Almost a week ago, a thread about the new Voice Braille Reader app was opened here. Most of the comments seemed to focus on the app's price of $14.99 but I thought I'd share my experience playing with the Lite version of the app just now.
The app's primary purpose is to provide an audio listening solution to books or other documents in braille digital format whether they are obtained from the NLS, Bookshare, or somewhere else. I completely understand those who prefer to read such content using a braille display and they can probably stop reading now. But for others who might have digital braille books, etc. for which they would like an easy-to-use audio app solution, I thought I'd share my experience with the app to answer some of the questions I saw raised in the previous thread for which I never saw answers. 1. Can NLS braille books be read with the app? Yes, but the process for getting the books is not as easy as with the BARD Mobile app. You have to get the book using your computer since I know of no way to fetch a BARD book with the app that enables you to save it to either a Dropbox folder or for use with another app. Having said that, it is pretty easy to log into BARD with your computer which was the only way to download books not so long ago and have the braille title saved to your Dropbox folder on your computer. The file will be zipped up which is fine since Voice Braille Reader can access the file even though it is zipped. 2. How do I open braille books from a Dropbox folder? I would have liked the ability to browse to my Dropbox folder from within the Voice Braille Reader app but f this is possible, I couldn't figure out how to do it. I had to open Dropbox, browse to the BARD braille zip file, open it and select share from the top line menu and then open with Voice Braille Reader on the screen which opened. The book appeared in my Voice Braille Reader bookshelf once I had done this. 3. What voices are available for reading the braille book? The only voices I had available on my iPhone 6 running iOS 8.3 were those native VoiceOver voices I've downloaded including Samantha, Daniel from the UK, Moira from Ireland, Karen from Australia, and Tessa from South Africa. Alex is not available even though I have him on my phone. Here are my other comments about the app: 1. The interface is simple and easy to use and allows you to change the speed, volume, and tone of the speaking voice not unlike how you can do this with BARD Mobile. 2. I could not figure out a way to access the text in order to get spellings, etc. as you can with Voice Dream Reader so I was disappointed by this. 3. The free Lite version of the app lets you read for five minutes a day I believe and I couldn't find any other restrictions on the app's features. I realize this app isn't for everyone but if you want the ability to listen to braille books with TTS audio, they've done a pretty good job of making this easy to do. Each will have to decide whether it's worth $14.99 for this convenience. Alan Lemly -- The following information is important for all members of the VIPhone 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 VIPhone list owner is Cara Quinn - you can reach Cara at [email protected] The archives for this list can be searched at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/. --- 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 [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/viphone. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
