Dennis Long
>> Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 11:12 AM
>> To: viphone@googlegroups.com
>> Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream
>> 
>> I agree $20 I might go that.  Even that is a might.  I just don't use it 
>> enough.  I'm not against paying for apps.  I subscribe to weather apps and 
>> parcel.  So clearly I'm not against app subscriptions.  This is again is 
>> more than 50% of the cost of a screen reader.  That needs to be pointed out 
>> to them.  Again more than 50% of the cost of a screen reader.  That reads my 
>> computer screen to me and allows me to use my computer.  If the company 
>> thinks people will pay more than 50% of a screen reader subscription they 
>> truly are nuts.
>> 
>> -Original Message-
>> From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of Ron 
>> Canazzi
>> Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 11:57 AM
>> To: viphone@googlegroups.com
>> Subject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream
>> 
>> Hi Group,
>> 
>> I  would be willing to pay up to twenty dollars yearly, but this is 
>> ridiculous. I could afford it, but it is still way too high for an app on an 
>> Apple device. As mentioned before, the average price of most apps usable 
>> with IOS devices is between five and ten dollars US.  Allowing for the 
>> smaller market, I could easily pay double yearly, but not sextuplet!
>> 
>> 
>>>> On 3/26/2024 3:49 AM, Dennis Long wrote:
>>> They aren't considering that a large number of blind people can't afford 
>>> $60 a year.  They aren't also considering that a large number of blind 
>>> people aren't able to find jobs in the USA.More over if it were more 
>>> reasonabl

RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

Hi Chris, I agree with you, I wish there was a monthly subscription, for now, 
that's my single and only  pet peeve!

Cheers,
Leo Bado.

I have found both freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, 
for those who understand us enslave something in us.
Khalil Gibran.

-Original Message-
From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of Chris 
Chaffin
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 11:24 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream


What I think is that originally the new owners thought that they would have 
enough new subscribers to keep it going, and that is why they originally stated 
that current owners did not have to subscribe.  But now that a year has past, 
they did not get as many new subscribers as they planned, so in order to keep 
it going, they are having to make everybody subscribe, even those owners that 
existed when they bought the company.  

One thing to keep in mind is that the Mac version has always been a 
subscription, and that price is $60 a year.  If I remember correctly, Winston 
set that price when it was released.  All the owners are now doing is including 
the iOS app within that subscription.  So now for $60, you get both the iOS and 
Mac versions.

I do think Voice Dream is worth the subscription, especially if you are someone 
that uses it all the time.  I will say that there has been a lot of updates 
over the last year.  So the new owners are not just letting it sit and stay as 
it was when they got it.  The only thing is, I do wish they would give you an 
option to pay by the month.

Chris


> On Mar 26, 2024, at 12:36 PM, Arnold Schmidt  wrote:
> 
> I agree that $60 a year is a bit much, but I think people are going to be 
> surprised and disappointed at what they can get for alternatives. I admit 
> that I have yet to try Dolphin Easy Reader and the Bookshare reader for 
> myself, but reading the reviews are not encouraging. It is one thing if a few 
> reviewers don't like an app,  another when only a few reviews say an app is 
> good.  There just aren't that many daisy readers out there. I wish Bookshare 
> would bring back the reader they had years ago. It was a good reader, for a 
> time it actually was better than Voice Dream. But then, Voice Dream got 
> better, I got it, and Bookshare dropped their reader of that time. Voice 
> Dream does a lot of things really well.
> 
> Arnold Schmidt
> 
> Sent from  Arnold's  iPhone S E 3
> 
> On Mar 26, 2024, at 12:16 PM, llump...@austin.rr.com wrote:
> 
> They're going to switch to a subscription model for everyone and we either 
> like it and pay or don't.
> 
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of Dennis 
> Long
> Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 11:12 AM
> To: viphone@googlegroups.com
> Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream
> 
> I agree $20 I might go that.  Even that is a might.  I just don't use it 
> enough.  I'm not against paying for apps.  I subscribe to weather apps and 
> parcel.  So clearly I'm not against app subscriptions.  This is again is more 
> than 50% of the cost of a screen reader.  That needs to be pointed out to 
> them.  Again more than 50% of the cost of a screen reader.  That reads my 
> computer screen to me and allows me to use my computer.  If the company 
> thinks people will pay more than 50% of a screen reader subscription they 
> truly are nuts.
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of Ron 
> Canazzi
> Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 11:57 AM
> To: viphone@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream
> 
> Hi Group,
> 
> I  would be willing to pay up to twenty dollars yearly, but this is 
> ridiculous. I could afford it, but it is still way too high for an app on an 
> Apple device. As mentioned before, the average price of most apps usable with 
> IOS devices is between five and ten dollars US.  Allowing for the smaller 
> market, I could easily pay double yearly, but not sextuplet!
> 
> 
>> On 3/26/2024 3:49 AM, Dennis Long wrote:
>> They aren't considering that a large number of blind people can't afford $60 
>> a year.  They aren't also considering that a large number of blind people 
>> aren't able to find jobs in the USA.More over if it were more reasonably 
>> priced maybe and it’s a big maybe.  It would be a big maybe because the only 
>> reason they would lower the price is they terribly misjudged the market.
>> 
>> -Original Message-
>> From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of
>> regina alvarado
>> Sent: Monday, March 25, 2024 4:17 PM
>> To: Viphone 
>> Subject: Making everyone pay for voice dream
>> 
>> Just received a message voice dream is going to cost

Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

they did two things wrong 
1 they said current users would be grandfathered in that is not the case now. 
2  they didn't give a monthly option or have a lower price for just the iPhone 


Dennis Long
Sent from my iPhone 15  Pro Max

> On Mar 26, 2024, at 1:23 PM, Chris Chaffin  wrote:
> 
> 
> What I think is that originally the new owners thought that they would have 
> enough new subscribers to keep it going, and that is why they originally 
> stated that current owners did not have to subscribe.  But now that a year 
> has past, they did not get as many new subscribers as they planned, so in 
> order to keep it going, they are having to make everybody subscribe, even 
> those owners that existed when they bought the company.  
> 
> One thing to keep in mind is that the Mac version has always been a 
> subscription, and that price is $60 a year.  If I remember correctly, Winston 
> set that price when it was released.  All the owners are now doing is 
> including the iOS app within that subscription.  So now for $60, you get both 
> the iOS and Mac versions.
> 
> I do think Voice Dream is worth the subscription, especially if you are 
> someone that uses it all the time.  I will say that there has been a lot of 
> updates over the last year.  So the new owners are not just letting it sit 
> and stay as it was when they got it.  The only thing is, I do wish they would 
> give you an option to pay by the month.
> 
> Chris
> 
> 
>> On Mar 26, 2024, at 12:36 PM, Arnold Schmidt  wrote:
>> 
>> I agree that $60 a year is a bit much, but I think people are going to be 
>> surprised and disappointed at what they can get for alternatives. I admit 
>> that I have yet to try Dolphin Easy Reader and the Bookshare reader for 
>> myself, but reading the reviews are not encouraging. It is one thing if a 
>> few reviewers don't like an app,  another when only a few reviews say an app 
>> is good.  There just aren't that many daisy readers out there. I wish 
>> Bookshare would bring back the reader they had years ago. It was a good 
>> reader, for a time it actually was better than Voice Dream. But then, Voice 
>> Dream got better, I got it, and Bookshare dropped their reader of that time. 
>> Voice Dream does a lot of things really well.
>> 
>> Arnold Schmidt
>> 
>> Sent from  Arnold's  iPhone S E 3
>> 
>> On Mar 26, 2024, at 12:16 PM, llump...@austin.rr.com wrote:
>> 
>> They're going to switch to a subscription model for everyone and we either 
>> like it and pay or don't.
>> 
>> 
>> -Original Message-
>> From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of 
>> Dennis Long
>> Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 11:12 AM
>> To: viphone@googlegroups.com
>> Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream
>> 
>> I agree $20 I might go that.  Even that is a might.  I just don't use it 
>> enough.  I'm not against paying for apps.  I subscribe to weather apps and 
>> parcel.  So clearly I'm not against app subscriptions.  This is again is 
>> more than 50% of the cost of a screen reader.  That needs to be pointed out 
>> to them.  Again more than 50% of the cost of a screen reader.  That reads my 
>> computer screen to me and allows me to use my computer.  If the company 
>> thinks people will pay more than 50% of a screen reader subscription they 
>> truly are nuts.
>> 
>> -Original Message-
>> From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of Ron 
>> Canazzi
>> Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 11:57 AM
>> To: viphone@googlegroups.com
>> Subject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream
>> 
>> Hi Group,
>> 
>> I  would be willing to pay up to twenty dollars yearly, but this is 
>> ridiculous. I could afford it, but it is still way too high for an app on an 
>> Apple device. As mentioned before, the average price of most apps usable 
>> with IOS devices is between five and ten dollars US.  Allowing for the 
>> smaller market, I could easily pay double yearly, but not sextuplet!
>> 
>> 
>>>> On 3/26/2024 3:49 AM, Dennis Long wrote:
>>> They aren't considering that a large number of blind people can't afford 
>>> $60 a year.  They aren't also considering that a large number of blind 
>>> people aren't able to find jobs in the USA.More over if it were more 
>>> reasonably priced maybe and it’s a big maybe.  It would be a big maybe 
>>> because the only reason they would lower the price is they terribly 
>>> misjudged the market.
>>> 
>>> -Original Message-
>>> From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of
>>> regina a

RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

Again, and this should be my last post on this topic, Winston was going to 
start charging because the one-time purchase model is simply not sustainable.  

 

So, you would be making the same charges against Winston had he not had the 
good sense to sell when he did.

 

 

 

Richard, USA

"It's no great honor to be blind, but it's more than a nuisance and less than a 
disaster. Either you're going to fight like hell when your sight fails or 
you're going to stand on the sidelines for the rest of your life." -- Dr. 
Margaret Rockwell Phanstiehl Founder of Audio Description (1932-2009)

 

My web site:  <https://www.turner42.com> https://www.turner42.com

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of Dennis 
Long
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 9:37 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

 

More over this company doesn’t keep their word.  They said when they took over. 
 That grandfathered  users wouldn’t have to pay. Again as others have said I 
would consider it.

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
Corey Cook
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 12:23 PM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

 

I have a friend that is a grandfathered user and she got an email this morning 
informing her as of May 1 she would have to pay.





On Mar 26, 2024, at 12:17 PM, llump...@austin.rr.com 
<mailto:llump...@austin.rr.com>  wrote:



It’s not clear to me where we older users are grandfathered into not paying or 
not.

 

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
Feliciano Godoy
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 11:11 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

 

Hi all,

It's unfortunate that this is a new subscription model for New users but I 
understand developers need to get paid for their work  for such app. 
Considering Voice Dream inclusiveness with Accessibility, it's worth supporting 
in my opinion if you use the app daily. They get continuous updates and the app 
is very robust. There are other apps that do similar   things like speech 
central and speechify.  

   I did a bit of research and this is what I found...

11 months ago

Hi all, Voice Dream Team here. Existing users should not be affected and will 
continue to have access to the app. We are migrating to a subscription model 
only for new users. If you have any issues please feel free to contact our 
support team.

1.   

 

 



 
<https://www.applevis.com/forum/ios-ipados/voice-dream-reader-ios-now-5999year> 
Voice Dream Reader for iOS is now $59.99/year

 
<https://www.applevis.com/forum/ios-ipados/voice-dream-reader-ios-now-5999year> 
applevis.com

 
<https://www.applevis.com/forum/ios-ipados/voice-dream-reader-ios-now-5999year> 


 

 

 

 From Voice Dream, Feliciano 

For tech tips and updates: 

LIKE www.facebook.com/theblindman12v <http://www.facebook.com/theblindman12v> 

Follow www.twitter.com/theblindman12v <http://www.twitter.com/theblindman12v> 

Follow www.instagram/TheBlindMan12v <http://www.instagram/TheBlindMan12v> 

those who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who 
do. -Steve Jobs 






On Mar 26, 2024, at 8:56 AM, Ron Canazzi mailto:aa...@roadrunner.com> > wrote:

Hi Group,

I  would be willing to pay up to twenty dollars yearly, but this is ridiculous. 
I could afford it, but it is still way too high for an app on an Apple device. 
As mentioned before, the average price of most apps usable with IOS devices is 
between five and ten dollars US.  Allowing for the smaller market, I could 
easily pay double yearly, but not sextuplet!


On 3/26/2024 3:49 AM, Dennis Long wrote:




They aren't considering that a large number of blind people can't afford $60 a 
year.  They aren't also considering that a large number of blind people aren't 
able to find jobs in the USA.More over if it were more reasonably priced 
maybe and it’s a big maybe.  It would be a big maybe because the only reason 
they would lower the price is they terribly misjudged the market.

 

-Original Message-

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
regina alvarado

Sent: Monday, March 25, 2024 4:17 PM

To: Viphone mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> >

Subject: Making everyone pay for voice dream

 

Just received a message voice dream is going to cost 59 dollars a year now. A 
pet peeve of mine is everything requires a subscription. I see nothing in there 
reasons for this that affects me. So, nice I had it for so long. It was a 
wonderful app, but I am done with it. As with MBraille I w

Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

2024-03-26 Thread Chris Chaffin



What I think is that originally the new owners thought that they would have 
enough new subscribers to keep it going, and that is why they originally stated 
that current owners did not have to subscribe.  But now that a year has past, 
they did not get as many new subscribers as they planned, so in order to keep 
it going, they are having to make everybody subscribe, even those owners that 
existed when they bought the company.  

One thing to keep in mind is that the Mac version has always been a 
subscription, and that price is $60 a year.  If I remember correctly, Winston 
set that price when it was released.  All the owners are now doing is including 
the iOS app within that subscription.  So now for $60, you get both the iOS and 
Mac versions.

I do think Voice Dream is worth the subscription, especially if you are someone 
that uses it all the time.  I will say that there has been a lot of updates 
over the last year.  So the new owners are not just letting it sit and stay as 
it was when they got it.  The only thing is, I do wish they would give you an 
option to pay by the month.

Chris


> On Mar 26, 2024, at 12:36 PM, Arnold Schmidt  wrote:
> 
> I agree that $60 a year is a bit much, but I think people are going to be 
> surprised and disappointed at what they can get for alternatives. I admit 
> that I have yet to try Dolphin Easy Reader and the Bookshare reader for 
> myself, but reading the reviews are not encouraging. It is one thing if a few 
> reviewers don't like an app,  another when only a few reviews say an app is 
> good.  There just aren't that many daisy readers out there. I wish Bookshare 
> would bring back the reader they had years ago. It was a good reader, for a 
> time it actually was better than Voice Dream. But then, Voice Dream got 
> better, I got it, and Bookshare dropped their reader of that time. Voice 
> Dream does a lot of things really well.
> 
> Arnold Schmidt
> 
> Sent from  Arnold's  iPhone S E 3
> 
> On Mar 26, 2024, at 12:16 PM, llump...@austin.rr.com wrote:
> 
> They're going to switch to a subscription model for everyone and we either 
> like it and pay or don't.
> 
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of Dennis 
> Long
> Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 11:12 AM
> To: viphone@googlegroups.com
> Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream
> 
> I agree $20 I might go that.  Even that is a might.  I just don't use it 
> enough.  I'm not against paying for apps.  I subscribe to weather apps and 
> parcel.  So clearly I'm not against app subscriptions.  This is again is more 
> than 50% of the cost of a screen reader.  That needs to be pointed out to 
> them.  Again more than 50% of the cost of a screen reader.  That reads my 
> computer screen to me and allows me to use my computer.  If the company 
> thinks people will pay more than 50% of a screen reader subscription they 
> truly are nuts.
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of Ron 
> Canazzi
> Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 11:57 AM
> To: viphone@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream
> 
> Hi Group,
> 
> I  would be willing to pay up to twenty dollars yearly, but this is 
> ridiculous. I could afford it, but it is still way too high for an app on an 
> Apple device. As mentioned before, the average price of most apps usable with 
> IOS devices is between five and ten dollars US.  Allowing for the smaller 
> market, I could easily pay double yearly, but not sextuplet!
> 
> 
>> On 3/26/2024 3:49 AM, Dennis Long wrote:
>> They aren't considering that a large number of blind people can't afford $60 
>> a year.  They aren't also considering that a large number of blind people 
>> aren't able to find jobs in the USA.More over if it were more reasonably 
>> priced maybe and it’s a big maybe.  It would be a big maybe because the only 
>> reason they would lower the price is they terribly misjudged the market.
>> 
>> -Original Message-
>> From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of
>> regina alvarado
>> Sent: Monday, March 25, 2024 4:17 PM
>> To: Viphone 
>> Subject: Making everyone pay for voice dream
>> 
>> Just received a message voice dream is going to cost 59 dollars a year now. 
>> A pet peeve of mine is everything requires a subscription. I see nothing in 
>> there reasons for this that affects me. So, nice I had it for so long. It 
>> was a wonderful app, but I am done with it. As with MBraille I was one of 
>> the first to buy it for I think 5 dollars. Makes me want to cry to lose it, 
>> but much more important places to put my money. On Social Security with a 
>> guide dog and so guess it goes aw

RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream, a blog post from Winston Chen ...

2024-03-26 Thread Corey Cook

The same people complaining about this, will most likely get dinner using Uber 
eats tonight.

 

 

Corey Cook

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of 
k...@axistech.net
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 12:09 PM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream, a blog post from Winston Chen 
...

 

Hi Richard,

 

I saw that after I  wrote my message but I stick by what I said. Some people 
have no idea what it takes to develop and maintain an app. And, because of this 
small market it often costs more than an app for the general market. And I 
wonder how many of the folks complaining about what boils down to $5 per month 
spend that much on a cup of coffee or a burger.

 

Karl

 

 

Karl

 

 

 

__

 

Karl Smith, Access Technology Consultant

Axis

4304 South El Camino St.

Taylorsville, Utah 84129

 

Phone: 801-652-5285

E-mail: k...@axistech.net

Alternate E-mail: karl.axist...@gmail.com

 

Twitter http://twitter.com/axistech

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of Richard 
Turner
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 9:46 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream, a blog post from Winston Chen 
...

 

Rl,

I have nothing to do with the company.

I am just a long time supporter and previously a beta tester for Winston back 
in the early days.

 

 

 

Richard, USA

"It's no great honor to be blind, but it's more than a nuisance and less than a 
disaster. Either you're going to fight like hell when your sight fails or 
you're going to stand on the sidelines for the rest of your life." -- Dr. 
Margaret Rockwell Phanstiehl Founder of Audio Description (1932-2009)

 

My web site:  <https://www.turner42.com> https://www.turner42.com

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
k...@axistech.net <mailto:k...@axistech.net> 
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 8:18 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream, a blog post from Winston Chen 
...

 

Hello Richard,

 

This message is very much appreciated and completely understandable. 
Unfortunately in the free or low cost app world we often forget what it takes 
to keep them going. Clearly your company is small and hasn’t large amounts of 
resources to keep basically giving away such a valuable program. Thank you for 
your straight forward honesty.

 

Karl

 

 

 

__

 

Karl Smith, Access Technology Consultant

Axis

4304 South El Camino St.

Taylorsville, Utah 84129

 

Phone: 801-652-5285

E-mail: k...@axistech.net <mailto:k...@axistech.net> 

Alternate E-mail: karl.axist...@gmail.com <mailto:karl.axist...@gmail.com> 

 

Twitter http://twitter.com/axistech

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
Richard Turner
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 9:08 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream, a blog post from Winston Chen 
...

 

This decision to make Reader for macOS a subscription was not an easy one: I 
agonized over it for the past two years, because I know a lot of people do not 
like subscriptions. And some of you who are excited about this new app will be 
disappointed. I get it.

 

So, why go with the subscription model? The short answer is, Voice Dream as a 
company is not sustainable right now, and subscriptions are the only way for 
Voice Dream to become sustainable.

 

When I started Voice Dream 10 years ago, I set out to accomplish three goals: 
1) do something good for the world; 2) have autonomy and freedom; and 3) earn 
enough money to live comfortably. With some hard work (and quite a bit of 
luck), I succeeded. Voice Dream helps people with visual impairments and 
dyslexia read and has won many awards, so I think my work has made a positive 
impact; I did not take any outside investment, so I only have to answer to 
myself; and my total income from Voice Dream is about what I would make if I 
joined Google or Facebook as a software engineer. By any reasonable standard, 
it provides my family with a comfortable living.

 

So why change anything? When COVID started, my wife and I finally wrote our 
wills. And contemplating a premature death made me realize that Voice Dream – 
in its present form – would not survive for long if I become incapacitated or 
worse. It would wither away: one day something will break, and then another and 
another, and at some point it will stop working altogether. Why? Because it’s 
my personal passion project. I wrote all the code and no one else in the world 
knows it.

 

I vividly remember an incident several years ago. It was a weekend and I was 
away from home without my laptop. When I checked email on my phone, there were 
hundreds of new message

RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

More over this company doesn’t keep their word.  They said when they took over. 
 That grandfathered  users wouldn’t have to pay. Again as others have said I 
would consider it.

From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of Corey 
Cook
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 12:23 PM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

I have a friend that is a grandfathered user and she got an email this morning 
informing her as of May 1 she would have to pay.

On Mar 26, 2024, at 12:17 PM, llump...@austin.rr.com 
<mailto:llump...@austin.rr.com>  wrote:

It’s not clear to me where we older users are grandfathered into not paying or 
not.

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
Feliciano Godoy
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 11:11 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

Hi all,
It's unfortunate that this is a new subscription model for New users but I 
understand developers need to get paid for their work  for such app. 
Considering Voice Dream inclusiveness with Accessibility, it's worth supporting 
in my opinion if you use the app daily. They get continuous updates and the app 
is very robust. There are other apps that do similar   things like speech 
central and speechify.  
   I did a bit of research and this is what I found...
11 months ago
Hi all, Voice Dream Team here. Existing users should not be affected and will 
continue to have access to the app. We are migrating to a subscription model 
only for new users. If you have any issues please feel free to contact our 
support team.
1.   

<https://www.applevis.com/forum/ios-ipados/voice-dream-reader-ios-now-5999year> 
Voice Dream Reader for iOS is now $59.99/year

<https://www.applevis.com/forum/ios-ipados/voice-dream-reader-ios-now-5999year> 
applevis.com

<https://www.applevis.com/forum/ios-ipados/voice-dream-reader-ios-now-5999year> 

<https://www.applevis.com/forum/ios-ipados/voice-dream-reader-ios-now-5999year> 

 From Voice Dream, Feliciano 
For tech tips and updates: 
LIKE www.facebook.com/theblindman12v <http://www.facebook.com/theblindman12v> 
Follow www.twitter.com/theblindman12v <http://www.twitter.com/theblindman12v> 
Follow www.instagram/TheBlindMan12v <http://www.instagram/TheBlindMan12v> 
those who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who 
do. -Steve Jobs 

On Mar 26, 2024, at 8:56 AM, Ron Canazzi mailto:aa...@roadrunner.com> > wrote:
Hi Group,

I  would be willing to pay up to twenty dollars yearly, but this is ridiculous. 
I could afford it, but it is still way too high for an app on an Apple device. 
As mentioned before, the average price of most apps usable with IOS devices is 
between five and ten dollars US.  Allowing for the smaller market, I could 
easily pay double yearly, but not sextuplet!

On 3/26/2024 3:49 AM, Dennis Long wrote:

They aren't considering that a large number of blind people can't afford $60 a 
year.  They aren't also considering that a large number of blind people aren't 
able to find jobs in the USA.More over if it were more reasonably priced 
maybe and it’s a big maybe.  It would be a big maybe because the only reason 
they would lower the price is they terribly misjudged the market.

-Original Message-
From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
regina alvarado
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2024 4:17 PM
To: Viphone mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> >
Subject: Making everyone pay for voice dream

Just received a message voice dream is going to cost 59 dollars a year now. A 
pet peeve of mine is everything requires a subscription. I see nothing in there 
reasons for this that affects me. So, nice I had it for so long. It was a 
wonderful app, but I am done with it. As with MBraille I was one of the first 
to buy it for I think 5 dollars. Makes me want to cry to lose it, but much more 
important places to put my money. On Social Security with a guide dog and so 
guess it goes away. Still want to cry after all the books from Bookshare it has 
read to me.

Reggie Alvarado

-- 
Signature:
For a nation to admit it has done grievous wrongs and will strive to correct 
them for the betterment of all is no vice;
For a nation to claim it has always been great, needs no improvement  and to 
cling to its past achievements is no virtue!

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Your V iPhone list moderator is Mark Taylor.  Mark can be reached at:  
mk...@ucla.ed

Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

2024-03-26 Thread Arnold Schmidt

I agree that $60 a year is a bit much, but I think people are going to be 
surprised and disappointed at what they can get for alternatives. I admit that 
I have yet to try Dolphin Easy Reader and the Bookshare reader for myself, but 
reading the reviews are not encouraging. It is one thing if a few reviewers 
don't like an app,  another when only a few reviews say an app is good.  There 
just aren't that many daisy readers out there. I wish Bookshare would bring 
back the reader they had years ago. It was a good reader, for a time it 
actually was better than Voice Dream. But then, Voice Dream got better, I got 
it, and Bookshare dropped their reader of that time. Voice Dream does a lot of 
things really well. 

Arnold Schmidt 

Sent from  Arnold's  iPhone S E 3

On Mar 26, 2024, at 12:16 PM, llump...@austin.rr.com wrote:

They're going to switch to a subscription model for everyone and we either 
like it and pay or don't.

-Original Message-
From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of Dennis 
Long
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 11:12 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

I agree $20 I might go that.  Even that is a might.  I just don't use it 
enough.  I'm not against paying for apps.  I subscribe to weather apps and 
parcel.  So clearly I'm not against app subscriptions.  This is again is more 
than 50% of the cost of a screen reader.  That needs to be pointed out to them. 
 Again more than 50% of the cost of a screen reader.  That reads my computer 
screen to me and allows me to use my computer.  If the company thinks people 
will pay more than 50% of a screen reader subscription they truly are nuts.

-Original Message-
From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of Ron 
Canazzi
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 11:57 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

Hi Group,

I  would be willing to pay up to twenty dollars yearly, but this is ridiculous. 
I could afford it, but it is still way too high for an app on an Apple device. 
As mentioned before, the average price of most apps usable with IOS devices is 
between five and ten dollars US.  Allowing for the smaller market, I could 
easily pay double yearly, but not sextuplet!

On 3/26/2024 3:49 AM, Dennis Long wrote:
> They aren't considering that a large number of blind people can't afford $60 
> a year.  They aren't also considering that a large number of blind people 
> aren't able to find jobs in the USA.More over if it were more reasonably 
> priced maybe and it’s a big maybe.  It would be a big maybe because the only 
> reason they would lower the price is they terribly misjudged the market.
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of
> regina alvarado
> Sent: Monday, March 25, 2024 4:17 PM
> To: Viphone 
> Subject: Making everyone pay for voice dream
> 
> Just received a message voice dream is going to cost 59 dollars a year now. A 
> pet peeve of mine is everything requires a subscription. I see nothing in 
> there reasons for this that affects me. So, nice I had it for so long. It was 
> a wonderful app, but I am done with it. As with MBraille I was one of the 
> first to buy it for I think 5 dollars. Makes me want to cry to lose it, but 
> much more important places to put my money. On Social Security with a guide 
> dog and so guess it goes away. Still want to cry after all the books from 
> Bookshare it has read to me.
> 
> Reggie Alvarado
> 

--
Signature:
For a nation to admit it has done grievous wrongs and will strive to correct 
them for the betterment of all is no vice; For a nation to claim it has always 
been great, needs no improvement  and to cling to its past achievements is no 
virtue!

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Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream, a blog post from Winston Chen ...

2024-03-26 Thread Robert Doc Wright

I agree. It helps me a lot in my teaching.
  - Original Message - 
  From: k...@axistech.net
  To: viphone@googlegroups.com
  Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 9:18 AM
  Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream, a blog post from Winston 
Chen ...

  Hello Richard,

  This message is very much appreciated and completely understandable. 
Unfortunately in the free or low cost app world we often forget what it 
takes to keep them going. Clearly your company is small and hasn’t large 
amounts of resources to keep basically giving away such a valuable program. 
Thank you for your straight forward honesty.

  Karl

  __

  Karl Smith, Access Technology Consultant

  Axis

  4304 South El Camino St.

  Taylorsville, Utah 84129

  Phone: 801-652-5285

  E-mail: k...@axistech.net

  Alternate E-mail: karl.axist...@gmail.com

  Twitter http://twitter.com/axistech

  From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of 
Richard Turner
  Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 9:08 AM
  To: viphone@googlegroups.com
  Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream, a blog post from Winston 
Chen ...

  This decision to make Reader for macOS a subscription was not an easy one: 
I agonized over it for the past two years, because I know a lot of people do 
not like subscriptions. And some of you who are excited about this new app 
will be disappointed. I get it.

  So, why go with the subscription model? The short answer is, Voice Dream 
as a company is not sustainable right now, and subscriptions are the only 
way for Voice Dream to become sustainable.

  When I started Voice Dream 10 years ago, I set out to accomplish three 
goals: 1) do something good for the world; 2) have autonomy and freedom; and 
3) earn enough money to live comfortably. With some hard work (and quite a 
bit of luck), I succeeded. Voice Dream helps people with visual impairments 
and dyslexia read and has won many awards, so I think my work has made a 
positive impact; I did not take any outside investment, so I only have to 
answer to myself; and my total income from Voice Dream is about what I would 
make if I joined Google or Facebook as a software engineer. By any 
reasonable standard, it provides my family with a comfortable living.

  So why change anything? When COVID started, my wife and I finally wrote 
our wills. And contemplating a premature death made me realize that Voice 
Dream – in its present form – would not survive for long if I become 
incapacitated or worse. It would wither away: one day something will break, 
and then another and another, and at some point it will stop working 
altogether. Why? Because it’s my personal passion project. I wrote all the 
code and no one else in the world knows it.

  I vividly remember an incident several years ago. It was a weekend and I 
was away from home without my laptop. When I checked email on my phone, 
there were hundreds of new messages, with new emails coming in every few 
seconds. PDF files had stopped loading – for everyone. Many students wrote 
that they had exams or assignments, and without Voice Dream they couldn’t 
study. I caught the next flight home. Through that abjectly horrifying 
experience, I learned to never be apart from my laptop. But more 
importantly, it reinforced for me how much people actually rely on Voice 
Dream. For many, it’s not just a handy app that makes some things easier but 
an essential part of life.

  So in addition to my three initial goals, I gave myself a fourth goal: 
make sure Voice Dream can operate without me, and survive me. In other 
words, make Voice Dream sustainable.

  How do I do that? Voice Dream needs more people in addition to me and 
Sandra, who does customer support. It needs programmers. It needs a CEO who 
can manage the overall business and products. It needs marketing. It needs a 
board of directors. This is the minimum staffing level to make the company 
operate sustainably. But today, Voice Dream doesn’t generate nearly enough 
revenue to pay for even a skeletal crew.

  Why not? It comes down to simple economics.

  An initial, one-time fee, even $20, is not enough to fund maintenance for 
a productivity app that users expect to work indefinitely. Software is not 
like a hammer or a printed book — it functions in a complex and 
ever-changing environment of hardware, software, and external services. And 
over the past 10 years, that environment has become more complex and 
brittle, and it’s changing more frequently. Last year, I spent more than 50% 
of my time just to maintain the status-quo, without adding new features: 
dealing with OS and framework changes, new hardware devices, new App Store 
requirements, fixing newly discovered bugs, and working around bugs outside 
of my code. $20 is not enough to fund maintenance forever, let alone adding 
new features.

  Another problem with the one-time-fee business model is that revenue is 
unpredictable because it comes entirely from new

RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

It is very, very simple.  Don’t subscribe.

If your income depended on this and you needed to help support a staff, you may 
feel differently.

 

IN any case, I’m going to stop reading this topic because it will now be 
nothing but repetition of things already said.  And if anyone hopes to make a 
difference, writing the company will be more useful than cluttering the list.

 

 

 

 

Richard, USA

"It's no great honor to be blind, but it's more than a nuisance and less than a 
disaster. Either you're going to fight like hell when your sight fails or 
you're going to stand on the sidelines for the rest of your life." -- Dr. 
Margaret Rockwell Phanstiehl Founder of Audio Description (1932-2009)

 

My web site:  <https://www.turner42.com> https://www.turner42.com

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of Dennis 
Long
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 9:05 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

 

I agree if it were $10 or $20 a year I might think about it.  but $60 again 
more than 50% the cost of my screen reader I think not.  I told them so.

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
regina alvarado
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 10:52 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

 

I buy books share because I can download a lot of books in a year. This is just 
a standalone reading tool. It’s wonderful app but it’s just an app. I just 
think that $59 a year for an app that you just listen to books on is way too 
much. I will use some other way to read I do plan on contacting Support and 
thank you for the address. I will tell them that it’s just too bad that I 
bought it once and now I have to pay that subscription. They sounded so sad 
that they had to make that decision in the email and yet they made the decision 
even though it was bought earlier. The changes they made just didn’t add up to 
much, just my opinion. 
On Mar 26, 2024, at 10:34 AM, Jody ianuzzi mailto:thunderwalker...@gmail.com> > wrote:



Hi Carrie,

 

I agree with you completely and I'll send a message as well. I have no 
intention of paying their fee and I will simply find another book reader.

JODY





To Boldly Go   









thunderwalker...@gmail.com <mailto:thunderwalker...@gmail.com>  





"What's within you is stronger than what's in your way."  NO BARRIERS  Erik 
Weihenmayer





On Mar 26, 2024, at 10:25 AM, Kerry Macdonald mailto:kerryma...@gmail.com> > wrote:

Although I love Voice Dream, I think this is an outrage and simply greed on 
the developers part. Yes, I know developers need to eat, but I think they are 
just jumping on this subscription bandwagon that everyone has been doing these 
days which I feel is a very greedy way to do business. Those of us who 
purchased it already should not have to purchase it again in my opinion. We 
need to stand together and make our voices hurt, everyone should send them an 
email and express their opinion, I have done so, who is with me and will email 
them? That is the only way to get things done is to make our voices heard.

 

 

Kerry

 

Sent from my iPhone





On Mar 26, 2024, at 12:44 AM, Gerardo Corripio mailto:gera1...@gmail.com> > wrote:

Here in Mexico, $60 is almost a thousand Mexican pesos! Yeah I know... you can 
divide 1000 per month, which would be around 150 or so, but if you've already 
bought the app once...

I know maybe Dolphin Easy Reader might not have the different voices or 
Audiobook slaying abilities, but it's free.

Gera

Enviado desde mi iPhone SE (2nd Generation) de Telcel





El 25 mar 2024, a la(s) 10:11 p.m., Joshua Hendrickson mailto:louv...@gmail.com> > escribió:

I can’t believe all this negative talk about not wanting to pay $60 per year 
for voice dream reader. For me, it is one of the best apps out there for 
reading both ebooks and audio content. I’ll tell you all some of the recent 
changes the new owners have done for us all. They have recently allowed audio 
files in M4a format to  properly. When you want to change a reading voice for a 
bookshare book, you now have a search option  quickly find the voice you want. 
You also don’t have to pay for these voices either. You did have to pay around 
$5 per voice before. So please stop complaining and pay the $60 per year if you 
can. If people pay the money, think of how much better the app will be. I’ve 
pcht a lot of time into putting audio books and audio dramas on voice dream 
reader with iTunes to not pay the $60 price. When we found out that voice dream 
reader might be charging a subscripttion fee this shouldn’t be a surprise !o 
anyone. So please if you can, pay the $60!!!

Sent from My totally awesome iPhone!!





On Mar 25, 2024, at 10:01 PM, Mary Otten mailto:motte...@gmail.com> > wrote:

Thanks f

Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

2024-03-26 Thread Mary Otten

So save yourself some money Dennis and start using NVDA. It works. Been using it for years, and I do pay them something every month because developers do have to eat. Freedom scientific? Been there done that way too complicated for me.Sent from my iPhoneOn Mar 26, 2024, at 12:53 AM, Dennis Long wrote:I hope it gets boycotted. Again its more then half a Jaws subscription. That is a screen reader. They are way out of line with their pricing. From: viphone@googlegroups.com On Behalf Of Joshua HendricksonSent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 3:37 AMTo: viphone@googlegroups.comSubject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream I’d expect this subscription could pay for things like new audio formats like ogg could be played. Also maybe newer voices like those from Microsofft. Take a chance and see what happens. I wish people weren’t so picky. I will support voice dream reader and I really hope others will do so as well. I am looking forward to the future of the app if people will stop whineing and pay for the app. It really does a lot of great stuff. If you want something that works well, sometimes you have to pay for it.Sent from My totally awesome iPhone!!On Mar 26, 2024, at 12:54 AM, Ron Canazzi <aa...@roadrunner.com> wrote: Hi Group,The Book Share program itself now has its own app. It is free and while a bit limited, it does read book share books quite well and the recent addition of a bookmark feature makes it usable in that limited context. On 3/26/2024 12:38 AM, Gerardo Corripio wrote:You guys are forgetting about the "Dolphin Easy Reader" app; which has a Bookshare interface. It's free, thus I plan to use it even more if Voice Dream ends up being subscriptiononly. Good luck!Gera Enviado desde mi iPhone SE (2nd Generation) de TelcelEl 25 mar 2024, a la(s) 9:01 p.m., Mary Otten escribió:Thanks for the clarification. I never get audiobooks from books share, so book player I don’t care. Kind of sucks. I still think I should be able to download stuff as long as I don’t try to upgrade. You can always do that with everything else. If I have an apple device for instance, and it’s not getting updates anymore I can still use it. This kind of stinks from that aspect. They shouldn’t cut us off from being able to download anything from Bookshare because we don’t want to pay. What if we don’t give a good bloody damn about whatever they think they’re going to implement that we’re going to pay for. I’m not happy about that. But it’s the best thing out there so far. God knows the garbage from speech central doesn’t get it done. It’s too bad. Sent from my iPhoneOn Mar 25, 2024, at 7:53 PM, William James wrote:BookPlayer is an audio only player. It plays zipped files, MP3, M4A, and M4B. You can get it from the following link. BookPlayerPlays M4B/M4A/MP3 audiobooks Sent from my iPad Air 5On Mar 25, 2024, at 7:59 PM, Mary Otten wrote:I tend to agree with you, Richard. What is book player if you know? I had never heard of bookplayer app. There is no way I’m going to speech Central. It’s just too clunky. If he did what he’s been asked to do and implemented an easy way to download bookshare books right through the app, Then I would possibly reconsider. But I don’t give two figures for all that fancy Voice stuff he’s doing. I’m perfectly happy with what I have now. Mary Sent from my iPhoneOn Mar 25, 2024, at 4:41 PM, Richard Turner wrote: I have not updated today.But, if anyone wants to go back and look at what Winston Chen had said when he sold Voice Dream LLC., he made it clear that he would have had to begin charging a subscription to be able to maintain development and he had already started the Mac version as a subscription.$59 a year seems perfectly reasonable to me if you want the app to continue.You can always dump it for DAISY Easy Reader or Speech Central and deal with much harder interfaces and keep it free… Richard, USA"It's no great honor to be blind, but it's more than a nuisance and less than a disaster. Either you're going to fight like hell when your sight fails or you're going to stand on the sidelines for the rest of your life." -- Dr. Margaret Rockwell Phanstiehl Founder of Audio Description (1932-2009) My web site: https://www.turner42.com-- The following information is important for all members of the V iPhone list. If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or if you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the owners or moderators directly rather than posting on the list itself. Your V iPhone list moderator is Mark Taylor. Mark can be reached at: mk...@ucla.edu. Your list owner is Cara Quinn - you can reach Cara at caraqu...@caraquinn.com The archives for this list can be searched at:http://www.mail-archive.com/viphone@googlegroups.com/--- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "VIPhone" group.To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to vip

Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

2024-03-26 Thread Corey Cook

I have a friend that is a grandfathered user and she got an email this morning informing her as of May 1 she would have to pay.On Mar 26, 2024, at 12:17 PM, llump...@austin.rr.com wrote:It’s not clear to me where we older users are grandfathered into not paying or not. From: viphone@googlegroups.com On Behalf Of Feliciano GodoySent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 11:11 AMTo: viphone@googlegroups.comSubject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream Hi all,It's unfortunate that this is a new subscription model for New users but I understand developers need to get paid for their work for such app. Considering Voice Dream inclusiveness with Accessibility, it's worth supporting in my opinion if you use the app daily. They get continuous updates and the app is very robust. There are other apps that do similar things like speech central and speechify. I did a bit of research and this is what I found...11 months agoHi all, Voice Dream Team here. Existing users should not be affected and will continue to have access to the app. We are migrating to a subscription model only for new users. If you have any issues please feel free to contact our support team. Voice Dream Reader for iOS is now $59.99/yearapplevis.com From Voice Dream, Feliciano For tech tips and updates: LIKE www.facebook.com/theblindman12vFollow www.twitter.com/theblindman12vFollow www.instagram/TheBlindMan12vthose who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do. -Steve Jobs On Mar 26, 2024, at 8:56 AM, Ron Canazzi <aa...@roadrunner.com> wrote:Hi Group,I would be willing to pay up to twenty dollars yearly, but this is ridiculous. I could afford it, but it is still way too high for an app on an Apple device. As mentioned before, the average price of most apps usable with IOS devices is between five and ten dollars US. Allowing for the smaller market, I could easily pay double yearly, but not sextuplet!On 3/26/2024 3:49 AM, Dennis Long wrote:They aren't considering that a large number of blind people can't afford $60 a year. They aren't also considering that a large number of blind people aren't able to find jobs in the USA. More over if it were more reasonably priced maybe and it’s a big maybe. It would be a big maybe because the only reason they would lower the price is they terribly misjudged the market. -Original Message-From: viphone@googlegroups.com <viphone@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of regina alvaradoSent: Monday, March 25, 2024 4:17 PMTo: Viphone <viphone@googlegroups.com>Subject: Making everyone pay for voice dream Just received a message voice dream is going to cost 59 dollars a year now. A pet peeve of mine is everything requires a subscription. I see nothing in there reasons for this that affects me. So, nice I had it for so long. It was a wonderful app, but I am done with it. As with MBraille I was one of the first to buy it for I think 5 dollars. Makes me want to cry to lose it, but much more important places to put my money. On Social Security with a guide dog and so guess it goes away. Still want to cry after all the books from Bookshare it has read to me. Reggie Alvarado -- Signature:For a nation to admit it has done grievous wrongs and will strive to correct them for the betterment of all is no vice;For a nation to claim it has always been great, needs no improvement and to cling to its past achievements is no virtue!-- The following information is important for all members of the V iPhone list.If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or if you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the owners or moderators directly rather than posting on the list itself.Your V iPhone list moderator is Mark Taylor. Mark can be reached at: mk...@ucla.edu. Your list owner is Cara Quinn - you can reach Cara at caraqu...@caraquinn.comThe archives for this list can be searched at:http://www.mail-archive.com/viphone@googlegroups.com/--- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "VIPhone" group.To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to viphone+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/viphone/f700b6fd-872c-0e1c-3600-cc93d37b7bf4%40roadrunner.com.-- The following information is important for all members of the V iPhone list. If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or if you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the owners or moderators directly rather than posting on the list itself. Your V iPhone list moderator is Mark Taylor. Mark can be reached at: mk...@ucla.edu. Your list owner is Cara Quinn - you can reach Cara at caraqu...@caraquinn.com The archives for this list can be searched at:http://www.mail-archive.com/viphone@googlegroups.com/--- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "VIPhone" group.T

Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

2024-03-26 Thread Mary Otten

How much money do you save by using books share? How many books would you be purchasing if not for books share and reading with ease through Voice Dream reader? My problem isn’t the subscription as such. For instance, I can’t imagine paying for a weather app or a Parcel app, like somebody else’s. That’s their business. There’s tons of free weather apps out there that do a good job as far as I am concerned. But I have not found a reader that does anywhere close to what Voice Dream does efficiently. so if I have to pay, I’m going to pay. How many movie subscriptions do you guys have? It’s all a matter of what you’re willing to pay for and how much you use it. But calling them greedy just because they’re charging for their work is kind of unnecessary and wrong in my opinion. Sent from my iPhoneOn Mar 26, 2024, at 7:25 AM, Kerry Macdonald wrote:Although I love Voice Dream, I think this is an outrage and simply greed on the developers part. Yes, I know developers need to eat, but I think they are just jumping on this subscription bandwagon that everyone has been doing these days which I feel is a very greedy way to do business. Those of us who purchased it already should not have to purchase it again in my opinion. We need to stand together and make our voices hurt, everyone should send them an email and express their opinion, I have done so, who is with me and will email them? That is the only way to get things done is to make our voices heard.KerrySent from my iPhoneOn Mar 26, 2024, at 12:44 AM, Gerardo Corripio wrote:Here in Mexico, $60 is almost a thousand Mexican pesos! Yeah I know... you can divide 1000 per month, which would be around 150 or so, but if you've already bought the app once...I know maybe Dolphin Easy Reader might not have the different voices or Audiobook slaying abilities, but it's free.GeraEnviado desde mi iPhone SE (2nd Generation) de TelcelEl 25 mar 2024, a la(s) 10:11 p.m., Joshua Hendrickson escribió:I can’t believe all this negative talk about not wanting to pay $60 per year for voice dream reader. For me, it is one of the best apps out there for reading both ebooks and audio content. I’ll tell you all some of the recent changes the new owners have done for us all. They have recently allowed audio files in M4a format to properly. When you want to change a reading voice for a bookshare book, you now have a search option quickly find the voice you want. You also don’t have to pay for these voices either. You did have to pay around $5 per voice before. So please stop complaining and pay the $60 per year if you can. If people pay the money, think of how much better the app will be. I’ve pcht a lot of time into putting audio books and audio dramas on voice dream reader with iTunes to not pay the $60 price. When we found out that voice dream reader might be charging a subscripttion fee this shouldn’t be a surprise !o anyone. So please if you can, pay the $60!!!Sent from My totally awesome iPhone!!On Mar 25, 2024, at 10:01 PM, Mary Otten wrote:Thanks for the clarification. I never get audiobooks from books share, so book player I don’t care. Kind of sucks. I still think I should be able to download stuff as long as I don’t try to upgrade. You can always do that with everything else. If I have an apple device for instance, and it’s not getting updates anymore I can still use it. This kind of stinks from that aspect. They shouldn’t cut us off from being able to download anything from Bookshare because we don’t want to pay. What if we don’t give a good bloody damn about whatever they think they’re going to implement that we’re going to pay for. I’m not happy about that. But it’s the best thing out there so far. God knows the garbage from speech central doesn’t get it done. It’s too bad. Sent from my iPhoneOn Mar 25, 2024, at 7:53 PM, William James wrote:BookPlayer is an audio only player. It plays zipped files, MP3, M4A, and M4B. You can get it from the following link.BookPlayerPlays M4B/M4A/MP3 audiobooksSent from my iPad Air 5On Mar 25, 2024, at 7:59 PM, Mary Otten wrote:I tend to agree with you, Richard. What is book player if you know? I had never heard of bookplayer app. There is no way I’m going to speech Central. It’s just too clunky. If he did what he’s been asked to do and implemented an easy way to download bookshare books right through the app, Then I would possibly reconsider. But I don’t give two figures for all that fancy Voice stuff he’s doing. I’m perfectly happy with what I have now.MarySent from my iPhoneOn Mar 25, 2024, at 4:41 PM, Richard Turner wrote:I have not updated today.But, if anyone wants to go back and look at what Winston Chen had said when he sold Voice Dream LLC., he made it clear that he would have had to begin charging a subscription to be able to maintain development and he had already started the Mac version as a subscription.$59 a year seems perfectly reasonable to me if you want the app to continue.You can always dump it for DAISY Easy

RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

2024-03-26 Thread llumpkin

It’s not clear to me where we older users are grandfathered into not paying or 
not.

 

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of 
Feliciano Godoy
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 11:11 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

 

Hi all,

It's unfortunate that this is a new subscription model for New users but I 
understand developers need to get paid for their work  for such app. 
Considering Voice Dream inclusiveness with Accessibility, it's worth supporting 
in my opinion if you use the app daily. They get continuous updates and the app 
is very robust. There are other apps that do similar   things like speech 
central and speechify.  

   I did a bit of research and this is what I found...

11 months ago

Hi all, Voice Dream Team here. Existing users should not be affected and will 
continue to have access to the app. We are migrating to a subscription model 
only for new users. If you have any issues please feel free to contact our 
support team.

*

 

 



 
<https://www.applevis.com/forum/ios-ipados/voice-dream-reader-ios-now-5999year> 
Voice Dream Reader for iOS is now $59.99/year

 
<https://www.applevis.com/forum/ios-ipados/voice-dream-reader-ios-now-5999year> 
applevis.com

 
<https://www.applevis.com/forum/ios-ipados/voice-dream-reader-ios-now-5999year> 

 

 

 From Voice Dream, Feliciano 

For tech tips and updates: 

LIKE www.facebook.com/theblindman12v <http://www.facebook.com/theblindman12v> 

Follow www.twitter.com/theblindman12v

Follow www.instagram/TheBlindMan12v <http://www.instagram/TheBlindMan12v> 

those who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who 
do. -Steve Jobs 





On Mar 26, 2024, at 8:56 AM, Ron Canazzi mailto:aa...@roadrunner.com> > wrote:

Hi Group,

I  would be willing to pay up to twenty dollars yearly, but this is ridiculous. 
I could afford it, but it is still way too high for an app on an Apple device. 
As mentioned before, the average price of most apps usable with IOS devices is 
between five and ten dollars US.  Allowing for the smaller market, I could 
easily pay double yearly, but not sextuplet!


On 3/26/2024 3:49 AM, Dennis Long wrote:



They aren't considering that a large number of blind people can't afford $60 a 
year.  They aren't also considering that a large number of blind people aren't 
able to find jobs in the USA.More over if it were more reasonably priced 
maybe and it’s a big maybe.  It would be a big maybe because the only reason 
they would lower the price is they terribly misjudged the market.

 

-Original Message-

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
regina alvarado

Sent: Monday, March 25, 2024 4:17 PM

To: Viphone mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> >

Subject: Making everyone pay for voice dream

 

Just received a message voice dream is going to cost 59 dollars a year now. A 
pet peeve of mine is everything requires a subscription. I see nothing in there 
reasons for this that affects me. So, nice I had it for so long. It was a 
wonderful app, but I am done with it. As with MBraille I was one of the first 
to buy it for I think 5 dollars. Makes me want to cry to lose it, but much more 
important places to put my money. On Social Security with a guide dog and so 
guess it goes away. Still want to cry after all the books from Bookshare it has 
read to me.

 

Reggie Alvarado

 


-- 
Signature:
For a nation to admit it has done grievous wrongs and will strive to correct 
them for the betterment of all is no vice;
For a nation to claim it has always been great, needs no improvement  and to 
cling to its past achievements is no virtue!

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RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

2024-03-26 Thread llumpkin

They're going to switch to a subscription model for everyone and we either like 
it and pay or don't.

-Original Message-
From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of Dennis 
Long
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 11:12 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

I agree $20 I might go that.  Even that is a might.  I just don't use it 
enough.  I'm not against paying for apps.  I subscribe to weather apps and 
parcel.  So clearly I'm not against app subscriptions.  This is again is more 
than 50% of the cost of a screen reader.  That needs to be pointed out to them. 
 Again more than 50% of the cost of a screen reader.  That reads my computer 
screen to me and allows me to use my computer.  If the company thinks people 
will pay more than 50% of a screen reader subscription they truly are nuts.

-Original Message-
From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of Ron 
Canazzi
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 11:57 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

Hi Group,

I  would be willing to pay up to twenty dollars yearly, but this is ridiculous. 
I could afford it, but it is still way too high for an app on an Apple device. 
As mentioned before, the average price of most apps usable with IOS devices is 
between five and ten dollars US.  Allowing for the smaller market, I could 
easily pay double yearly, but not sextuplet!

On 3/26/2024 3:49 AM, Dennis Long wrote:
> They aren't considering that a large number of blind people can't afford $60 
> a year.  They aren't also considering that a large number of blind people 
> aren't able to find jobs in the USA.More over if it were more reasonably 
> priced maybe and it’s a big maybe.  It would be a big maybe because the only 
> reason they would lower the price is they terribly misjudged the market.
>
> -Original Message-
> From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of 
> regina alvarado
> Sent: Monday, March 25, 2024 4:17 PM
> To: Viphone 
> Subject: Making everyone pay for voice dream
>
> Just received a message voice dream is going to cost 59 dollars a year now. A 
> pet peeve of mine is everything requires a subscription. I see nothing in 
> there reasons for this that affects me. So, nice I had it for so long. It was 
> a wonderful app, but I am done with it. As with MBraille I was one of the 
> first to buy it for I think 5 dollars. Makes me want to cry to lose it, but 
> much more important places to put my money. On Social Security with a guide 
> dog and so guess it goes away. Still want to cry after all the books from 
> Bookshare it has read to me.
>
> Reggie Alvarado
>

--
Signature:
For a nation to admit it has done grievous wrongs and will strive to correct 
them for the betterment of all is no vice; For a nation to claim it has always 
been great, needs no improvement  and to cling to its past achievements is no 
virtue!

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RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

Again it is more than 50% of a cost of a screen reader.  They are saying their 
app is more valuable than a screen reader.  No it isn’t.

From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of 
sarai.bucciare...@gmail.com
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 7:18 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

That’s $5 a month.
I’m sure people waste $5 a month on crap they don’t need. Heck a streaming 
service is more expensive. Bookshare is now $79 a year.

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
Dennis Long
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 2:41 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

Not at these rates make it reasonable this is ridiculous.

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
sarai.bucciare...@gmail.com <mailto:sarai.bucciare...@gmail.com> 
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2024 8:25 PM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

Developers have to eat too. They should get paid.

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
Cristóbal Muñoz
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2024 7:05 PM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

So I opened up the app again and got the banner at the bottom of the screen. 
Not sure if I’ll sign onto the $60, but honestly, I more than got my money’s 
worth and then some for this app if this is the case. 
I believe BookPlayer also has an in-app payment option for cloud storage and 
syncing. 
For some folks, the 60 bucks for VDR might even be worth it as you can use just 
one app for both eBooks and audiobooks. Everyone knows their own budget though.
Cristóbal

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of Mary 
Otten
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2024 4:59 PM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

I tend to agree with you, Richard. What is book player if you know? I had never 
heard of bookplayer app. There is no way I’m going to speech Central. It’s just 
too clunky. If he did what he’s been asked to do and implemented an easy way to 
download bookshare books right through the app, Then I would possibly 
reconsider. But I don’t give two figures for all that fancy Voice stuff he’s 
doing. I’m perfectly happy with what I have now.
Mary

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 25, 2024, at 4:41 PM, Richard Turner mailto:richardr_tur...@comcast.net> > wrote:

I have not updated today.
But, if anyone wants to go back and look at what Winston Chen had said when he 
sold Voice Dream LLC., he made it clear that he would have had to begin 
charging a subscription to be able to maintain development and he had already 
started the Mac version as a subscription.
$59 a year seems perfectly reasonable to me if you want the app to continue.
You can always dump it for DAISY Easy Reader or Speech Central and deal with 
much harder interfaces and keep it free…

Richard, USA
"It's no great honor to be blind, but it's more than a nuisance and less than a 
disaster. Either you're going to fight like hell when your sight fails or 
you're going to stand on the sidelines for the rest of your life." -- Dr. 
Margaret Rockwell Phanstiehl Founder of Audio Description (1932-2009)

My web site:  <https://www.turner42.com> https://www.turner42.com
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RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

No yearly as far as I can tell.

From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of 
leobado1...@gmail.com
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 7:56 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

so, are both choices available? monthly subscription and yearly subscription?

Cheers,
Leo Bado.

I have found both freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, 
for those who understand us enslave something in us.
Khalil Gibran.

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
sarai.bucciare...@gmail.com <mailto:sarai.bucciare...@gmail.com> 
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 5:18 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

That’s $5 a month.
I’m sure people waste $5 a month on crap they don’t need. Heck a streaming 
service is more expensive. Bookshare is now $79 a year.

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
Dennis Long
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 2:41 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

Not at these rates make it reasonable this is ridiculous.

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
sarai.bucciare...@gmail.com <mailto:sarai.bucciare...@gmail.com> 
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2024 8:25 PM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

Developers have to eat too. They should get paid.

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
Cristóbal Muñoz
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2024 7:05 PM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

So I opened up the app again and got the banner at the bottom of the screen. 
Not sure if I’ll sign onto the $60, but honestly, I more than got my money’s 
worth and then some for this app if this is the case. 
I believe BookPlayer also has an in-app payment option for cloud storage and 
syncing. 
For some folks, the 60 bucks for VDR might even be worth it as you can use just 
one app for both eBooks and audiobooks. Everyone knows their own budget though.
Cristóbal

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of Mary 
Otten
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2024 4:59 PM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

I tend to agree with you, Richard. What is book player if you know? I had never 
heard of bookplayer app. There is no way I’m going to speech Central. It’s just 
too clunky. If he did what he’s been asked to do and implemented an easy way to 
download bookshare books right through the app, Then I would possibly 
reconsider. But I don’t give two figures for all that fancy Voice stuff he’s 
doing. I’m perfectly happy with what I have now.
Mary

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 25, 2024, at 4:41 PM, Richard Turner mailto:richardr_tur...@comcast.net> > wrote:

I have not updated today.
But, if anyone wants to go back and look at what Winston Chen had said when he 
sold Voice Dream LLC., he made it clear that he would have had to begin 
charging a subscription to be able to maintain development and he had already 
started the Mac version as a subscription.
$59 a year seems perfectly reasonable to me if you want the app to continue.
You can always dump it for DAISY Easy Reader or Speech Central and deal with 
much harder interfaces and keep it free…

Richard, USA
"It's no great honor to be blind, but it's more than a nuisance and less than a 
disaster. Either you're going to fight like hell when your sight fails or 
you're going to stand on the sidelines for the rest of your life." -- Dr. 
Margaret Rockwell Phanstiehl Founder of Audio Description (1932-2009)

My web site:  <https://www.turner42.com> https://www.turner42.com
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RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

I have done that as well.  I’m 1 Trillian percent with you.  More I suggest 
contacting 
opin...@livingblindfully.com <mailto:opin...@livingblindfully.com> 
and getting your comments in there.

From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of Kerry 
Macdonald
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 10:25 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

Although I love Voice Dream, I think this is an outrage and simply greed on the 
developers part. Yes, I know developers need to eat, but I think they are just 
jumping on this subscription bandwagon that everyone has been doing these days 
which I feel is a very greedy way to do business. Those of us who purchased it 
already should not have to purchase it again in my opinion. We need to stand 
together and make our voices hurt, everyone should send them an email and 
express their opinion, I have done so, who is with me and will email them? That 
is the only way to get things done is to make our voices heard.

Kerry

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 26, 2024, at 12:44 AM, Gerardo Corripio mailto:gera1...@gmail.com> > wrote:
Here in Mexico, $60 is almost a thousand Mexican pesos! Yeah I know... you can 
divide 1000 per month, which would be around 150 or so, but if you've already 
bought the app once...
I know maybe Dolphin Easy Reader might not have the different voices or 
Audiobook slaying abilities, but it's free.
Gera
Enviado desde mi iPhone SE (2nd Generation) de Telcel

El 25 mar 2024, a la(s) 10:11 p.m., Joshua Hendrickson mailto:louv...@gmail.com> > escribió:
I can’t believe all this negative talk about not wanting to pay $60 per year 
for voice dream reader. For me, it is one of the best apps out there for 
reading both ebooks and audio content. I’ll tell you all some of the recent 
changes the new owners have done for us all. They have recently allowed audio 
files in M4a format to  properly. When you want to change a reading voice for a 
bookshare book, you now have a search option  quickly find the voice you want. 
You also don’t have to pay for these voices either. You did have to pay around 
$5 per voice before. So please stop complaining and pay the $60 per year if you 
can. If people pay the money, think of how much better the app will be. I’ve 
pcht a lot of time into putting audio books and audio dramas on voice dream 
reader with iTunes to not pay the $60 price. When we found out that voice dream 
reader might be charging a subscripttion fee this shouldn’t be a surprise !o 
anyone. So please if you can, pay the $60!!!
Sent from My totally awesome iPhone!!

On Mar 25, 2024, at 10:01 PM, Mary Otten mailto:motte...@gmail.com> > wrote:
Thanks for the clarification. I never get audiobooks from books share, so book 
player I don’t care. Kind of sucks. I still think I should be able to download 
stuff as long as I don’t try to upgrade. You can always do that with everything 
else. If I have an apple device for instance, and it’s not getting updates 
anymore I can still use it. This kind of stinks from that aspect. They 
shouldn’t cut us off from being able to download anything from Bookshare 
because we don’t want to pay. What if we don’t give a good bloody damn about 
whatever they think they’re going to implement that we’re going to pay for.  
I’m not happy about that. But it’s the best thing out there so far. God knows 
the garbage from speech central doesn’t get it done. It’s too bad. 
Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 25, 2024, at 7:53 PM, William James mailto:wiljame...@gmail.com> > wrote:
BookPlayer is an audio only player.  It plays zipped files, MP3,  M4A, and 
M4B.  You can get it from the following link.

 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> 
 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> BookPlayer
 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> Plays M4B/M4A/MP3 
audiobooks

Sent from my iPad Air 5

On Mar 25, 2024, at 7:59 PM, Mary Otten mailto:motte...@gmail.com> > wrote:
I tend to agree with you, Richard. What is book player if you know? I had 
never heard of bookplayer app. There is no way I’m going to speech Central. 
It’s just too clunky. If he did what he’s been asked to do and implemented an 
easy way to download bookshare books right through the app, Then I would 
possibly reconsider. But I don’t give two figures for all that fancy Voice 
stuff he’s doing. I’m perfectly happy with what I have now.
Mary

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 25, 2024, at 4:41 PM, Richard Turner mailto:richardr_tur...@comcast.net> > wrote:

I have not updated today.
But, if anyone wants to go back and look at what Winston Chen had said when he 
sold Voice Dream LLC., he made it clear that he would have had to begin 
charging a subscription to be able to maintain development and he had already 
started the Mac version as a subscription.
$59 a year seems perfectly reasonable to me if you want the app to continue.
Yo

RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

I agree $20 I might go that.  Even that is a might.  I just don't use it 
enough.  I'm not against paying for apps.  I subscribe to weather apps and 
parcel.  So clearly I'm not against app subscriptions.  This is again is more 
than 50% of the cost of a screen reader.  That needs to be pointed out to them. 
 Again more than 50% of the cost of a screen reader.  That reads my computer 
screen to me and allows me to use my computer.  If the company thinks people 
will pay more than 50% of a screen reader subscription they truly are nuts.

-Original Message-
From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of Ron 
Canazzi
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 11:57 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

Hi Group,

I  would be willing to pay up to twenty dollars yearly, but this is 
ridiculous. I could afford it, but it is still way too high for an app 
on an Apple device. As mentioned before, the average price of most apps 
usable with IOS devices is between five and ten dollars US.  Allowing 
for the smaller market, I could easily pay double yearly, but not sextuplet!

On 3/26/2024 3:49 AM, Dennis Long wrote:
> They aren't considering that a large number of blind people can't afford $60 
> a year.  They aren't also considering that a large number of blind people 
> aren't able to find jobs in the USA.More over if it were more reasonably 
> priced maybe and it’s a big maybe.  It would be a big maybe because the only 
> reason they would lower the price is they terribly misjudged the market.
>
> -Original Message-
> From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of regina 
> alvarado
> Sent: Monday, March 25, 2024 4:17 PM
> To: Viphone 
> Subject: Making everyone pay for voice dream
>
> Just received a message voice dream is going to cost 59 dollars a year now. A 
> pet peeve of mine is everything requires a subscription. I see nothing in 
> there reasons for this that affects me. So, nice I had it for so long. It was 
> a wonderful app, but I am done with it. As with MBraille I was one of the 
> first to buy it for I think 5 dollars. Makes me want to cry to lose it, but 
> much more important places to put my money. On Social Security with a guide 
> dog and so guess it goes away. Still want to cry after all the books from 
> Bookshare it has read to me.
>
> Reggie Alvarado
>

-- 
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Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

2024-03-26 Thread Feliciano Godoy

Hi all,
It's unfortunate that this is a new subscription model for New users but I 
understand developers need to get paid for their work  for such app. 
Considering Voice Dream inclusiveness with Accessibility, it's worth supporting 
in my opinion if you use the app daily. They get continuous updates and the app 
is very robust. There are other apps that do similar   things like speech 
central and speechify.
   I did a bit of research and this is what I found...

11 months ago

Hi all, Voice Dream Team here. Existing users should not be affected and will 
continue to have access to the app. We are migrating to a subscription model 
only for new users. If you have any issues please feel free to contact our 
support team.

  *



Voice Dream Reader for iOS is now 
$59.99/year
applevis.com
[logo64x64.ico]


 From Voice Dream, Feliciano
For tech tips and updates:
LIKE www.facebook.com/theblindman12v
Follow www.twitter.com/theblindman12v
Follow www.instagram/TheBlindMan12v
those who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who 
do. -Steve Jobs

On Mar 26, 2024, at 8:56 AM, Ron Canazzi  wrote:

Hi Group,

I  would be willing to pay up to twenty dollars yearly, but this is ridiculous. 
I could afford it, but it is still way too high for an app on an Apple device. 
As mentioned before, the average price of most apps usable with IOS devices is 
between five and ten dollars US.  Allowing for the smaller market, I could 
easily pay double yearly, but not sextuplet!


On 3/26/2024 3:49 AM, Dennis Long wrote:
They aren't considering that a large number of blind people can't afford $60 a 
year.  They aren't also considering that a large number of blind people aren't 
able to find jobs in the USA.More over if it were more reasonably priced 
maybe and it’s a big maybe.  It would be a big maybe because the only reason 
they would lower the price is they terribly misjudged the market.

-Original Message-
From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of regina 
alvarado
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2024 4:17 PM
To: Viphone 
Subject: Making everyone pay for voice dream

Just received a message voice dream is going to cost 59 dollars a year now. A 
pet peeve of mine is everything requires a subscription. I see nothing in there 
reasons for this that affects me. So, nice I had it for so long. It was a 
wonderful app, but I am done with it. As with MBraille I was one of the first 
to buy it for I think 5 dollars. Makes me want to cry to lose it, but much more 
important places to put my money. On Social Security with a guide dog and so 
guess it goes away. Still want to cry after all the books from Bookshare it has 
read to me.

Reggie Alvarado


--
Signature:
For a nation to admit it has done grievous wrongs and will strive to correct 
them for the betterment of all is no vice;
For a nation to claim it has always been great, needs no improvement  and to 
cling to its past achievements is no virtue!

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To view

RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream, a blog post from Winston Chen ...

2024-03-26 Thread karl

Hi Richard,

 

I saw that after I  wrote my message but I stick by what I said. Some people 
have no idea what it takes to develop and maintain an app. And, because of this 
small market it often costs more than an app for the general market. And I 
wonder how many of the folks complaining about what boils down to $5 per month 
spend that much on a cup of coffee or a burger.

 

Karl

 

 

Karl

 

 

 

__

 

Karl Smith, Access Technology Consultant

Axis

4304 South El Camino St.

Taylorsville, Utah 84129

 

Phone: 801-652-5285

E-mail: k...@axistech.net

Alternate E-mail: karl.axist...@gmail.com

 

Twitter http://twitter.com/axistech

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of Richard 
Turner
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 9:46 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream, a blog post from Winston Chen 
...

 

Rl,

I have nothing to do with the company.

I am just a long time supporter and previously a beta tester for Winston back 
in the early days.

 

 

 

Richard, USA

"It's no great honor to be blind, but it's more than a nuisance and less than a 
disaster. Either you're going to fight like hell when your sight fails or 
you're going to stand on the sidelines for the rest of your life." -- Dr. 
Margaret Rockwell Phanstiehl Founder of Audio Description (1932-2009)

 

My web site:  <https://www.turner42.com> https://www.turner42.com

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
k...@axistech.net <mailto:k...@axistech.net> 
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 8:18 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream, a blog post from Winston Chen 
...

 

Hello Richard,

 

This message is very much appreciated and completely understandable. 
Unfortunately in the free or low cost app world we often forget what it takes 
to keep them going. Clearly your company is small and hasn’t large amounts of 
resources to keep basically giving away such a valuable program. Thank you for 
your straight forward honesty.

 

Karl

 

 

 

__

 

Karl Smith, Access Technology Consultant

Axis

4304 South El Camino St.

Taylorsville, Utah 84129

 

Phone: 801-652-5285

E-mail: k...@axistech.net <mailto:k...@axistech.net> 

Alternate E-mail: karl.axist...@gmail.com <mailto:karl.axist...@gmail.com> 

 

Twitter http://twitter.com/axistech

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
Richard Turner
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 9:08 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream, a blog post from Winston Chen 
...

 

This decision to make Reader for macOS a subscription was not an easy one: I 
agonized over it for the past two years, because I know a lot of people do not 
like subscriptions. And some of you who are excited about this new app will be 
disappointed. I get it.

 

So, why go with the subscription model? The short answer is, Voice Dream as a 
company is not sustainable right now, and subscriptions are the only way for 
Voice Dream to become sustainable.

 

When I started Voice Dream 10 years ago, I set out to accomplish three goals: 
1) do something good for the world; 2) have autonomy and freedom; and 3) earn 
enough money to live comfortably. With some hard work (and quite a bit of 
luck), I succeeded. Voice Dream helps people with visual impairments and 
dyslexia read and has won many awards, so I think my work has made a positive 
impact; I did not take any outside investment, so I only have to answer to 
myself; and my total income from Voice Dream is about what I would make if I 
joined Google or Facebook as a software engineer. By any reasonable standard, 
it provides my family with a comfortable living.

 

So why change anything? When COVID started, my wife and I finally wrote our 
wills. And contemplating a premature death made me realize that Voice Dream – 
in its present form – would not survive for long if I become incapacitated or 
worse. It would wither away: one day something will break, and then another and 
another, and at some point it will stop working altogether. Why? Because it’s 
my personal passion project. I wrote all the code and no one else in the world 
knows it.

 

I vividly remember an incident several years ago. It was a weekend and I was 
away from home without my laptop. When I checked email on my phone, there were 
hundreds of new messages, with new emails coming in every few seconds. PDF 
files had stopped loading – for everyone. Many students wrote that they had 
exams or assignments, and without Voice Dream they couldn’t study. I caught the 
next flight home. Through that abjectly horrifying experience, I learned to 
never be apart from my laptop. But more important

Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

2024-03-26 Thread regina alvarado

Agree. Twenty or thirty dollars even I would pay, but 60 a year is steep. 
Understand they need to make money, however. I don’t know the percentage of 
blind people who are not working or on SS, but bet a lot so they must make a 
decision. 

Reggie Alvarado 

On Mar 26, 2024, at 11:56 AM, Ron Canazzi  wrote:

Hi Group,

I  would be willing to pay up to twenty dollars yearly, but this is ridiculous. 
I could afford it, but it is still way too high for an app on an Apple device. 
As mentioned before, the average price of most apps usable with IOS devices is 
between five and ten dollars US.  Allowing for the smaller market, I could 
easily pay double yearly, but not sextuplet!

On 3/26/2024 3:49 AM, Dennis Long wrote:
> They aren't considering that a large number of blind people can't afford $60 
> a year.  They aren't also considering that a large number of blind people 
> aren't able to find jobs in the USA.More over if it were more reasonably 
> priced maybe and it’s a big maybe.  It would be a big maybe because the only 
> reason they would lower the price is they terribly misjudged the market.
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of regina 
> alvarado
> Sent: Monday, March 25, 2024 4:17 PM
> To: Viphone 
> Subject: Making everyone pay for voice dream
> 
> Just received a message voice dream is going to cost 59 dollars a year now. A 
> pet peeve of mine is everything requires a subscription. I see nothing in 
> there reasons for this that affects me. So, nice I had it for so long. It was 
> a wonderful app, but I am done with it. As with MBraille I was one of the 
> first to buy it for I think 5 dollars. Makes me want to cry to lose it, but 
> much more important places to put my money. On Social Security with a guide 
> dog and so guess it goes away. Still want to cry after all the books from 
> Bookshare it has read to me.
> 
> Reggie Alvarado
> 

--
Signature:
For a nation to admit it has done grievous wrongs and will strive to correct 
them for the betterment of all is no vice;
For a nation to claim it has always been great, needs no improvement  and to 
cling to its past achievements is no virtue!

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RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

I agree if it were $10 or $20 a year I might think about it.  but $60 again 
more than 50% the cost of my screen reader I think not.  I told them so.

From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of regina 
alvarado
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 10:52 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

I buy books share because I can download a lot of books in a year. This is just 
a standalone reading tool. It’s wonderful app but it’s just an app. I just 
think that $59 a year for an app that you just listen to books on is way too 
much. I will use some other way to read I do plan on contacting Support and 
thank you for the address. I will tell them that it’s just too bad that I 
bought it once and now I have to pay that subscription. They sounded so sad 
that they had to make that decision in the email and yet they made the decision 
even though it was bought earlier. The changes they made just didn’t add up to 
much, just my opinion. 
On Mar 26, 2024, at 10:34 AM, Jody ianuzzi mailto:thunderwalker...@gmail.com> > wrote:

Hi Carrie,

I agree with you completely and I'll send a message as well. I have no 
intention of paying their fee and I will simply find another book reader.
JODY

To Boldly Go   

thunderwalker...@gmail.com <mailto:thunderwalker...@gmail.com>  

"What's within you is stronger than what's in your way."  NO BARRIERS  Erik 
Weihenmayer

On Mar 26, 2024, at 10:25 AM, Kerry Macdonald mailto:kerryma...@gmail.com> > wrote:
Although I love Voice Dream, I think this is an outrage and simply greed on 
the developers part. Yes, I know developers need to eat, but I think they are 
just jumping on this subscription bandwagon that everyone has been doing these 
days which I feel is a very greedy way to do business. Those of us who 
purchased it already should not have to purchase it again in my opinion. We 
need to stand together and make our voices hurt, everyone should send them an 
email and express their opinion, I have done so, who is with me and will email 
them? That is the only way to get things done is to make our voices heard.

Kerry

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 26, 2024, at 12:44 AM, Gerardo Corripio mailto:gera1...@gmail.com> > wrote:
Here in Mexico, $60 is almost a thousand Mexican pesos! Yeah I know... you can 
divide 1000 per month, which would be around 150 or so, but if you've already 
bought the app once...
I know maybe Dolphin Easy Reader might not have the different voices or 
Audiobook slaying abilities, but it's free.
Gera
Enviado desde mi iPhone SE (2nd Generation) de Telcel

El 25 mar 2024, a la(s) 10:11 p.m., Joshua Hendrickson mailto:louv...@gmail.com> > escribió:
I can’t believe all this negative talk about not wanting to pay $60 per year 
for voice dream reader. For me, it is one of the best apps out there for 
reading both ebooks and audio content. I’ll tell you all some of the recent 
changes the new owners have done for us all. They have recently allowed audio 
files in M4a format to  properly. When you want to change a reading voice for a 
bookshare book, you now have a search option  quickly find the voice you want. 
You also don’t have to pay for these voices either. You did have to pay around 
$5 per voice before. So please stop complaining and pay the $60 per year if you 
can. If people pay the money, think of how much better the app will be. I’ve 
pcht a lot of time into putting audio books and audio dramas on voice dream 
reader with iTunes to not pay the $60 price. When we found out that voice dream 
reader might be charging a subscripttion fee this shouldn’t be a surprise !o 
anyone. So please if you can, pay the $60!!!
Sent from My totally awesome iPhone!!

On Mar 25, 2024, at 10:01 PM, Mary Otten mailto:motte...@gmail.com> > wrote:
Thanks for the clarification. I never get audiobooks from books share, so book 
player I don’t care. Kind of sucks. I still think I should be able to download 
stuff as long as I don’t try to upgrade. You can always do that with everything 
else. If I have an apple device for instance, and it’s not getting updates 
anymore I can still use it. This kind of stinks from that aspect. They 
shouldn’t cut us off from being able to download anything from Bookshare 
because we don’t want to pay. What if we don’t give a good bloody damn about 
whatever they think they’re going to implement that we’re going to pay for.  
I’m not happy about that. But it’s the best thing out there so far. God knows 
the garbage from speech central doesn’t get it done. It’s too bad. 
Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 25, 2024, at 7:53 PM, William James mailto:wiljame...@gmail.com> > wrote:
BookPlayer is an audio only player.  It plays zipped files, MP3,  M4A, and 
M4B.  You can get it from the following link.

 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> 
 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> BookPlaye

Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

2024-03-26 Thread Ron Canazzi


Hi Group,

I  would be willing to pay up to twenty dollars yearly, but this is 
ridiculous. I could afford it, but it is still way too high for an app 
on an Apple device. As mentioned before, the average price of most apps 
usable with IOS devices is between five and ten dollars US.  Allowing 
for the smaller market, I could easily pay double yearly, but not sextuplet!



On 3/26/2024 3:49 AM, Dennis Long wrote:

They aren't considering that a large number of blind people can't afford $60 a 
year.  They aren't also considering that a large number of blind people aren't 
able to find jobs in the USA.More over if it were more reasonably priced 
maybe and it’s a big maybe.  It would be a big maybe because the only reason 
they would lower the price is they terribly misjudged the market.

-Original Message-
From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of regina 
alvarado
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2024 4:17 PM
To: Viphone 
Subject: Making everyone pay for voice dream

Just received a message voice dream is going to cost 59 dollars a year now. A 
pet peeve of mine is everything requires a subscription. I see nothing in there 
reasons for this that affects me. So, nice I had it for so long. It was a 
wonderful app, but I am done with it. As with MBraille I was one of the first 
to buy it for I think 5 dollars. Makes me want to cry to lose it, but much more 
important places to put my money. On Social Security with a guide dog and so 
guess it goes away. Still want to cry after all the books from Bookshare it has 
read to me.

Reggie Alvarado



--
Signature:
For a nation to admit it has done grievous wrongs and will strive to correct 
them for the betterment of all is no vice;
For a nation to claim it has always been great, needs no improvement  and to 
cling to its past achievements is no virtue!

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The following information is important for all members of the V iPhone list.

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RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream, a blog post from Winston Chen ...

Oops, I meant Karl.  Fingers going ahead of my brain again, .

 

 

 

Richard, USA

"It's no great honor to be blind, but it's more than a nuisance and less than a 
disaster. Either you're going to fight like hell when your sight fails or 
you're going to stand on the sidelines for the rest of your life." -- Dr. 
Margaret Rockwell Phanstiehl Founder of Audio Description (1932-2009)

 

My web site:  <https://www.turner42.com> https://www.turner42.com

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of Richard 
Turner
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 8:46 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream, a blog post from Winston Chen 
...

 

Rl,

I have nothing to do with the company.

I am just a long time supporter and previously a beta tester for Winston back 
in the early days.

 

 

 

Richard, USA

"It's no great honor to be blind, but it's more than a nuisance and less than a 
disaster. Either you're going to fight like hell when your sight fails or 
you're going to stand on the sidelines for the rest of your life." -- Dr. 
Margaret Rockwell Phanstiehl Founder of Audio Description (1932-2009)

 

My web site:  <https://www.turner42.com> https://www.turner42.com

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
k...@axistech.net <mailto:k...@axistech.net> 
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 8:18 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream, a blog post from Winston Chen 
...

 

Hello Richard,

 

This message is very much appreciated and completely understandable. 
Unfortunately in the free or low cost app world we often forget what it takes 
to keep them going. Clearly your company is small and hasn’t large amounts of 
resources to keep basically giving away such a valuable program. Thank you for 
your straight forward honesty.

 

Karl

 

 

 

__

 

Karl Smith, Access Technology Consultant

Axis

4304 South El Camino St.

Taylorsville, Utah 84129

 

Phone: 801-652-5285

E-mail: k...@axistech.net <mailto:k...@axistech.net> 

Alternate E-mail: karl.axist...@gmail.com <mailto:karl.axist...@gmail.com> 

 

Twitter http://twitter.com/axistech

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
Richard Turner
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 9:08 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream, a blog post from Winston Chen 
...

 

This decision to make Reader for macOS a subscription was not an easy one: I 
agonized over it for the past two years, because I know a lot of people do not 
like subscriptions. And some of you who are excited about this new app will be 
disappointed. I get it.

 

So, why go with the subscription model? The short answer is, Voice Dream as a 
company is not sustainable right now, and subscriptions are the only way for 
Voice Dream to become sustainable.

 

When I started Voice Dream 10 years ago, I set out to accomplish three goals: 
1) do something good for the world; 2) have autonomy and freedom; and 3) earn 
enough money to live comfortably. With some hard work (and quite a bit of 
luck), I succeeded. Voice Dream helps people with visual impairments and 
dyslexia read and has won many awards, so I think my work has made a positive 
impact; I did not take any outside investment, so I only have to answer to 
myself; and my total income from Voice Dream is about what I would make if I 
joined Google or Facebook as a software engineer. By any reasonable standard, 
it provides my family with a comfortable living.

 

So why change anything? When COVID started, my wife and I finally wrote our 
wills. And contemplating a premature death made me realize that Voice Dream – 
in its present form – would not survive for long if I become incapacitated or 
worse. It would wither away: one day something will break, and then another and 
another, and at some point it will stop working altogether. Why? Because it’s 
my personal passion project. I wrote all the code and no one else in the world 
knows it.

 

I vividly remember an incident several years ago. It was a weekend and I was 
away from home without my laptop. When I checked email on my phone, there were 
hundreds of new messages, with new emails coming in every few seconds. PDF 
files had stopped loading – for everyone. Many students wrote that they had 
exams or assignments, and without Voice Dream they couldn’t study. I caught the 
next flight home. Through that abjectly horrifying experience, I learned to 
never be apart from my laptop. But more importantly, it reinforced for me how 
much people actually rely on Voice Dream. For many, it’s not just a handy app 
that makes some things easier but an essential part of life.

 

So in a

RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream, a blog post from Winston Chen ...

supp...@voicedream.com <mailto:supp...@voicedream.com> 

 

 

 

Richard, USA

"It's no great honor to be blind, but it's more than a nuisance and less than a 
disaster. Either you're going to fight like hell when your sight fails or 
you're going to stand on the sidelines for the rest of your life." -- Dr. 
Margaret Rockwell Phanstiehl Founder of Audio Description (1932-2009)

 

My web site:  <https://www.turner42.com> https://www.turner42.com

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of regina 
alvarado
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 8:23 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream, a blog post from Winston Chen 
...

 

I get where Winston is coming from, but it is just the fact that subscriptions 
are taking over the world. By the time you get all the subscriptions and pay 
for them your whole check is gone. I just can’t afford it. So, I will find 
another reader, which probably will not be anywhere near as good. By the way, 
what is the address for Support for voice stream again please thank you. I am 
so grateful to Winston for a wonderful app. I definitely used it.
On Mar 26, 2024, at 11:18 AM, k...@axistech.net <mailto:k...@axistech.net>  
wrote:



Hello Richard,

 

This message is very much appreciated and completely understandable. 
Unfortunately in the free or low cost app world we often forget what it takes 
to keep them going. Clearly your company is small and hasn’t large amounts of 
resources to keep basically giving away such a valuable program. Thank you for 
your straight forward honesty.

 

Karl

 

 

 

__

 

Karl Smith, Access Technology Consultant

Axis

4304 South El Camino St.

Taylorsville, Utah 84129

 

Phone: 801-652-5285

E-mail: k...@axistech.net <mailto:k...@axistech.net> 

Alternate E-mail: karl.axist...@gmail.com <mailto:karl.axist...@gmail.com> 

 

Twitter http://twitter.com/axistech

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
Richard Turner
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 9:08 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream, a blog post from Winston Chen 
...

 

This decision to make Reader for macOS a subscription was not an easy one: I 
agonized over it for the past two years, because I know a lot of people do not 
like subscriptions. And some of you who are excited about this new app will be 
disappointed. I get it.

 

So, why go with the subscription model? The short answer is, Voice Dream as a 
company is not sustainable right now, and subscriptions are the only way for 
Voice Dream to become sustainable.

 

When I started Voice Dream 10 years ago, I set out to accomplish three goals: 
1) do something good for the world; 2) have autonomy and freedom; and 3) earn 
enough money to live comfortably. With some hard work (and quite a bit of 
luck), I succeeded. Voice Dream helps people with visual impairments and 
dyslexia read and has won many awards, so I think my work has made a positive 
impact; I did not take any outside investment, so I only have to answer to 
myself; and my total income from Voice Dream is about what I would make if I 
joined Google or Facebook as a software engineer. By any reasonable standard, 
it provides my family with a comfortable living.

 

So why change anything? When COVID started, my wife and I finally wrote our 
wills. And contemplating a premature death made me realize that Voice Dream – 
in its present form – would not survive for long if I become incapacitated or 
worse. It would wither away: one day something will break, and then another and 
another, and at some point it will stop working altogether. Why? Because it’s 
my personal passion project. I wrote all the code and no one else in the world 
knows it.

 

I vividly remember an incident several years ago. It was a weekend and I was 
away from home without my laptop. When I checked email on my phone, there were 
hundreds of new messages, with new emails coming in every few seconds. PDF 
files had stopped loading – for everyone. Many students wrote that they had 
exams or assignments, and without Voice Dream they couldn’t study. I caught the 
next flight home. Through that abjectly horrifying experience, I learned to 
never be apart from my laptop. But more importantly, it reinforced for me how 
much people actually rely on Voice Dream. For many, it’s not just a handy app 
that makes some things easier but an essential part of life.

 

So in addition to my three initial goals, I gave myself a fourth goal: make 
sure Voice Dream can operate without me, and survive me. In other words, make 
Voice Dream sustainable.

 

How do I do that? Voice Dream needs more people in addition to me and Sandra, 
who does customer support. It needs programmers. It needs a CEO who can manage 
the overall business and products. It needs mark

RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream, a blog post from Winston Chen ...

Rl,

I have nothing to do with the company.

I am just a long time supporter and previously a beta tester for Winston back 
in the early days.

 

 

 

Richard, USA

"It's no great honor to be blind, but it's more than a nuisance and less than a 
disaster. Either you're going to fight like hell when your sight fails or 
you're going to stand on the sidelines for the rest of your life." -- Dr. 
Margaret Rockwell Phanstiehl Founder of Audio Description (1932-2009)

 

My web site:  <https://www.turner42.com> https://www.turner42.com

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of 
k...@axistech.net
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 8:18 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream, a blog post from Winston Chen 
...

 

Hello Richard,

 

This message is very much appreciated and completely understandable. 
Unfortunately in the free or low cost app world we often forget what it takes 
to keep them going. Clearly your company is small and hasn’t large amounts of 
resources to keep basically giving away such a valuable program. Thank you for 
your straight forward honesty.

 

Karl

 

 

 

__

 

Karl Smith, Access Technology Consultant

Axis

4304 South El Camino St.

Taylorsville, Utah 84129

 

Phone: 801-652-5285

E-mail: k...@axistech.net <mailto:k...@axistech.net> 

Alternate E-mail: karl.axist...@gmail.com <mailto:karl.axist...@gmail.com> 

 

Twitter http://twitter.com/axistech

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
Richard Turner
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 9:08 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream, a blog post from Winston Chen 
...

 

This decision to make Reader for macOS a subscription was not an easy one: I 
agonized over it for the past two years, because I know a lot of people do not 
like subscriptions. And some of you who are excited about this new app will be 
disappointed. I get it.

 

So, why go with the subscription model? The short answer is, Voice Dream as a 
company is not sustainable right now, and subscriptions are the only way for 
Voice Dream to become sustainable.

 

When I started Voice Dream 10 years ago, I set out to accomplish three goals: 
1) do something good for the world; 2) have autonomy and freedom; and 3) earn 
enough money to live comfortably. With some hard work (and quite a bit of 
luck), I succeeded. Voice Dream helps people with visual impairments and 
dyslexia read and has won many awards, so I think my work has made a positive 
impact; I did not take any outside investment, so I only have to answer to 
myself; and my total income from Voice Dream is about what I would make if I 
joined Google or Facebook as a software engineer. By any reasonable standard, 
it provides my family with a comfortable living.

 

So why change anything? When COVID started, my wife and I finally wrote our 
wills. And contemplating a premature death made me realize that Voice Dream – 
in its present form – would not survive for long if I become incapacitated or 
worse. It would wither away: one day something will break, and then another and 
another, and at some point it will stop working altogether. Why? Because it’s 
my personal passion project. I wrote all the code and no one else in the world 
knows it.

 

I vividly remember an incident several years ago. It was a weekend and I was 
away from home without my laptop. When I checked email on my phone, there were 
hundreds of new messages, with new emails coming in every few seconds. PDF 
files had stopped loading – for everyone. Many students wrote that they had 
exams or assignments, and without Voice Dream they couldn’t study. I caught the 
next flight home. Through that abjectly horrifying experience, I learned to 
never be apart from my laptop. But more importantly, it reinforced for me how 
much people actually rely on Voice Dream. For many, it’s not just a handy app 
that makes some things easier but an essential part of life.

 

So in addition to my three initial goals, I gave myself a fourth goal: make 
sure Voice Dream can operate without me, and survive me. In other words, make 
Voice Dream sustainable.

 

How do I do that? Voice Dream needs more people in addition to me and Sandra, 
who does customer support. It needs programmers. It needs a CEO who can manage 
the overall business and products. It needs marketing. It needs a board of 
directors. This is the minimum staffing level to make the company operate 
sustainably. But today, Voice Dream doesn’t generate nearly enough revenue to 
pay for even a skeletal crew.

 

Why not? It comes down to simple economics.

 

An initial, one-time fee, even $20, is not enough to fund maintenance for a 
productivity app that users expect to work indefinitely. Software is not like a 
hammer or a printed book — it functions in a complex and ever-changing 
environment of h

Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream, a blog post from Winston Chen ...

2024-03-26 Thread regina alvarado

I get where Winston is coming from, but it is just the fact that subscriptions are taking over the world. By the time you get all the subscriptions and pay for them your whole check is gone. I just can’t afford it. So, I will find another reader, which probably will not be anywhere near as good. By the way, what is the address for Support for voice stream again please thank you. I am so grateful to Winston for a wonderful app. I definitely used it.On Mar 26, 2024, at 11:18 AM, k...@axistech.net wrote:Hello Richard, This message is very much appreciated and completely understandable. Unfortunately in the free or low cost app world we often forget what it takes to keep them going. Clearly your company is small and hasn’t large amounts of resources to keep basically giving away such a valuable program. Thank you for your straight forward honesty. Karl __ Karl Smith, Access Technology ConsultantAxis4304 South El Camino St.Taylorsville, Utah 84129 Phone: 801-652-5285E-mail: k...@axistech.netAlternate E-mail: karl.axist...@gmail.com Twitter http://twitter.com/axistech From: viphone@googlegroups.com On Behalf Of Richard TurnerSent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 9:08 AMTo: viphone@googlegroups.comSubject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream, a blog post from Winston Chen ... This decision to make Reader for macOS a subscription was not an easy one: I agonized over it for the past two years, because I know a lot of people do not like subscriptions. And some of you who are excited about this new app will be disappointed. I get it. So, why go with the subscription model? The short answer is, Voice Dream as a company is not sustainable right now, and subscriptions are the only way for Voice Dream to become sustainable. When I started Voice Dream 10 years ago, I set out to accomplish three goals: 1) do something good for the world; 2) have autonomy and freedom; and 3) earn enough money to live comfortably. With some hard work (and quite a bit of luck), I succeeded. Voice Dream helps people with visual impairments and dyslexia read and has won many awards, so I think my work has made a positive impact; I did not take any outside investment, so I only have to answer to myself; and my total income from Voice Dream is about what I would make if I joined Google or Facebook as a software engineer. By any reasonable standard, it provides my family with a comfortable living. So why change anything? When COVID started, my wife and I finally wrote our wills. And contemplating a premature death made me realize that Voice Dream – in its present form – would not survive for long if I become incapacitated or worse. It would wither away: one day something will break, and then another and another, and at some point it will stop working altogether. Why? Because it’s my personal passion project. I wrote all the code and no one else in the world knows it. I vividly remember an incident several years ago. It was a weekend and I was away from home without my laptop. When I checked email on my phone, there were hundreds of new messages, with new emails coming in every few seconds. PDF files had stopped loading – for everyone. Many students wrote that they had exams or assignments, and without Voice Dream they couldn’t study. I caught the next flight home. Through that abjectly horrifying experience, I learned to never be apart from my laptop. But more importantly, it reinforced for me how much people actually rely on Voice Dream. For many, it’s not just a handy app that makes some things easier but an essential part of life. So in addition to my three initial goals, I gave myself a fourth goal: make sure Voice Dream can operate without me, and survive me. In other words, make Voice Dream sustainable. How do I do that? Voice Dream needs more people in addition to me and Sandra, who does customer support. It needs programmers. It needs a CEO who can manage the overall business and products. It needs marketing. It needs a board of directors. This is the minimum staffing level to make the company operate sustainably. But today, Voice Dream doesn’t generate nearly enough revenue to pay for even a skeletal crew. Why not? It comes down to simple economics. An initial, one-time fee, even $20, is not enough to fund maintenance for a productivity app that users expect to work indefinitely. Software is not like a hammer or a printed book — it functions in a complex and ever-changing environment of hardware, software, and external services. And over the past 10 years, that environment has become more complex and brittle, and it’s changing more frequently. Last year, I spent more than 50% of my time just to maintain the status-quo, without adding new features: dealing with OS and framework changes, new hardware devices, new App Store requirements, fixing newly discovered bugs, and working around bugs outside of my code. $20 is not enough to fund maintenance forever, let alone adding new features. Another problem with the one-time-fee business

Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

2024-03-26 Thread Flor Lynch

It's called Dolphin EasyReader. Dolphin are a UK-based company that 
developed Supernova screen-reader and magnification software. Their 
EasyReader can read other ebook formats besides DAISY.



On 3/26/2024 4:55 AM, Richard Turner wrote:


I mentioned DAISY Easy Reader and Speech Central if you cannot afford 
Voice Dream Reader.


Perhaps you should reach out to supp...@voicedream.com and ask about 
pricing in other countries.


Or, as you say, just use Easy Reader.

Richard, USA

"It's no great honor to be blind, but it's more than a nuisance and 
less than a disaster. Either you're going to fight like hell when your 
sight fails or you're going to stand on the sidelines for the rest of 
your life." -- Dr. Margaret Rockwell Phanstiehl Founder of Audio 
Description (1932-2009)


My web site: https://www.turner42.com <https://www.turner42.com>

*From:*viphone@googlegroups.com  *On Behalf 
Of *Gerardo Corripio

*Sent:* Monday, March 25, 2024 9:39 PM
*To:* viphone@googlegroups.com
*Subject:* Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

You guys are forgetting about the "Dolphin Easy Reader" app; which has 
a Bookshare interface. It's free, thus I plan to use it even more if 
Voice Dream ends up being subscriptiononly. Good luck!


Gera

Enviado desde mi iPhone SE (2nd Generation) de Telcel



El 25 mar 2024, a la(s) 9:01 p.m., Mary Otten 
escribió:

Thanks for the clarification. I never get audiobooks from books
share, so book player I don’t care. Kind of sucks. I still think I
should be able to download stuff as long as I don’t try to
upgrade. You can always do that with everything else. If I have an
apple device for instance, and it’s not getting updates anymore I
can still use it. This kind of stinks from that aspect. They
shouldn’t cut us off from being able to download anything from
Bookshare because we don’t want to pay. What if we don’t give a
good bloody damn about whatever they think they’re going to
implement that we’re going to pay for.  I’m not happy about that.
But it’s the best thing out there so far. God knows the garbage
from speech central doesn’t get it done. It’s too bad.

Sent from my iPhone



On Mar 25, 2024, at 7:53 PM, William James
 wrote:

BookPlayer is an audio only player.  It plays zipped files,
MP3,  M4A, and M4B.  You can get it from the following link.



<https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998>



BookPlayer <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998>

Plays M4B/M4A/MP3 audiobooks
<https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998>

Sent from my iPad Air 5



On Mar 25, 2024, at 7:59 PM, Mary Otten
 wrote:

I tend to agree with you, Richard. What is book player if
you know? I had never heard of bookplayer app. There is no
way I’m going to speech Central. It’s just too clunky. If
he did what he’s been asked to do and implemented an easy
way to download bookshare books right through the app,
Then I would possibly reconsider. But I don’t give two
figures for all that fancy Voice stuff he’s doing. I’m
perfectly happy with what I have now.

Mary

Sent from my iPhone



On Mar 25, 2024, at 4:41 PM, Richard Turner
 wrote:



I have not updated today.

But, if anyone wants to go back and look at what
Winston Chen had said when he sold Voice Dream LLC.,
he made it clear that he would have had to begin
charging a subscription to be able to maintain
development and he had already started the Mac version
as a subscription.

$59 a year seems perfectly reasonable to me if you
want the app to continue.

You can always dump it for DAISY Easy Reader or Speech
Central and deal with much harder interfaces and keep
it free…

Richard, USA

"It's no great honor to be blind, but it's more than a
nuisance and less than a disaster. Either you're going
to fight like hell when your sight fails or you're
going to stand on the sidelines for the rest of your
life." -- Dr. Margaret Rockwell Phanstiehl Founder of
Audio Description (1932-2009)

My web site: https://www.turner42.com
<https://www.turner42.com>

-- 
The following information is important for all members

of the V iPhone list.

If you have any questions or concerns about the
running of this list, or if yo

RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream, a blog post from Winston Chen ...

2024-03-26 Thread karl

Hello Richard,

 

This message is very much appreciated and completely understandable. 
Unfortunately in the free or low cost app world we often forget what it takes 
to keep them going. Clearly your company is small and hasn’t large amounts of 
resources to keep basically giving away such a valuable program. Thank you for 
your straight forward honesty.

 

Karl

 

 

 

__

 

Karl Smith, Access Technology Consultant

Axis

4304 South El Camino St.

Taylorsville, Utah 84129

 

Phone: 801-652-5285

E-mail: k...@axistech.net

Alternate E-mail: karl.axist...@gmail.com

 

Twitter http://twitter.com/axistech

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of Richard 
Turner
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 9:08 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream, a blog post from Winston Chen 
...

 

This decision to make Reader for macOS a subscription was not an easy one: I 
agonized over it for the past two years, because I know a lot of people do not 
like subscriptions. And some of you who are excited about this new app will be 
disappointed. I get it.

 

So, why go with the subscription model? The short answer is, Voice Dream as a 
company is not sustainable right now, and subscriptions are the only way for 
Voice Dream to become sustainable.

 

When I started Voice Dream 10 years ago, I set out to accomplish three goals: 
1) do something good for the world; 2) have autonomy and freedom; and 3) earn 
enough money to live comfortably. With some hard work (and quite a bit of 
luck), I succeeded. Voice Dream helps people with visual impairments and 
dyslexia read and has won many awards, so I think my work has made a positive 
impact; I did not take any outside investment, so I only have to answer to 
myself; and my total income from Voice Dream is about what I would make if I 
joined Google or Facebook as a software engineer. By any reasonable standard, 
it provides my family with a comfortable living.

 

So why change anything? When COVID started, my wife and I finally wrote our 
wills. And contemplating a premature death made me realize that Voice Dream – 
in its present form – would not survive for long if I become incapacitated or 
worse. It would wither away: one day something will break, and then another and 
another, and at some point it will stop working altogether. Why? Because it’s 
my personal passion project. I wrote all the code and no one else in the world 
knows it.

 

I vividly remember an incident several years ago. It was a weekend and I was 
away from home without my laptop. When I checked email on my phone, there were 
hundreds of new messages, with new emails coming in every few seconds. PDF 
files had stopped loading – for everyone. Many students wrote that they had 
exams or assignments, and without Voice Dream they couldn’t study. I caught the 
next flight home. Through that abjectly horrifying experience, I learned to 
never be apart from my laptop. But more importantly, it reinforced for me how 
much people actually rely on Voice Dream. For many, it’s not just a handy app 
that makes some things easier but an essential part of life.

 

So in addition to my three initial goals, I gave myself a fourth goal: make 
sure Voice Dream can operate without me, and survive me. In other words, make 
Voice Dream sustainable.

 

How do I do that? Voice Dream needs more people in addition to me and Sandra, 
who does customer support. It needs programmers. It needs a CEO who can manage 
the overall business and products. It needs marketing. It needs a board of 
directors. This is the minimum staffing level to make the company operate 
sustainably. But today, Voice Dream doesn’t generate nearly enough revenue to 
pay for even a skeletal crew.

 

Why not? It comes down to simple economics.

 

An initial, one-time fee, even $20, is not enough to fund maintenance for a 
productivity app that users expect to work indefinitely. Software is not like a 
hammer or a printed book — it functions in a complex and ever-changing 
environment of hardware, software, and external services. And over the past 10 
years, that environment has become more complex and brittle, and it’s changing 
more frequently. Last year, I spent more than 50% of my time just to maintain 
the status-quo, without adding new features: dealing with OS and framework 
changes, new hardware devices, new App Store requirements, fixing newly 
discovered bugs, and working around bugs outside of my code. $20 is not enough 
to fund maintenance forever, let alone adding new features.

 

Another problem with the one-time-fee business model is that revenue is 
unpredictable because it comes entirely from new customers. There are big 
spikes and troughs. So in addition to being insufficient, the unpredictability 
makes it very risky to hire people, which is a fixed expense. Then there is the 
looming issue of what happens if new customers dwindle because the market is 
saturated. Then how would

RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream, a blog post from Winston Chen ...

 Voice Dream from a personal passion project to a proper company with a 
secure future, even after I’m gone. Ultimately, that’s good for customers. 
Because the time invested in learning and using Voice Dream apps is more 
valuable than the subscription fee, and that time could be wasted if the 
company has no future.

 

My hope is that you understand – even if in a small measure – where I’m coming 
from. When you subscribe to Reader for macOS, you’ll be paying for a 
high-quality, feature-rich and sustainable product that will continue to 
improve. You’ll also be helping to secure a future for Voice Dream as a 
company. And I and my team will always serve you diligently.

 

By Winston|April 25th, 2022

 

Richard here, Winston told me essentially the same thing when he decided to 
sell Voice Dream LLC. to The Applause Group.  He realized that the one-time fee 
model was simply not sustainable, but I cannot find that email, so you will 
just have to take my word on that.  If you still believe The Applause Group is 
not giving you your money's worth, then good luck with the alternative apps out 
there.

 

Richard, USA

"It's no great honor to be blind, but it's more than a nuisance and less than a 
disaster. Either you're going to fight like hell when your sight fails or 
you're going to stand on the sidelines for the rest of your life." -- Dr. 
Margaret Rockwell Phanstiehl Founder of Audio Description (1932-2009)

 

My web site:  <https://www.turner42.com> https://www.turner42.com

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of regina 
alvarado
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 7:52 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

 

I buy books share because I can download a lot of books in a year. This is just 
a standalone reading tool. It’s wonderful app but it’s just an app. I just 
think that $59 a year for an app that you just listen to books on is way too 
much. I will use some other way to read I do plan on contacting Support and 
thank you for the address. I will tell them that it’s just too bad that I 
bought it once and now I have to pay that subscription. They sounded so sad 
that they had to make that decision in the email and yet they made the decision 
even though it was bought earlier. The changes they made just didn’t add up to 
much, just my opinion. 
On Mar 26, 2024, at 10:34 AM, Jody ianuzzi mailto:thunderwalker...@gmail.com> > wrote:



Hi Carrie,

 

I agree with you completely and I'll send a message as well. I have no 
intention of paying their fee and I will simply find another book reader.

JODY





To Boldly Go   









thunderwalker...@gmail.com <mailto:thunderwalker...@gmail.com>  





"What's within you is stronger than what's in your way."  NO BARRIERS  Erik 
Weihenmayer





On Mar 26, 2024, at 10:25 AM, Kerry Macdonald mailto:kerryma...@gmail.com> > wrote:

Although I love Voice Dream, I think this is an outrage and simply greed on 
the developers part. Yes, I know developers need to eat, but I think they are 
just jumping on this subscription bandwagon that everyone has been doing these 
days which I feel is a very greedy way to do business. Those of us who 
purchased it already should not have to purchase it again in my opinion. We 
need to stand together and make our voices hurt, everyone should send them an 
email and express their opinion, I have done so, who is with me and will email 
them? That is the only way to get things done is to make our voices heard.

 

 

Kerry

 

Sent from my iPhone





On Mar 26, 2024, at 12:44 AM, Gerardo Corripio mailto:gera1...@gmail.com> > wrote:

Here in Mexico, $60 is almost a thousand Mexican pesos! Yeah I know... you can 
divide 1000 per month, which would be around 150 or so, but if you've already 
bought the app once...

I know maybe Dolphin Easy Reader might not have the different voices or 
Audiobook slaying abilities, but it's free.

Gera

Enviado desde mi iPhone SE (2nd Generation) de Telcel





El 25 mar 2024, a la(s) 10:11 p.m., Joshua Hendrickson mailto:louv...@gmail.com> > escribió:

I can’t believe all this negative talk about not wanting to pay $60 per year 
for voice dream reader. For me, it is one of the best apps out there for 
reading both ebooks and audio content. I’ll tell you all some of the recent 
changes the new owners have done for us all. They have recently allowed audio 
files in M4a format to  properly. When you want to change a reading voice for a 
bookshare book, you now have a search option  quickly find the voice you want. 
You also don’t have to pay for these voices either. You did have to pay around 
$5 per voice before. So please stop complaining and pay the $60 per year if you 
can. If people pay the money, think of how much better the app will be. I’ve 
pcht a lot of time into putting audio books and audio dramas on voice dream 
reader with iTunes to not pay the $60 price. When we found out that v

Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

2024-03-26 Thread regina alvarado

I buy books share because I can download a lot of books in a year. This is just a standalone reading tool. It’s wonderful app but it’s just an app. I just think that $59 a year for an app that you just listen to books on is way too much. I will use some other way to read I do plan on contacting Support and thank you for the address. I will tell them that it’s just too bad that I bought it once and now I have to pay that subscription. They sounded so sad that they had to make that decision in the email and yet they made the decision even though it was bought earlier. The changes they made just didn’t add up to much, just my opinion. On Mar 26, 2024, at 10:34 AM, Jody ianuzzi wrote:Hi Carrie,I agree with you completely and I'll send a message as well. I have no intention of paying their fee and I will simply find another book reader.JODYTo Boldly Go  thunderwalker...@gmail.com "What's within you is stronger than what's in your way." NO BARRIERS Erik WeihenmayerOn Mar 26, 2024, at 10:25 AM, Kerry Macdonald wrote:Although I love Voice Dream, I think this is an outrage and simply greed on the developers part. Yes, I know developers need to eat, but I think they are just jumping on this subscription bandwagon that everyone has been doing these days which I feel is a very greedy way to do business. Those of us who purchased it already should not have to purchase it again in my opinion. We need to stand together and make our voices hurt, everyone should send them an email and express their opinion, I have done so, who is with me and will email them? That is the only way to get things done is to make our voices heard.KerrySent from my iPhoneOn Mar 26, 2024, at 12:44 AM, Gerardo Corripio wrote:Here in Mexico, $60 is almost a thousand Mexican pesos! Yeah I know... you can divide 1000 per month, which would be around 150 or so, but if you've already bought the app once...I know maybe Dolphin Easy Reader might not have the different voices or Audiobook slaying abilities, but it's free.GeraEnviado desde mi iPhone SE (2nd Generation) de TelcelEl 25 mar 2024, a la(s) 10:11 p.m., Joshua Hendrickson escribió:I can’t believe all this negative talk about not wanting to pay $60 per year for voice dream reader. For me, it is one of the best apps out there for reading both ebooks and audio content. I’ll tell you all some of the recent changes the new owners have done for us all. They have recently allowed audio files in M4a format to properly. When you want to change a reading voice for a bookshare book, you now have a search option quickly find the voice you want. You also don’t have to pay for these voices either. You did have to pay around $5 per voice before. So please stop complaining and pay the $60 per year if you can. If people pay the money, think of how much better the app will be. I’ve pcht a lot of time into putting audio books and audio dramas on voice dream reader with iTunes to not pay the $60 price. When we found out that voice dream reader might be charging a subscripttion fee this shouldn’t be a surprise !o anyone. So please if you can, pay the $60!!!Sent from My totally awesome iPhone!!On Mar 25, 2024, at 10:01 PM, Mary Otten wrote:Thanks for the clarification. I never get audiobooks from books share, so book player I don’t care. Kind of sucks. I still think I should be able to download stuff as long as I don’t try to upgrade. You can always do that with everything else. If I have an apple device for instance, and it’s not getting updates anymore I can still use it. This kind of stinks from that aspect. They shouldn’t cut us off from being able to download anything from Bookshare because we don’t want to pay. What if we don’t give a good bloody damn about whatever they think they’re going to implement that we’re going to pay for. I’m not happy about that. But it’s the best thing out there so far. God knows the garbage from speech central doesn’t get it done. It’s too bad. Sent from my iPhoneOn Mar 25, 2024, at 7:53 PM, William James wrote:BookPlayer is an audio only player. It plays zipped files, MP3, M4A, and M4B. You can get it from the following link.BookPlayerPlays M4B/M4A/MP3 audiobooksSent from my iPad Air 5On Mar 25, 2024, at 7:59 PM, Mary Otten wrote:I tend to agree with you, Richard. What is book player if you know? I had never heard of bookplayer app. There is no way I’m going to speech Central. It’s just too clunky. If he did what he’s been asked to do and implemented an easy way to download bookshare books right through the app, Then I would possibly reconsider. But I don’t give two figures for all that fancy Voice stuff he’s doing. I’m perfectly happy with what I have now.MarySent from my iPhoneOn Mar 25, 2024, at 4:41 PM, Richard Turner wrote:I have not updated today.But, if anyone wants to go back and look at what Winston Chen had said when he sold Voice Dream LLC., he made it clear that he would have had to begin charging a subscription to be able to maintain

Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

2024-03-26 Thread Jody ianuzzi

Hi Carrie,I agree with you completely and I'll send a message as well. I have no intention of paying their fee and I will simply find another book reader.JODYTo Boldly Go  thunderwalker...@gmail.com "What's within you is stronger than what's in your way." NO BARRIERS Erik WeihenmayerOn Mar 26, 2024, at 10:25 AM, Kerry Macdonald wrote:Although I love Voice Dream, I think this is an outrage and simply greed on the developers part. Yes, I know developers need to eat, but I think they are just jumping on this subscription bandwagon that everyone has been doing these days which I feel is a very greedy way to do business. Those of us who purchased it already should not have to purchase it again in my opinion. We need to stand together and make our voices hurt, everyone should send them an email and express their opinion, I have done so, who is with me and will email them? That is the only way to get things done is to make our voices heard.KerrySent from my iPhoneOn Mar 26, 2024, at 12:44 AM, Gerardo Corripio wrote:Here in Mexico, $60 is almost a thousand Mexican pesos! Yeah I know... you can divide 1000 per month, which would be around 150 or so, but if you've already bought the app once...I know maybe Dolphin Easy Reader might not have the different voices or Audiobook slaying abilities, but it's free.GeraEnviado desde mi iPhone SE (2nd Generation) de TelcelEl 25 mar 2024, a la(s) 10:11 p.m., Joshua Hendrickson escribió:I can’t believe all this negative talk about not wanting to pay $60 per year for voice dream reader. For me, it is one of the best apps out there for reading both ebooks and audio content. I’ll tell you all some of the recent changes the new owners have done for us all. They have recently allowed audio files in M4a format to properly. When you want to change a reading voice for a bookshare book, you now have a search option quickly find the voice you want. You also don’t have to pay for these voices either. You did have to pay around $5 per voice before. So please stop complaining and pay the $60 per year if you can. If people pay the money, think of how much better the app will be. I’ve pcht a lot of time into putting audio books and audio dramas on voice dream reader with iTunes to not pay the $60 price. When we found out that voice dream reader might be charging a subscripttion fee this shouldn’t be a surprise !o anyone. So please if you can, pay the $60!!!Sent from My totally awesome iPhone!!On Mar 25, 2024, at 10:01 PM, Mary Otten wrote:Thanks for the clarification. I never get audiobooks from books share, so book player I don’t care. Kind of sucks. I still think I should be able to download stuff as long as I don’t try to upgrade. You can always do that with everything else. If I have an apple device for instance, and it’s not getting updates anymore I can still use it. This kind of stinks from that aspect. They shouldn’t cut us off from being able to download anything from Bookshare because we don’t want to pay. What if we don’t give a good bloody damn about whatever they think they’re going to implement that we’re going to pay for. I’m not happy about that. But it’s the best thing out there so far. God knows the garbage from speech central doesn’t get it done. It’s too bad. Sent from my iPhoneOn Mar 25, 2024, at 7:53 PM, William James wrote:BookPlayer is an audio only player. It plays zipped files, MP3, M4A, and M4B. You can get it from the following link.BookPlayerPlays M4B/M4A/MP3 audiobooksSent from my iPad Air 5On Mar 25, 2024, at 7:59 PM, Mary Otten wrote:I tend to agree with you, Richard. What is book player if you know? I had never heard of bookplayer app. There is no way I’m going to speech Central. It’s just too clunky. If he did what he’s been asked to do and implemented an easy way to download bookshare books right through the app, Then I would possibly reconsider. But I don’t give two figures for all that fancy Voice stuff he’s doing. I’m perfectly happy with what I have now.MarySent from my iPhoneOn Mar 25, 2024, at 4:41 PM, Richard Turner wrote:I have not updated today.But, if anyone wants to go back and look at what Winston Chen had said when he sold Voice Dream LLC., he made it clear that he would have had to begin charging a subscription to be able to maintain development and he had already started the Mac version as a subscription.$59 a year seems perfectly reasonable to me if you want the app to continue.You can always dump it for DAISY Easy Reader or Speech Central and deal with much harder interfaces and keep it free… Richard, USA"It's no great honor to be blind, but it's more than a nuisance and less than a disaster. Either you're going to fight like hell when your sight fails or you're going to stand on the sidelines for the rest of your life." -- Dr. Margaret Rockwell Phanstiehl Founder of Audio Description (1932-2009) My web site: https://www.turner42.com

--
The following information is important for all members of the V iPhone list.

Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

2024-03-26 Thread Kerry Macdonald

Although I love Voice Dream, I think this is an outrage and simply greed on the developers part. Yes, I know developers need to eat, but I think they are just jumping on this subscription bandwagon that everyone has been doing these days which I feel is a very greedy way to do business. Those of us who purchased it already should not have to purchase it again in my opinion. We need to stand together and make our voices hurt, everyone should send them an email and express their opinion, I have done so, who is with me and will email them? That is the only way to get things done is to make our voices heard.KerrySent from my iPhoneOn Mar 26, 2024, at 12:44 AM, Gerardo Corripio wrote:Here in Mexico, $60 is almost a thousand Mexican pesos! Yeah I know... you can divide 1000 per month, which would be around 150 or so, but if you've already bought the app once...I know maybe Dolphin Easy Reader might not have the different voices or Audiobook slaying abilities, but it's free.GeraEnviado desde mi iPhone SE (2nd Generation) de TelcelEl 25 mar 2024, a la(s) 10:11 p.m., Joshua Hendrickson escribió:I can’t believe all this negative talk about not wanting to pay $60 per year for voice dream reader. For me, it is one of the best apps out there for reading both ebooks and audio content. I’ll tell you all some of the recent changes the new owners have done for us all. They have recently allowed audio files in M4a format to properly. When you want to change a reading voice for a bookshare book, you now have a search option quickly find the voice you want. You also don’t have to pay for these voices either. You did have to pay around $5 per voice before. So please stop complaining and pay the $60 per year if you can. If people pay the money, think of how much better the app will be. I’ve pcht a lot of time into putting audio books and audio dramas on voice dream reader with iTunes to not pay the $60 price. When we found out that voice dream reader might be charging a subscripttion fee this shouldn’t be a surprise !o anyone. So please if you can, pay the $60!!!Sent from My totally awesome iPhone!!On Mar 25, 2024, at 10:01 PM, Mary Otten wrote:Thanks for the clarification. I never get audiobooks from books share, so book player I don’t care. Kind of sucks. I still think I should be able to download stuff as long as I don’t try to upgrade. You can always do that with everything else. If I have an apple device for instance, and it’s not getting updates anymore I can still use it. This kind of stinks from that aspect. They shouldn’t cut us off from being able to download anything from Bookshare because we don’t want to pay. What if we don’t give a good bloody damn about whatever they think they’re going to implement that we’re going to pay for. I’m not happy about that. But it’s the best thing out there so far. God knows the garbage from speech central doesn’t get it done. It’s too bad. Sent from my iPhoneOn Mar 25, 2024, at 7:53 PM, William James wrote:BookPlayer is an audio only player. It plays zipped files, MP3, M4A, and M4B. You can get it from the following link.BookPlayerPlays M4B/M4A/MP3 audiobooksSent from my iPad Air 5On Mar 25, 2024, at 7:59 PM, Mary Otten wrote:I tend to agree with you, Richard. What is book player if you know? I had never heard of bookplayer app. There is no way I’m going to speech Central. It’s just too clunky. If he did what he’s been asked to do and implemented an easy way to download bookshare books right through the app, Then I would possibly reconsider. But I don’t give two figures for all that fancy Voice stuff he’s doing. I’m perfectly happy with what I have now.MarySent from my iPhoneOn Mar 25, 2024, at 4:41 PM, Richard Turner wrote:I have not updated today.But, if anyone wants to go back and look at what Winston Chen had said when he sold Voice Dream LLC., he made it clear that he would have had to begin charging a subscription to be able to maintain development and he had already started the Mac version as a subscription.$59 a year seems perfectly reasonable to me if you want the app to continue.You can always dump it for DAISY Easy Reader or Speech Central and deal with much harder interfaces and keep it free… Richard, USA"It's no great honor to be blind, but it's more than a nuisance and less than a disaster. Either you're going to fight like hell when your sight fails or you're going to stand on the sidelines for the rest of your life." -- Dr. Margaret Rockwell Phanstiehl Founder of Audio Description (1932-2009) My web site: https://www.turner42.com

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RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

so, are both choices available? monthly subscription and yearly subscription?

 

Cheers,

Leo Bado.

 

I have found both freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, 
for those who understand us enslave something in us.

Khalil Gibran.

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of 
sarai.bucciare...@gmail.com
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 5:18 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

 

That’s $5 a month.

I’m sure people waste $5 a month on crap they don’t need. Heck a streaming 
service is more expensive. Bookshare is now $79 a year.

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
Dennis Long
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 2:41 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

 

Not at these rates make it reasonable this is ridiculous.

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
sarai.bucciare...@gmail.com <mailto:sarai.bucciare...@gmail.com> 
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2024 8:25 PM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

 

Developers have to eat too. They should get paid.

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
Cristóbal Muñoz
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2024 7:05 PM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

 

So I opened up the app again and got the banner at the bottom of the screen. 
Not sure if I’ll sign onto the $60, but honestly, I more than got my money’s 
worth and then some for this app if this is the case. 

I believe BookPlayer also has an in-app payment option for cloud storage and 
syncing. 

For some folks, the 60 bucks for VDR might even be worth it as you can use just 
one app for both eBooks and audiobooks. Everyone knows their own budget though.

Cristóbal

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of Mary 
Otten
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2024 4:59 PM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

 

I tend to agree with you, Richard. What is book player if you know? I had never 
heard of bookplayer app. There is no way I’m going to speech Central. It’s just 
too clunky. If he did what he’s been asked to do and implemented an easy way to 
download bookshare books right through the app, Then I would possibly 
reconsider. But I don’t give two figures for all that fancy Voice stuff he’s 
doing. I’m perfectly happy with what I have now.

Mary

 

Sent from my iPhone

 

On Mar 25, 2024, at 4:41 PM, Richard Turner mailto:richardr_tur...@comcast.net> > wrote:



I have not updated today.

But, if anyone wants to go back and look at what Winston Chen had said when he 
sold Voice Dream LLC., he made it clear that he would have had to begin 
charging a subscription to be able to maintain development and he had already 
started the Mac version as a subscription.

$59 a year seems perfectly reasonable to me if you want the app to continue.

You can always dump it for DAISY Easy Reader or Speech Central and deal with 
much harder interfaces and keep it free…

 

Richard, USA

"It's no great honor to be blind, but it's more than a nuisance and less than a 
disaster. Either you're going to fight like hell when your sight fails or 
you're going to stand on the sidelines for the rest of your life." -- Dr. 
Margaret Rockwell Phanstiehl Founder of Audio Description (1932-2009)

 

My web site:  <https://www.turner42.com> https://www.turner42.com

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Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

Then don't use it.Richard, USA“Grandma always told us, “Be careful when you pray for patience. God stores it on the other side of Hell and you will have to go through Hell to get it.”-- Cedrick Bridgeforth My web site: https://www.turner42.com/ On Mar 26, 2024, at 12:53 AM, Dennis Long wrote:I hope it gets boycotted. Again its more then half a Jaws subscription. That is a screen reader. They are way out of line with their pricing. From: viphone@googlegroups.com On Behalf Of Joshua HendricksonSent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 3:37 AMTo: viphone@googlegroups.comSubject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream I’d expect this subscription could pay for things like new audio formats like ogg could be played. Also maybe newer voices like those from Microsofft. Take a chance and see what happens. I wish people weren’t so picky. I will support voice dream reader and I really hope others will do so as well. I am looking forward to the future of the app if people will stop whineing and pay for the app. It really does a lot of great stuff. If you want something that works well, sometimes you have to pay for it.Sent from My totally awesome iPhone!!On Mar 26, 2024, at 12:54 AM, Ron Canazzi <aa...@roadrunner.com> wrote: Hi Group,The Book Share program itself now has its own app. It is free and while a bit limited, it does read book share books quite well and the recent addition of a bookmark feature makes it usable in that limited context. On 3/26/2024 12:38 AM, Gerardo Corripio wrote:You guys are forgetting about the "Dolphin Easy Reader" app; which has a Bookshare interface. It's free, thus I plan to use it even more if Voice Dream ends up being subscriptiononly. Good luck!Gera Enviado desde mi iPhone SE (2nd Generation) de TelcelEl 25 mar 2024, a la(s) 9:01 p.m., Mary Otten escribió:Thanks for the clarification. I never get audiobooks from books share, so book player I don’t care. Kind of sucks. I still think I should be able to download stuff as long as I don’t try to upgrade. You can always do that with everything else. If I have an apple device for instance, and it’s not getting updates anymore I can still use it. This kind of stinks from that aspect. They shouldn’t cut us off from being able to download anything from Bookshare because we don’t want to pay. What if we don’t give a good bloody damn about whatever they think they’re going to implement that we’re going to pay for. I’m not happy about that. But it’s the best thing out there so far. God knows the garbage from speech central doesn’t get it done. It’s too bad. Sent from my iPhoneOn Mar 25, 2024, at 7:53 PM, William James wrote:BookPlayer is an audio only player. It plays zipped files, MP3, M4A, and M4B. You can get it from the following link. BookPlayerPlays M4B/M4A/MP3 audiobooks Sent from my iPad Air 5On Mar 25, 2024, at 7:59 PM, Mary Otten wrote:I tend to agree with you, Richard. What is book player if you know? I had never heard of bookplayer app. There is no way I’m going to speech Central. It’s just too clunky. If he did what he’s been asked to do and implemented an easy way to download bookshare books right through the app, Then I would possibly reconsider. But I don’t give two figures for all that fancy Voice stuff he’s doing. I’m perfectly happy with what I have now. Mary Sent from my iPhoneOn Mar 25, 2024, at 4:41 PM, Richard Turner wrote: I have not updated today.But, if anyone wants to go back and look at what Winston Chen had said when he sold Voice Dream LLC., he made it clear that he would have had to begin charging a subscription to be able to maintain development and he had already started the Mac version as a subscription.$59 a year seems perfectly reasonable to me if you want the app to continue.You can always dump it for DAISY Easy Reader or Speech Central and deal with much harder interfaces and keep it free… Richard, USA"It's no great honor to be blind, but it's more than a nuisance and less than a disaster. Either you're going to fight like hell when your sight fails or you're going to stand on the sidelines for the rest of your life." -- Dr. Margaret Rockwell Phanstiehl Founder of Audio Description (1932-2009) My web site: https://www.turner42.com-- The following information is important for all members of the V iPhone list. If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or if you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the owners or moderators directly rather than posting on the list itself. Your V iPhone list moderator is Mark Taylor. Mark can be reached at: mk...@ucla.edu. Your list owner is Cara Quinn - you can reach Cara at caraqu...@caraquinn.com The archives for this list can be searched at:http://www.mail-archive.com/viphone@googlegroups.com/--- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "VIPhone" group.To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to viphone+

RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

2024-03-26 Thread sarai.bucciarelli

That’s $5 a month.

I’m sure people waste $5 a month on crap they don’t need. Heck a streaming 
service is more expensive. Bookshare is now $79 a year.

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of Dennis 
Long
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 2:41 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

 

Not at these rates make it reasonable this is ridiculous.

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
sarai.bucciare...@gmail.com <mailto:sarai.bucciare...@gmail.com> 
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2024 8:25 PM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

 

Developers have to eat too. They should get paid.

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
Cristóbal Muñoz
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2024 7:05 PM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

 

So I opened up the app again and got the banner at the bottom of the screen. 
Not sure if I’ll sign onto the $60, but honestly, I more than got my money’s 
worth and then some for this app if this is the case. 

I believe BookPlayer also has an in-app payment option for cloud storage and 
syncing. 

For some folks, the 60 bucks for VDR might even be worth it as you can use just 
one app for both eBooks and audiobooks. Everyone knows their own budget though.

Cristóbal

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of Mary 
Otten
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2024 4:59 PM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

 

I tend to agree with you, Richard. What is book player if you know? I had never 
heard of bookplayer app. There is no way I’m going to speech Central. It’s just 
too clunky. If he did what he’s been asked to do and implemented an easy way to 
download bookshare books right through the app, Then I would possibly 
reconsider. But I don’t give two figures for all that fancy Voice stuff he’s 
doing. I’m perfectly happy with what I have now.

Mary

 

Sent from my iPhone

 

On Mar 25, 2024, at 4:41 PM, Richard Turner mailto:richardr_tur...@comcast.net> > wrote:



I have not updated today.

But, if anyone wants to go back and look at what Winston Chen had said when he 
sold Voice Dream LLC., he made it clear that he would have had to begin 
charging a subscription to be able to maintain development and he had already 
started the Mac version as a subscription.

$59 a year seems perfectly reasonable to me if you want the app to continue.

You can always dump it for DAISY Easy Reader or Speech Central and deal with 
much harder interfaces and keep it free…

 

Richard, USA

"It's no great honor to be blind, but it's more than a nuisance and less than a 
disaster. Either you're going to fight like hell when your sight fails or 
you're going to stand on the sidelines for the rest of your life." -- Dr. 
Margaret Rockwell Phanstiehl Founder of Audio Description (1932-2009)

 

My web site:  <https://www.turner42.com> https://www.turner42.com

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Your V iPhone list moderator is Mark Taylor. Mark can be reached at: 
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can reach Cara at caraqu...@caraquinn.com <mailto:caraqu...@caraquinn.com> 
 
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Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

i haven't heard back yet. Dennis LongSent from my iPhone 15 Pro MaxOn Mar 26, 2024, at 6:08 AM, leobado1...@gmail.com wrote:Have they given you an actual answer on the price? Cheers,Leo Bado. I have found both freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us.Khalil Gibran. From: viphone@googlegroups.com On Behalf Of Dennis LongSent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 1:38 AMTo: viphone@googlegroups.comSubject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream Oh I reached out to them. They are ridiculous. I remember this company saying something if you had already purchased it. I’m off to find what that was. I will again encourage everyone to at the least contact them the more that don’t buy it the stronger message it will send them. This is more then 50 percent of what a Jaws subscription is in the USA I don’t think so. From: viphone@googlegroups.com <viphone@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Richard TurnerSent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 12:55 AMTo: viphone@googlegroups.comSubject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream I mentioned DAISY Easy Reader and Speech Central if you cannot afford Voice Dream Reader.Perhaps you should reach out to supp...@voicedream.com and ask about pricing in other countries.Or, as you say, just use Easy Reader. Richard, USA"It's no great honor to be blind, but it's more than a nuisance and less than a disaster. Either you're going to fight like hell when your sight fails or you're going to stand on the sidelines for the rest of your life." -- Dr. Margaret Rockwell Phanstiehl Founder of Audio Description (1932-2009) My web site: https://www.turner42.com From: viphone@googlegroups.com <viphone@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Gerardo CorripioSent: Monday, March 25, 2024 9:39 PMTo: viphone@googlegroups.comSubject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream You guys are forgetting about the "Dolphin Easy Reader" app; which has a Bookshare interface. It's free, thus I plan to use it even more if Voice Dream ends up being subscriptiononly. Good luck!GeraEnviado desde mi iPhone SE (2nd Generation) de Telcel El 25 mar 2024, a la(s) 9:01 p.m., Mary Otten <motte...@gmail.com> escribió:Thanks for the clarification. I never get audiobooks from books share, so book player I don’t care. Kind of sucks. I still think I should be able to download stuff as long as I don’t try to upgrade. You can always do that with everything else. If I have an apple device for instance, and it’s not getting updates anymore I can still use it. This kind of stinks from that aspect. They shouldn’t cut us off from being able to download anything from Bookshare because we don’t want to pay. What if we don’t give a good bloody damn about whatever they think they’re going to implement that we’re going to pay for. I’m not happy about that. But it’s the best thing out there so far. God knows the garbage from speech central doesn’t get it done. It’s too bad. Sent from my iPhone On Mar 25, 2024, at 7:53 PM, William James <wiljame...@gmail.com> wrote:BookPlayer is an audio only player. It plays zipped files, MP3, M4A, and M4B. You can get it from the following link. BookPlayerPlays M4B/M4A/MP3 audiobooks Sent from my iPad Air 5 On Mar 25, 2024, at 7:59 PM, Mary Otten <motte...@gmail.com> wrote:I tend to agree with you, Richard. What is book player if you know? I had never heard of bookplayer app. There is no way I’m going to speech Central. It’s just too clunky. If he did what he’s been asked to do and implemented an easy way to download bookshare books right through the app, Then I would possibly reconsider. But I don’t give two figures for all that fancy Voice stuff he’s doing. I’m perfectly happy with what I have now.Mary Sent from my iPhone On Mar 25, 2024, at 4:41 PM, Richard Turner <richardr_tur...@comcast.net> wrote:I have not updated today.But, if anyone wants to go back and look at what Winston Chen had said when he sold Voice Dream LLC., he made it clear that he would have had to begin charging a subscription to be able to maintain development and he had already started the Mac version as a subscription.$59 a year seems perfectly reasonable to me if you want the app to continue.You can always dump it for DAISY Easy Reader or Speech Central and deal with much harder interfaces and keep it free… Richard, USA"It's no great honor to be blind, but it's more than a nuisance and less than a disaster. Either you're going to fight like hell when your sight fails or you're going to stand on the sidelines for the rest of your life." -- Dr. Margaret Rockwell Phanstiehl Founder of Audio Description (1932-2009) My web site: https://www.turner42.com-- The following information is important for all members of the V iPhone list. If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or if you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the owners or moderators directly rather tha

RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

Have they given you an actual answer on the price?

 

Cheers,

Leo Bado.

 

I have found both freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, 
for those who understand us enslave something in us.

Khalil Gibran.

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of Dennis 
Long
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 1:38 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

 

Oh I reached out to them.  They are ridiculous. I remember this company saying 
something if you had already purchased it.  I’m off to find what that was.  I 
will again encourage everyone to at the least contact them the more that don’t 
buy it the stronger message it will send them.  This is more then 50 percent of 
what a Jaws subscription is in the USA   I don’t think so.

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
Richard Turner
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 12:55 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

 

I mentioned DAISY Easy Reader and Speech Central if you cannot afford Voice 
Dream Reader.

Perhaps you should reach out to supp...@voicedream.com 
<mailto:supp...@voicedream.com>  and ask about pricing in other countries.

Or, as you say, just use Easy Reader.

 

 

 

Richard, USA

"It's no great honor to be blind, but it's more than a nuisance and less than a 
disaster. Either you're going to fight like hell when your sight fails or 
you're going to stand on the sidelines for the rest of your life." -- Dr. 
Margaret Rockwell Phanstiehl Founder of Audio Description (1932-2009)

 

My web site:  <https://www.turner42.com> https://www.turner42.com

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
Gerardo Corripio
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2024 9:39 PM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

 

You guys are forgetting about the "Dolphin Easy Reader" app; which has a 
Bookshare interface. It's free, thus I plan to use it even more if Voice Dream 
ends up being subscriptiononly. Good luck!

Gera

Enviado desde mi iPhone SE (2nd Generation) de Telcel

 

El 25 mar 2024, a la(s) 9:01 p.m., Mary Otten mailto:motte...@gmail.com> > escribió:

Thanks for the clarification. I never get audiobooks from books share, so book 
player I don’t care. Kind of sucks. I still think I should be able to download 
stuff as long as I don’t try to upgrade. You can always do that with everything 
else. If I have an apple device for instance, and it’s not getting updates 
anymore I can still use it. This kind of stinks from that aspect. They 
shouldn’t cut us off from being able to download anything from Bookshare 
because we don’t want to pay. What if we don’t give a good bloody damn about 
whatever they think they’re going to implement that we’re going to pay for.  
I’m not happy about that. But it’s the best thing out there so far. God knows 
the garbage from speech central doesn’t get it done. It’s too bad. 

Sent from my iPhone

 

On Mar 25, 2024, at 7:53 PM, William James mailto:wiljame...@gmail.com> > wrote:

BookPlayer is an audio only player.  It plays zipped files, MP3,  M4A, and 
M4B.  You can get it from the following link.

 






 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> 

 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> BookPlayer

 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> Plays M4B/M4A/MP3 
audiobooks

 

Sent from my iPad Air 5

 

On Mar 25, 2024, at 7:59 PM, Mary Otten mailto:motte...@gmail.com> > wrote:

I tend to agree with you, Richard. What is book player if you know? I had 
never heard of bookplayer app. There is no way I’m going to speech Central. 
It’s just too clunky. If he did what he’s been asked to do and implemented an 
easy way to download bookshare books right through the app, Then I would 
possibly reconsider. But I don’t give two figures for all that fancy Voice 
stuff he’s doing. I’m perfectly happy with what I have now.

Mary

 

Sent from my iPhone

 

On Mar 25, 2024, at 4:41 PM, Richard Turner mailto:richardr_tur...@comcast.net> > wrote:



I have not updated today.

But, if anyone wants to go back and look at what Winston Chen had said when he 
sold Voice Dream LLC., he made it clear that he would have had to begin 
charging a subscription to be able to maintain development and he had already 
started the Mac version as a subscription.

$59 a year seems perfectly reasonable to me if you want the app to continue.

You can always dump it for DAISY Easy Reader or Speech Central and deal with 
much harder interfaces and keep it free…

 

Richard, USA

"It's no great honor to be blind, but it's more than a nuisance and less than a 
disaster. E

RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

Oh boy, as for the Microsoft voices , read the VDR FAQ. To my understanding, 
they won’t implemented any of the cloud-based voices, but let’s say they do, 
well all they could really do is to offer the possibility to introduce your own 
API key, but you have to purchase this from Microsoft just as it is done in 
Speech Central, and guess what? Price is even higher than a VDR subscription.

 

Cheers,

Leo Bado.

 

I have found both freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, 
for those who understand us enslave something in us.

Khalil Gibran.

 

From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of Joshua 
Hendrickson
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 1:37 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

 

I’d expect this subscription could pay for things like new audio formats like 
ogg could be played. Also maybe newer voices like those from Microsofft. Take a 
chance and see what happens. I wish people weren’t so picky. I will support 
voice dream reader and I really hope others will do so as well. I am looking 
forward to the future of the app if people will stop whineing and pay for the 
app. It really does a lot of great stuff. If you want something that works 
well, sometimes you have to pay for it.

Sent from My totally awesome iPhone!!





On Mar 26, 2024, at 12:54 AM, Ron Canazzi mailto:aa...@roadrunner.com> > wrote:

 Hi Group,

The Book Share program itself now has its own app. It is free and while a bit 
limited, it does read book share books quite well and the recent addition of a 
bookmark feature makes it usable in that limited context. 

On 3/26/2024 12:38 AM, Gerardo Corripio wrote:

You guys are forgetting about the "Dolphin Easy Reader" app; which has a 
Bookshare interface. It's free, thus I plan to use it even more if Voice Dream 
ends up being subscriptiononly. Good luck!

Gera 

Enviado desde mi iPhone SE (2nd Generation) de Telcel





El 25 mar 2024, a la(s) 9:01 p.m., Mary Otten  <mailto:motte...@gmail.com> 
 escribió:

Thanks for the clarification. I never get audiobooks from books share, so book 
player I don’t care. Kind of sucks. I still think I should be able to download 
stuff as long as I don’t try to upgrade. You can always do that with everything 
else. If I have an apple device for instance, and it’s not getting updates 
anymore I can still use it. This kind of stinks from that aspect. They 
shouldn’t cut us off from being able to download anything from Bookshare 
because we don’t want to pay. What if we don’t give a good bloody damn about 
whatever they think they’re going to implement that we’re going to pay for.  
I’m not happy about that. But it’s the best thing out there so far. God knows 
the garbage from speech central doesn’t get it done. It’s too bad. 

Sent from my iPhone





On Mar 25, 2024, at 7:53 PM, William James  <mailto:wiljame...@gmail.com> 
 wrote:

BookPlayer is an audio only player.  It plays zipped files, MP3,  M4A, and 
M4B.  You can get it from the following link. 

 






 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> 

 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> BookPlayer

 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> Plays M4B/M4A/MP3 
audiobooks

 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998>  

 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> Sent from my iPad Air 5

 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> 



 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> On Mar 25, 2024, at 
7:59 PM, Mary Otten  wrote:

 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> I tend to agree with 
you, Richard. What is book player if you know? I had never heard of bookplayer 
app. There is no way I’m going to speech Central. It’s just too clunky. If he 
did what he’s been asked to do and implemented an easy way to download 
bookshare books right through the app, Then I would possibly reconsider. But I 
don’t give two figures for all that fancy Voice stuff he’s doing. I’m perfectly 
happy with what I have now. 

 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> Mary

 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998>  

 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> Sent from my iPhone

 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> 



 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> On Mar 25, 2024, at 
4:41 PM, Richard Turner  wrote:

 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998>  

 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> I have not updated 
today.

 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> But, if anyone wants 
to go back and look at what Winston Chen had said when he sold Voice Dream 
LLC., he made it clear that he would have had to begin charging a subscription 
to be able to maintain development and he had already start

RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

I hope it gets boycotted.  Again its more then half a Jaws subscription.  That 
is a screen reader.  They are way out of line with their pricing.

From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of Joshua 
Hendrickson
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 3:37 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

I’d expect this subscription could pay for things like new audio formats like 
ogg could be played. Also maybe newer voices like those from Microsofft. Take a 
chance and see what happens. I wish people weren’t so picky. I will support 
voice dream reader and I really hope others will do so as well. I am looking 
forward to the future of the app if people will stop whineing and pay for the 
app. It really does a lot of great stuff. If you want something that works 
well, sometimes you have to pay for it.
Sent from My totally awesome iPhone!!

On Mar 26, 2024, at 12:54 AM, Ron Canazzi mailto:aa...@roadrunner.com> > wrote:
 Hi Group,

The Book Share program itself now has its own app. It is free and while a bit 
limited, it does read book share books quite well and the recent addition of a 
bookmark feature makes it usable in that limited context. 
On 3/26/2024 12:38 AM, Gerardo Corripio wrote:
You guys are forgetting about the "Dolphin Easy Reader" app; which has a 
Bookshare interface. It's free, thus I plan to use it even more if Voice Dream 
ends up being subscriptiononly. Good luck!
Gera 
Enviado desde mi iPhone SE (2nd Generation) de Telcel

El 25 mar 2024, a la(s) 9:01 p.m., Mary Otten  <mailto:motte...@gmail.com> 
 escribió:
Thanks for the clarification. I never get audiobooks from books share, so book 
player I don’t care. Kind of sucks. I still think I should be able to download 
stuff as long as I don’t try to upgrade. You can always do that with everything 
else. If I have an apple device for instance, and it’s not getting updates 
anymore I can still use it. This kind of stinks from that aspect. They 
shouldn’t cut us off from being able to download anything from Bookshare 
because we don’t want to pay. What if we don’t give a good bloody damn about 
whatever they think they’re going to implement that we’re going to pay for.  
I’m not happy about that. But it’s the best thing out there so far. God knows 
the garbage from speech central doesn’t get it done. It’s too bad. 
Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 25, 2024, at 7:53 PM, William James  <mailto:wiljame...@gmail.com> 
 wrote:
BookPlayer is an audio only player.  It plays zipped files, MP3,  M4A, and 
M4B.  You can get it from the following link. 

 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> 
 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> BookPlayer
 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> Plays M4B/M4A/MP3 
audiobooks
 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998>  
 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> Sent from my iPad Air 5
 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> 

 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> On Mar 25, 2024, at 
7:59 PM, Mary Otten  wrote:
 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> I tend to agree with 
you, Richard. What is book player if you know? I had never heard of bookplayer 
app. There is no way I’m going to speech Central. It’s just too clunky. If he 
did what he’s been asked to do and implemented an easy way to download 
bookshare books right through the app, Then I would possibly reconsider. But I 
don’t give two figures for all that fancy Voice stuff he’s doing. I’m perfectly 
happy with what I have now. 
 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> Mary
 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998>  
 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> Sent from my iPhone
 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> 

 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> On Mar 25, 2024, at 
4:41 PM, Richard Turner  wrote:
 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998>  
 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> I have not updated 
today.
 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> But, if anyone wants 
to go back and look at what Winston Chen had said when he sold Voice Dream 
LLC., he made it clear that he would have had to begin charging a subscription 
to be able to maintain development and he had already started the Mac version 
as a subscription.
 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> $59 a year seems 
perfectly reasonable to me if you want the app to continue.
 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> You can always dump it 
for DAISY Easy Reader or Speech Central and deal with much harder interfaces 
and keep it free…
 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998>  
 <https://apps.apple.com/

RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

They aren't considering that a large number of blind people can't afford $60 a 
year.  They aren't also considering that a large number of blind people aren't 
able to find jobs in the USA.More over if it were more reasonably priced 
maybe and it’s a big maybe.  It would be a big maybe because the only reason 
they would lower the price is they terribly misjudged the market.

-Original Message-
From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of regina 
alvarado
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2024 4:17 PM
To: Viphone 
Subject: Making everyone pay for voice dream

Just received a message voice dream is going to cost 59 dollars a year now. A 
pet peeve of mine is everything requires a subscription. I see nothing in there 
reasons for this that affects me. So, nice I had it for so long. It was a 
wonderful app, but I am done with it. As with MBraille I was one of the first 
to buy it for I think 5 dollars. Makes me want to cry to lose it, but much more 
important places to put my money. On Social Security with a guide dog and so 
guess it goes away. Still want to cry after all the books from Bookshare it has 
read to me.  

Reggie Alvarado 

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RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

If I can’t upload my own content to then  it  will be gone on May 1st.  It is 
one thing if you want to use it for book share books that’s fine.  But to 
charge if you import say a word document that is nuts it isn’t worth $60 a 
year.  No where close.

From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of regina 
alvarado
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2024 7:59 PM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

The email said it starts on May 1. When I went to the link, it showed me that 
it was $59 a year. It had all kinds of things they had done and why they would 
change to everyone. I bought it I think for five dollars. I was one of the 
first people to buy it I think. It said that on May 1, you will no longer be 
able to download anything. I use it only for books share and I’m very sorry 
that it’s going.

Reggie Alvarado 

On Mar 25, 2024, at 7:55 PM, leobado1...@gmail.com 
<mailto:leobado1...@gmail.com>  wrote:

Well, if you want to throw some light on this, ask someone for assistance when 
you launch VDR, so that you can turn off voice over. Apparently, double tap on 
the learn more link makes the banner go away, so we’re deep in the woods here.

Cheers,
Leo Bado.

I have found both freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, 
for those who understand us enslave something in us.
Khalil Gibran.

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
Richard Turner
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2024 5:41 PM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

I have not updated today.
But, if anyone wants to go back and look at what Winston Chen had said when he 
sold Voice Dream LLC., he made it clear that he would have had to begin 
charging a subscription to be able to maintain development and he had already 
started the Mac version as a subscription.
$59 a year seems perfectly reasonable to me if you want the app to continue.
You can always dump it for DAISY Easy Reader or Speech Central and deal with 
much harder interfaces and keep it free…

Richard, USA
"It's no great honor to be blind, but it's more than a nuisance and less than a 
disaster. Either you're going to fight like hell when your sight fails or 
you're going to stand on the sidelines for the rest of your life." -- Dr. 
Margaret Rockwell Phanstiehl Founder of Audio Description (1932-2009)

My web site:  <https://www.turner42.com> https://www.turner42.com
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The following information

RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

Not at these rates make it reasonable this is ridiculous.

From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of 
sarai.bucciare...@gmail.com
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2024 8:25 PM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

Developers have to eat too. They should get paid.

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
Cristóbal Muñoz
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2024 7:05 PM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

So I opened up the app again and got the banner at the bottom of the screen. 
Not sure if I’ll sign onto the $60, but honestly, I more than got my money’s 
worth and then some for this app if this is the case. 
I believe BookPlayer also has an in-app payment option for cloud storage and 
syncing. 
For some folks, the 60 bucks for VDR might even be worth it as you can use just 
one app for both eBooks and audiobooks. Everyone knows their own budget though.
Cristóbal

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of Mary 
Otten
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2024 4:59 PM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

I tend to agree with you, Richard. What is book player if you know? I had never 
heard of bookplayer app. There is no way I’m going to speech Central. It’s just 
too clunky. If he did what he’s been asked to do and implemented an easy way to 
download bookshare books right through the app, Then I would possibly 
reconsider. But I don’t give two figures for all that fancy Voice stuff he’s 
doing. I’m perfectly happy with what I have now.
Mary

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 25, 2024, at 4:41 PM, Richard Turner mailto:richardr_tur...@comcast.net> > wrote:

I have not updated today.
But, if anyone wants to go back and look at what Winston Chen had said when he 
sold Voice Dream LLC., he made it clear that he would have had to begin 
charging a subscription to be able to maintain development and he had already 
started the Mac version as a subscription.
$59 a year seems perfectly reasonable to me if you want the app to continue.
You can always dump it for DAISY Easy Reader or Speech Central and deal with 
much harder interfaces and keep it free…

Richard, USA
"It's no great honor to be blind, but it's more than a nuisance and less than a 
disaster. Either you're going to fight like hell when your sight fails or 
you're going to stand on the sidelines for the rest of your life." -- Dr. 
Margaret Rockwell Phanstiehl Founder of Audio Description (1932-2009)

My web site:  <https://www.turner42.com> https://www.turner42.com
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Your V iPhone list moderator is Mark Taylor. Mark can be reached at: 
mk...@ucla.edu <mailto:mk...@ucla.edu> . Your list owner is Cara Quinn - you 
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Your V iPhone list moderator is Mark Taylor. Mark can be reached at: 
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can reach Cara at caraqu...@caraquinn.com <mailto:caraqu...@caraquinn.com> 

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RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

Oh I reached out to them.  They are ridiculous. I remember this company saying 
something if you had already purchased it.  I’m off to find what that was.  I 
will again encourage everyone to at the least contact them the more that don’t 
buy it the stronger message it will send them.  This is more then 50 percent of 
what a Jaws subscription is in the USA   I don’t think so.

From: viphone@googlegroups.com  On Behalf Of Richard 
Turner
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 12:55 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: Making everyone pay for voice dream

I mentioned DAISY Easy Reader and Speech Central if you cannot afford Voice 
Dream Reader.
Perhaps you should reach out to supp...@voicedream.com 
<mailto:supp...@voicedream.com>  and ask about pricing in other countries.
Or, as you say, just use Easy Reader.

Richard, USA
"It's no great honor to be blind, but it's more than a nuisance and less than a 
disaster. Either you're going to fight like hell when your sight fails or 
you're going to stand on the sidelines for the rest of your life." -- Dr. 
Margaret Rockwell Phanstiehl Founder of Audio Description (1932-2009)

My web site:  <https://www.turner42.com> https://www.turner42.com

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com>  
mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> > On Behalf Of 
Gerardo Corripio
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2024 9:39 PM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com <mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com> 
Subject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

You guys are forgetting about the "Dolphin Easy Reader" app; which has a 
Bookshare interface. It's free, thus I plan to use it even more if Voice Dream 
ends up being subscriptiononly. Good luck!
Gera
Enviado desde mi iPhone SE (2nd Generation) de Telcel

El 25 mar 2024, a la(s) 9:01 p.m., Mary Otten mailto:motte...@gmail.com> > escribió:
Thanks for the clarification. I never get audiobooks from books share, so book 
player I don’t care. Kind of sucks. I still think I should be able to download 
stuff as long as I don’t try to upgrade. You can always do that with everything 
else. If I have an apple device for instance, and it’s not getting updates 
anymore I can still use it. This kind of stinks from that aspect. They 
shouldn’t cut us off from being able to download anything from Bookshare 
because we don’t want to pay. What if we don’t give a good bloody damn about 
whatever they think they’re going to implement that we’re going to pay for.  
I’m not happy about that. But it’s the best thing out there so far. God knows 
the garbage from speech central doesn’t get it done. It’s too bad. 
Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 25, 2024, at 7:53 PM, William James mailto:wiljame...@gmail.com> > wrote:
BookPlayer is an audio only player.  It plays zipped files, MP3,  M4A, and 
M4B.  You can get it from the following link.

 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> 
 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> BookPlayer
 <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998> Plays M4B/M4A/MP3 
audiobooks

Sent from my iPad Air 5

On Mar 25, 2024, at 7:59 PM, Mary Otten mailto:motte...@gmail.com> > wrote:
I tend to agree with you, Richard. What is book player if you know? I had 
never heard of bookplayer app. There is no way I’m going to speech Central. 
It’s just too clunky. If he did what he’s been asked to do and implemented an 
easy way to download bookshare books right through the app, Then I would 
possibly reconsider. But I don’t give two figures for all that fancy Voice 
stuff he’s doing. I’m perfectly happy with what I have now.
Mary

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 25, 2024, at 4:41 PM, Richard Turner mailto:richardr_tur...@comcast.net> > wrote:

I have not updated today.
But, if anyone wants to go back and look at what Winston Chen had said when he 
sold Voice Dream LLC., he made it clear that he would have had to begin 
charging a subscription to be able to maintain development and he had already 
started the Mac version as a subscription.
$59 a year seems perfectly reasonable to me if you want the app to continue.
You can always dump it for DAISY Easy Reader or Speech Central and deal with 
much harder interfaces and keep it free…

Richard, USA
"It's no great honor to be blind, but it's more than a nuisance and less than a 
disaster. Either you're going to fight like hell when your sight fails or 
you're going to stand on the sidelines for the rest of your life." -- Dr. 
Margaret Rockwell Phanstiehl Founder of Audio Description (1932-2009)

My web site:  <https://www.turner42.com> https://www.turner42.com
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Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

2024-03-26 Thread Joshua Hendrickson

I’d expect this subscription could pay for things like new audio formats like ogg could be played. Also maybe newer voices like those from Microsofft. Take a chance and see what happens. I wish people weren’t so picky. I will support voice dream reader and I really hope others will do so as well. I am looking forward to the future of the app if people will stop whineing and pay for the app. It really does a lot of great stuff. If you want something that works well, sometimes you have to pay for it.Sent from My totally awesome iPhone!!On Mar 26, 2024, at 12:54 AM, Ron Canazzi wrote:

Hi Group,

The Book Share program itself now has its own app. It is free and
while a bit limited, it does read book share books quite well and
the recent addition of a bookmark feature makes it usable in that
limited context.

On 3/26/2024 12:38 AM, Gerardo Corripio
wrote:

You guys
are forgetting about the "Dolphin Easy Reader" app; which has a
Bookshare interface. It's free, thus I plan to use it even more if
Voice Dream ends up being subscriptiononly. Good luck!
Gera
Enviado desde mi iPhone SE (2nd Generation) de Telcel

El 25 mar 2024, a la(s) 9:01 p.m., Mary
Otten escribió:

Thanks for the clarification. I never get
audiobooks from books share, so book player I don’t care. Kind
of sucks. I still think I should be able to download stuff as
long as I don’t try to upgrade. You can always do that with
everything else. If I have an apple device for instance, and
it’s not getting updates anymore I can still use it. This kind
of stinks from that aspect. They shouldn’t cut us off from
being able to download anything from Bookshare because we
don’t want to pay. What if we don’t give a good bloody damn
about whatever they think they’re going to implement that
we’re going to pay for. I’m not happy about that. But it’s
the best thing out there so far. God knows the garbage from
speech central doesn’t get it done. It’s too bad.
Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 25, 2024, at 7:53 PM, William
James wrote:

BookPlayer is an audio only player. It
plays zipped files, MP3, M4A, and M4B. You can get it
from the following link.

BookPlayer
Plays
M4B/M4A/MP3 audiobooks

Sent from my iPad Air 5

On Mar 25, 2024, at 7:59 PM,
Mary Otten wrote:

I tend to agree with you, Richard.
What is book player if you know? I had never heard
of bookplayer app. There is no way I’m going to
speech Central. It’s just too clunky. If he did what
he’s been asked to do and implemented an easy way to
download bookshare books right through the app, Then
I would possibly reconsider. But I don’t give two
figures for all that fancy Voice stuff he’s doing.
I’m perfectly happy with what I have now.
Mary

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 25, 2024,
at 4:41 PM, Richard Turner

wrote:

Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

2024-03-26 Thread Arnold Schmidt

There are two other alternatives worth mentioning, if what one mostly uses Voice Dream  for is to read Bookshare books. If one already has a Victor Reader Stream, it can be used and books can be downloaded to it directly. Also, if one already has Jaws on a computer, Jaws has FS reader within it. It is there mainly to read FS tutorials, but any Daisy text can be imported into it. I may try Dolphin Easy Reader and the Bookshare reader, but, at this time, I probably will pay the subscription for Voice Dream. Arnold Schmidt Sent from  Arnold's  iPhone S E 3On Mar 26, 2024, at 12:39 AM, Gerardo Corripio  wrote:You guys are forgetting about the "Dolphin Easy Reader" app; which has a Bookshare interface. It's free, thus I plan to use it even more if Voice Dream ends up being subscriptiononly. Good luck!GeraEnviado desde mi iPhone SE (2nd Generation) de TelcelEl 25 mar 2024, a la(s) 9:01 p.m., Mary Otten  escribió:Thanks for the clarification. I never get audiobooks from books share, so book player I don’t care. Kind of sucks. I still think I should be able to download stuff as long as I don’t try to upgrade. You can always do that with everything else. If I have an apple device for instance, and it’s not getting updates anymore I can still use it. This kind of stinks from that aspect. They shouldn’t cut us off from being able to download anything from Bookshare because we don’t want to pay. What if we don’t give a good bloody damn about whatever they think they’re going to implement that we’re going to pay for.  I’m not happy about that. But it’s the best thing out there so far. God knows the garbage from speech central doesn’t get it done. It’s too bad. Sent from my iPhoneOn Mar 25, 2024, at 7:53 PM, William James  wrote:BookPlayer is an audio only player.  It plays zipped files, MP3,  M4A, and M4B.  You can get it from the following link.BookPlayerPlays M4B/M4A/MP3 audiobooksSent from my iPad Air 5On Mar 25, 2024, at 7:59 PM, Mary Otten  wrote:I tend to agree with you, Richard. What is book player if you know? I had never heard of bookplayer app. There is no way I’m going to speech Central. It’s just too clunky. If he did what he’s been asked to do and implemented an easy way to download bookshare books right through the app, Then I would possibly reconsider. But I don’t give two figures for all that fancy Voice stuff he’s doing. I’m perfectly happy with what I have now.MarySent from my iPhoneOn Mar 25, 2024, at 4:41 PM, Richard Turner  wrote:I have not updated today.But, if anyone wants to go back and look at what Winston Chen had said when he sold Voice Dream LLC., he made it clear that he would have had to begin charging a subscription to be able to maintain development and he had already started the Mac version as a subscription.$59 a year seems perfectly reasonable to me if you want the app to continue.You can always dump it for DAISY Easy Reader or Speech Central and deal with much harder interfaces and keep it free… Richard, USA"It's no great honor to be blind, but it's more than a nuisance and less than a disaster. Either you're going to fight like hell when your sight fails or you're going to stand on the sidelines for the rest of your life." -- Dr. Margaret Rockwell Phanstiehl Founder of Audio Description (1932-2009) My web site: https://www.turner42.com



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Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

Gera  i agreee with you completely.  Dennis LongSent from my iPhone 15  Pro MaxOn Mar 26, 2024, at 12:44 AM, Gerardo Corripio  wrote:Here in Mexico, $60 is almost a thousand Mexican pesos! Yeah I know... you can divide 1000 per month, which would be around 150 or so, but if you've already bought the app once...I know maybe Dolphin Easy Reader might not have the different voices or Audiobook slaying abilities, but it's free.GeraEnviado desde mi iPhone SE (2nd Generation) de TelcelEl 25 mar 2024, a la(s) 10:11 p.m., Joshua Hendrickson  escribió:I can’t believe all this negative talk about not wanting to pay $60 per year for voice dream reader. For me, it is one of the best apps out there for reading both ebooks and audio content. I’ll tell you all some of the recent changes the new owners have done for us all. They have recently allowed audio files in M4a format to  properly. When you want to change a reading voice for a bookshare book, you now have a search option  quickly find the voice you want. You also don’t have to pay for these voices either. You did have to pay around $5 per voice before. So please stop complaining and pay the $60 per year if you can. If people pay the money, think of how much better the app will be. I’ve pcht a lot of time into putting audio books and audio dramas on voice dream reader with iTunes to not pay the $60 price. When we found out that voice dream reader might be charging a subscripttion fee this shouldn’t be a surprise !o anyone. So please if you can, pay the $60!!!Sent from My totally awesome iPhone!!On Mar 25, 2024, at 10:01 PM, Mary Otten  wrote:Thanks for the clarification. I never get audiobooks from books share, so book player I don’t care. Kind of sucks. I still think I should be able to download stuff as long as I don’t try to upgrade. You can always do that with everything else. If I have an apple device for instance, and it’s not getting updates anymore I can still use it. This kind of stinks from that aspect. They shouldn’t cut us off from being able to download anything from Bookshare because we don’t want to pay. What if we don’t give a good bloody damn about whatever they think they’re going to implement that we’re going to pay for.  I’m not happy about that. But it’s the best thing out there so far. God knows the garbage from speech central doesn’t get it done. It’s too bad. Sent from my iPhoneOn Mar 25, 2024, at 7:53 PM, William James  wrote:BookPlayer is an audio only player.  It plays zipped files, MP3,  M4A, and M4B.  You can get it from the following link.BookPlayerPlays M4B/M4A/MP3 audiobooksSent from my iPad Air 5On Mar 25, 2024, at 7:59 PM, Mary Otten  wrote:I tend to agree with you, Richard. What is book player if you know? I had never heard of bookplayer app. There is no way I’m going to speech Central. It’s just too clunky. If he did what he’s been asked to do and implemented an easy way to download bookshare books right through the app, Then I would possibly reconsider. But I don’t give two figures for all that fancy Voice stuff he’s doing. I’m perfectly happy with what I have now.MarySent from my iPhoneOn Mar 25, 2024, at 4:41 PM, Richard Turner  wrote:I have not updated today.But, if anyone wants to go back and look at what Winston Chen had said when he sold Voice Dream LLC., he made it clear that he would have had to begin charging a subscription to be able to maintain development and he had already started the Mac version as a subscription.$59 a year seems perfectly reasonable to me if you want the app to continue.You can always dump it for DAISY Easy Reader or Speech Central and deal with much harder interfaces and keep it free… Richard, USA"It's no great honor to be blind, but it's more than a nuisance and less than a disaster. Either you're going to fight like hell when your sight fails or you're going to stand on the sidelines for the rest of your life." -- Dr. Margaret Rockwell Phanstiehl Founder of Audio Description (1932-2009) My web site: https://www.turner42.com



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Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

i have contacted them. we all need to contact them and stand together. if necessary boycott the new company behind it. i will no longer recommend it. Dennis LongSent from my iPhone 15 Pro MaxOn Mar 26, 2024, at 12:55 AM, Richard Turner wrote:I mentioned DAISY Easy Reader and Speech Central if you cannot afford Voice Dream Reader.Perhaps you should reach out to supp...@voicedream.com and ask about pricing in other countries.Or, as you say, just use Easy Reader. Richard, USA"It's no great honor to be blind, but it's more than a nuisance and less than a disaster. Either you're going to fight like hell when your sight fails or you're going to stand on the sidelines for the rest of your life." -- Dr. Margaret Rockwell Phanstiehl Founder of Audio Description (1932-2009) My web site: https://www.turner42.com From: viphone@googlegroups.com On Behalf Of Gerardo CorripioSent: Monday, March 25, 2024 9:39 PMTo: viphone@googlegroups.comSubject: Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream You guys are forgetting about the "Dolphin Easy Reader" app; which has a Bookshare interface. It's free, thus I plan to use it even more if Voice Dream ends up being subscriptiononly. Good luck!GeraEnviado desde mi iPhone SE (2nd Generation) de TelcelEl 25 mar 2024, a la(s) 9:01 p.m., Mary Otten <motte...@gmail.com> escribió:Thanks for the clarification. I never get audiobooks from books share, so book player I don’t care. Kind of sucks. I still think I should be able to download stuff as long as I don’t try to upgrade. You can always do that with everything else. If I have an apple device for instance, and it’s not getting updates anymore I can still use it. This kind of stinks from that aspect. They shouldn’t cut us off from being able to download anything from Bookshare because we don’t want to pay. What if we don’t give a good bloody damn about whatever they think they’re going to implement that we’re going to pay for. I’m not happy about that. But it’s the best thing out there so far. God knows the garbage from speech central doesn’t get it done. It’s too bad. Sent from my iPhoneOn Mar 25, 2024, at 7:53 PM, William James <wiljame...@gmail.com> wrote:BookPlayer is an audio only player. It plays zipped files, MP3, M4A, and M4B. You can get it from the following link. BookPlayerPlays M4B/M4A/MP3 audiobooks Sent from my iPad Air 5On Mar 25, 2024, at 7:59 PM, Mary Otten <motte...@gmail.com> wrote:I tend to agree with you, Richard. What is book player if you know? I had never heard of bookplayer app. There is no way I’m going to speech Central. It’s just too clunky. If he did what he’s been asked to do and implemented an easy way to download bookshare books right through the app, Then I would possibly reconsider. But I don’t give two figures for all that fancy Voice stuff he’s doing. I’m perfectly happy with what I have now.Mary Sent from my iPhoneOn Mar 25, 2024, at 4:41 PM, Richard Turner <richardr_tur...@comcast.net> wrote:I have not updated today.But, if anyone wants to go back and look at what Winston Chen had said when he sold Voice Dream LLC., he made it clear that he would have had to begin charging a subscription to be able to maintain development and he had already started the Mac version as a subscription.$59 a year seems perfectly reasonable to me if you want the app to continue.You can always dump it for DAISY Easy Reader or Speech Central and deal with much harder interfaces and keep it free… Richard, USA"It's no great honor to be blind, but it's more than a nuisance and less than a disaster. Either you're going to fight like hell when your sight fails or you're going to stand on the sidelines for the rest of your life." -- Dr. Margaret Rockwell Phanstiehl Founder of Audio Description (1932-2009) My web site: https://www.turner42.com-- The following information is important for all members of the V iPhone list. If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or if you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the owners or moderators directly rather than posting on the list itself. Your V iPhone list moderator is Mark Taylor. Mark can be reached at: mk...@ucla.edu. Your list owner is Cara Quinn - you can reach Cara at caraqu...@caraquinn.com The archives for this list can be searched at:http://www.mail-archive.com/viphone@googlegroups.com/--- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "VIPhone" group.To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to viphone+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/viphone/008e01da7f0d%24e3f975d0%24abec6170%24%40comcast.net.-- The following information is important for all members of the V iPhone list. If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or if you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the owners or

Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream

i won't pay for it. i did already. if i had not already paid for it that would be one thing. Dennis LongSent from my iPhone 15  Pro MaxOn Mar 26, 2024, at 12:11 AM, Joshua Hendrickson  wrote:I can’t believe all this negative talk about not wanting to pay $60 per year for voice dream reader. For me, it is one of the best apps out there for reading both ebooks and audio content. I’ll tell you all some of the recent changes the new owners have done for us all. They have recently allowed audio files in M4a format to  properly. When you want to change a reading voice for a bookshare book, you now have a search option  quickly find the voice you want. You also don’t have to pay for these voices either. You did have to pay around $5 per voice before. So please stop complaining and pay the $60 per year if you can. If people pay the money, think of how much better the app will be. I’ve pcht a lot of time into putting audio books and audio dramas on voice dream reader with iTunes to not pay the $60 price. When we found out that voice dream reader might be charging a subscripttion fee this shouldn’t be a surprise !o anyone. So please if you can, pay the $60!!!Sent from My totally awesome iPhone!!On Mar 25, 2024, at 10:01 PM, Mary Otten  wrote:Thanks for the clarification. I never get audiobooks from books share, so book player I don’t care. Kind of sucks. I still think I should be able to download stuff as long as I don’t try to upgrade. You can always do that with everything else. If I have an apple device for instance, and it’s not getting updates anymore I can still use it. This kind of stinks from that aspect. They shouldn’t cut us off from being able to download anything from Bookshare because we don’t want to pay. What if we don’t give a good bloody damn about whatever they think they’re going to implement that we’re going to pay for.  I’m not happy about that. But it’s the best thing out there so far. God knows the garbage from speech central doesn’t get it done. It’s too bad. Sent from my iPhoneOn Mar 25, 2024, at 7:53 PM, William James  wrote:BookPlayer is an audio only player.  It plays zipped files, MP3,  M4A, and M4B.  You can get it from the following link.BookPlayerPlays M4B/M4A/MP3 audiobooksSent from my iPad Air 5On Mar 25, 2024, at 7:59 PM, Mary Otten  wrote:I tend to agree with you, Richard. What is book player if you know? I had never heard of bookplayer app. There is no way I’m going to speech Central. It’s just too clunky. If he did what he’s been asked to do and implemented an easy way to download bookshare books right through the app, Then I would possibly reconsider. But I don’t give two figures for all that fancy Voice stuff he’s doing. I’m perfectly happy with what I have now.MarySent from my iPhoneOn Mar 25, 2024, at 4:41 PM, Richard Turner  wrote:I have not updated today.But, if anyone wants to go back and look at what Winston Chen had said when he sold Voice Dream LLC., he made it clear that he would have had to begin charging a subscription to be able to maintain development and he had already started the Mac version as a subscription.$59 a year seems perfectly reasonable to me if you want the app to continue.You can always dump it for DAISY Easy Reader or Speech Central and deal with much harder interfaces and keep it free… Richard, USA"It's no great honor to be blind, but it's more than a nuisance and less than a disaster. Either you're going to fight like hell when your sight fails or you're going to stand on the sidelines for the rest of your life." -- Dr. Margaret Rockwell Phanstiehl Founder of Audio Description (1932-2009) My web site: https://www.turner42.com



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Re: Making everyone pay for voice dream