Not free
Can’t believe it’s marketed as free when it doesn’t work without a subscription, the disclaimer for in app payments should also say the app doesn’t work without a 12NZD monthly subscription
Had this App years and love it.
With all this digital books available it’s hard to read them all. Listening while travelling or gardening or tired eye strain to listen to all my ebooks and Pdf is a dream. Someone who can’t read gave it a one star as it does no support kindle books when it was clearly states it does not. My opinion and I have had this App easily more than 6 years it cost my back then £6.99. Great for studying and options for different voices. I personally love it
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Apple’s is better
Apples “speak” function is better, especially with an enhanced voice option like Allison (US). You can easily do this free in the Books app, just turn on Spoken content in accessibility settings. Also I really despise that this app makes you subscribe in order to try the app. You’re not giving away a free trial - you’re trying to trick people into paying $100 if they forget to cancel the trial. At least let someone try one file first before forcing us to subscribe. I subscribed, listened to the app read the demo, and immediately cancelled. This app isn’t worth $9 let alone $99. I thought that the voice wouldn’t sound robotic for $100 a year but it’s exactly like a robot.
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Incredibly useful
Absolutely brilliant app. The voice reads so naturally and smoothly, ability to modify speed is neat too. Only caveat is that for legal reasons it’s unable to use DRM material - which is pretty much all books from library or book selling apps. Still invaluable for reading articles, websites and anything written by yourself or ppl u know first hand.
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Legacy Customer
I have had this app since 2019 and use it almost every day. I was originally upset about the developers switching to a subscription-based model as I had previously paid for the app, as well as additional voices. It really is a two-edged sword. Some of the companies out there are doing amazing things with AI voices that sound so much more genuine, with the included ability to pull Kindle books directly from your Kindle account to listen to. And I totally understand. Changes like that take money...money to pay developers to keep the app running how it is and fix bugs, and money to make improvements, like including accessibility options with commonly used apps and less-robotic voices. Let me tell you, even at the $5/month fee, Voice Dream is a heck of a lot cheaper than a lot of the services out there. While I can’t commit to the subscription fee at this time (I’m grandfathered in on the legacy plan), I would be happy to pay a one-time fee to get certain improvements as they come out or make donations when I’m able. I hope the developers will consider having these options for their legacy customers going forward. I know I’m not the only one who would be lost with an app like this.
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I use this app constantly!
As another reviewer said, "almost perfect". I use this app every day while I am pottering about the house doing household chores. I listen to articles and other texts, either things that just interest me or things which are essential for my job, and which I would probably never manage to fit into my day otherwise. there is the occasional glitch, which I am sure is inevitable in text to voice software, but generally they seem to iron them out.
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Fantastic one of a kind app
Although other developers who make similar text and audio reading apps that are fully accessible with voiceover and targeted four blind and low vision users, there is “no other” app like Voice Dream for at least three reasons: not just reading all kinds of text document formats but also MP3 files, I read all my audio described MP3 files on Voice Dream. Second this app allows me to make multiple folders so I have my old time radio MP3 in one folder, my audio describe movies in the other, different text document formats in other folders.t and third, I can connect iCloud dropbox and also Google Drive to Voice Dream reader, and when I download all my MP3 files or text documents on my computer that I copied over to Google Drive, I can easily import all of these files into my selected folder in Voice Dream, directly from Voice Dream. So thank you for a fantastic app and I am going to absolutely support the maintenance and sustenance of this app. There is no other replacement like this at the moment that does all these things and is fully accessible.
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Enjoying the Basic Features
Developer has reversed plan to void our lifetimes subscriptions. Very good news. Giving product a tentative review and hopefully things will stay on a good course now.
An app you’ll find yourself using daily
I purchased this app a number of years ago for a flat price. It was well worth the cost for an app that I’ve found myself requiring in order to access print materials. I’m a legally blind user and this app allows me to access print materials from multiple sources including Cela and Bookshare but also places like project Gutenberg and cloud storage (depending on which accounts you have/use). I have also relied on using the scanner app to scan in print books I wouldn’t otherwise be able to access. This app quickly turned into my go to for reading, it was wasy to learn how to use and had all the right settings to customize it to my needs. Being able to access a library of voices also made the app desirable over other free or lower cost options.
When the app changed hands ownership wise, they had initially made the decision to move to a subscription model and told all users they would have to pay a yearly fee to continue using the app. Even those who had purchased a lifetime subscription. After pushback from the community, the developers decided to backtrack on that decision and continue to allow those who had purchased the app for a “lifetime subscription”, to continue to use its current features at no additional cost. My rating is down one star because of how this was handled. We should have never had to pushback against the owners, for something that apple says they don’t allow. This was an extreme breach of trust, and will continue to have an affect on those impacted. This was a purely capitalist driven move that didn’t consider the marginalized people that would be heavily impacted, so for this they lose one star.
Whether we can trust this company going forward is up in the air. They will have to ultimately show that we can trust than again. My one suggestion for the app when jr comes to subscription vs no subscription is that the developers offer a pay model such as this:
-legacy “lifetime subscription” users get the app and its current features at mo additional cost, including any basic updates to maintain usability of current features
-yearly subscription model for any new users, which gets you all the bells and whistles of any new features
-and a one-time fee option to upgrade to a more current “lifetime subscription” at a cost of around $500- $700 CAD, that will include all the bells and whistles going forward
-and offering an organization level subscription where you could work with organizations like CELA, to provide them a subscription at the organization level (that would be a larger yearly or monthly fee), that would give all of CELA’s users (or whatever organization) a voice dream account
-also, offering a scholarship option for those most in need. There could be an application that assessed whether someone was on government assistance and/or was living below the poverty line, and a space where they were able to write about their need for the app (ie. no access to other technology reading). Qualifying ppl (a certain amount each year), would be given a one year free or subsidized subscription. A subsidized option might be offering a sliding scale subscription where someone could chose to get it free, or pay $15, $30, $50, or $75 CAD for a one year subscription, and reapplying each year they are in need. A sliding scale option allows patrons to pay what they feel they are able to, while allowing those most in need to access the app for free, and those who can pay full price to do so. In a model such as this one, this allows the most amount of people to access the app. It prioritizes the patrons and reimagines what equitable access to technology looks like under a capitalist regime. You still make money, maybe not quite as much, but you’re being paid for your work, while also considering others needs. A move like this, would get you five stars, just saying.
Ultimately though, without this app, my access to print literature would seriously be impacted. It would not only impact my life but also my ability to access education and work. I use this app across all areas of my life. It also ensures I’m able to access those print books i pick up at my local library (there’s another partnership for you, libraries). I do recommend this app as one of the best text to speech apps available on the market, and the most accessible to those who are blind and visually impaired.
When the app changed hands ownership wise, they had initially made the decision to move to a subscription model and told all users they would have to pay a yearly fee to continue using the app. Even those who had purchased a lifetime subscription. After pushback from the community, the developers decided to backtrack on that decision and continue to allow those who had purchased the app for a “lifetime subscription”, to continue to use its current features at no additional cost. My rating is down one star because of how this was handled. We should have never had to pushback against the owners, for something that apple says they don’t allow. This was an extreme breach of trust, and will continue to have an affect on those impacted. This was a purely capitalist driven move that didn’t consider the marginalized people that would be heavily impacted, so for this they lose one star.
Whether we can trust this company going forward is up in the air. They will have to ultimately show that we can trust than again. My one suggestion for the app when jr comes to subscription vs no subscription is that the developers offer a pay model such as this:
-legacy “lifetime subscription” users get the app and its current features at mo additional cost, including any basic updates to maintain usability of current features
-yearly subscription model for any new users, which gets you all the bells and whistles of any new features
-and a one-time fee option to upgrade to a more current “lifetime subscription” at a cost of around $500- $700 CAD, that will include all the bells and whistles going forward
-and offering an organization level subscription where you could work with organizations like CELA, to provide them a subscription at the organization level (that would be a larger yearly or monthly fee), that would give all of CELA’s users (or whatever organization) a voice dream account
-also, offering a scholarship option for those most in need. There could be an application that assessed whether someone was on government assistance and/or was living below the poverty line, and a space where they were able to write about their need for the app (ie. no access to other technology reading). Qualifying ppl (a certain amount each year), would be given a one year free or subsidized subscription. A subsidized option might be offering a sliding scale subscription where someone could chose to get it free, or pay $15, $30, $50, or $75 CAD for a one year subscription, and reapplying each year they are in need. A sliding scale option allows patrons to pay what they feel they are able to, while allowing those most in need to access the app for free, and those who can pay full price to do so. In a model such as this one, this allows the most amount of people to access the app. It prioritizes the patrons and reimagines what equitable access to technology looks like under a capitalist regime. You still make money, maybe not quite as much, but you’re being paid for your work, while also considering others needs. A move like this, would get you five stars, just saying.
Ultimately though, without this app, my access to print literature would seriously be impacted. It would not only impact my life but also my ability to access education and work. I use this app across all areas of my life. It also ensures I’m able to access those print books i pick up at my local library (there’s another partnership for you, libraries). I do recommend this app as one of the best text to speech apps available on the market, and the most accessible to those who are blind and visually impaired.
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Wonderful useful app
Voice Dream is a wonderful app and when it first came out and only cost $20 I wrote the company and said, this app is too good and I am willing to pay more for it. Now the price has been raised to five dollars a month and I am very happy to help support this company. Not many people appreciate how much work goes into creating an app like this and I want these people to succeed and this app to continue. It is a fantastic reader and not only can I purchase different voices but I can also use my favorite voice that I use on my iPhone. It is so easy for me to download PDFs. Sometimes there are a few paragraphs on a website or from an email or something in social media, and all I have to do is select it, copy and either put it directly into Voice Dream or first put it into another app, one where I compose short notes, and from there I can put it directly into Voice Dream. I am glad I can really contribute to this wonderful app. Looking forward to your further developments.
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