NaturalReader - Text To Speech 4+

The best of the best, but not perfect

This has got to be the best voice reader I have ever found, and trust me, I’ve searched a lot. The voices in the premium are miles better than anything any other company produces, most certainly better than comes standard on my laptop. That is why I give this five stars, because this app deserves it. That being said, it’s still not perfect. I use this primarily to read back my work while I am writing. It’s incredibly helpful to do so, to separate my mind from my work. However, the reader does not distinguish the purposes of punctuation, such as quotation points or ‘...’s (I cant for life of me remember it’s name), nor does it hesitate when it jumps from paragraph to paragraph. Then again, I do understand why it works like that (most people use this for reading articles or things like that). All I’m asking for is perhaps an option that allows the reader to change between the normal reading and the ‘writer-story’ reading.

Exceptional, simple, and organized

I use this app to voice over long readings while I take notes and read along and I feel a massive improvement in my memory because of it. There is a vast majority of voices, but I typically use Adam (US) because it feels academic. I think the options are a great feature for people who are looking to diversify their experience with text-to-speech because in some way, it can feel like a professor or a friend talking to you about the thing they’re reading on a personal level. Not only that, the voices are absolutely natural. There may be a few cuts and glitches between the breath of the voices, but I find them unnoticeable and mostly to do with the way sentences are structured. Some longer sentences will have the voice reading from tone to another at the end of a few words. I don’t if I’d fault this to the AI, but I don’t find it too bothersome as long as I’m reading along. It can get a bit confusing if you’re just using the text of something with all the images that may have just pasted their titles. For a student, you might find this a bit expensive ($20) if you don’t have a source of income. Other than that, great app! Extremely useful for my academics.

Extortionate pricing model

Something I’ve noticed about apps these days, is that most of them have a premium subscription option. Even apps that are absolutely ridiculous to pay monthly for, such as this TTS app. When I started using it, I was pleased that the voices could read PDF files and I liked the Matthew voice. I’m listening to it while working, then just a few minutes later the audio stops. I check the app, and what do ya know? I’m being asked to pay almost $20/month to use TTS voices. I think okay, I’ll just switch to one of the free voices. I switch to Mike and continue listening. Then it stops a few minutes later. No way, I say to myself. I check and it says that PLUS VOICES cost $8.99/month. Oh really?? So then I have 4 actually free voices left, one of which is Stephen Hawking’s robot wheelchair voice, the others are trash. Why can’t the app just be a flat fee, rather than a subscription. Not everything needs to be a subscription. Software on a pc is quite often free and open source, but when it’s not they at least charge a flat fee. Unless it is VERY advanced software like Adobe products, which I’m afraid this TTS has nothing in common with and does not deserve the same pricing model. In conclusion, the app seems great but the company who made it is greedy like many app developers and has locked it behind a paywall that simply isn’t worth paying.

Phản Hồi Từ Nhà Phát Triển ,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. We understand your frustration with the subscription model and pricing. Our goal is to provide high-quality voices and features, which requires ongoing development and updates. We offer a range of free and premium options to cater to different needs, but we will definitely consider your feedback regarding pricing and subscription models as we continue to improve. If you have any other concerns or suggestions, please feel free to reach out.