Acapela TTS for iPhone and iPad

New 1.304 version

sboero — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 14:50:20 +0000

We have released a new version 1.304. If you are a customer and don’t get it by mail, contact your sales manager.

Click here to download Acapela TTS for iPhone and iPad 1.304 (dmg file into zip) – EVALUATION package

Bug fix : all tts settings set via api are applied to all voices loaded (when using vce tag)
Bug fix : sentence cut in some circumstances

Evolvo

Jean-Michel Reghem — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 14:32:48 +0000

Evolvo is a new talking app for lazy readers, rushed users and anyone that wants to hear content rather than read.

Evolvo reads your content for you in 20 languages (EPUB,PDF,DOC,PPT,HTML,RTF, etc.).

5 High Quality Acapela voices in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish are included in the app.

Other languages are available as in- app purchase.

You can download evolvo here: https://itunes.apple.com/app/evolvo/id543469527?mt=8

Here is a small video:

New 1.302 version – iPhone 5 armv7s support

Jean-Michel Reghem — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 15:16:52 +0000

We have released a new version 1.302. If you are a customer and don’t get it by mail, contact your sales manager.

Click here to download Acapela TTS for iPhone and iPad 1.302 (dmg file into zip) – EVALUATION package

iOS6.0 support : armv7s architecture (iPhone 5) in addition to armv7 and armv6
Bug fix : QueueString was ending previous paused TTS.
Bug fix : regression in 1.301: Delegate method speechSynthesizer:didFinishSpeaking: always sent finishedSpeaking with YES, even when stop was called before the end of the synthesis.
Bug fix : Japanese voice speaks latin text with final . (dot)
Bug fix : stopSpeaking effective even with dual voice loaded and using vce tags

Note :

Delegate method speechSynthesizer:didFinishSpeaking (without index) returns now:

finishedSpeaking with NO if there is an error or stop was called before the end of the TTS
finishedSpeaking with YES if current TTS sentence was completely played

Delegate method speechSynthesizer:didFinishSpeaking:textIndex: (with index) returns now:

finishedSpeaking with NO if there is no TTS pending (queued text) to be played
finishedSpeaking with YES if there is still TTS pending (queued text)

New 1.301 version (compatible with iOS 6)

Jean-Michel Reghem — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 11:06:57 +0000

As told last week ( http://www.acapela-for-iphone.com/1-300-and-ios6-small-issue-info-for-developers ), there were a small issue with Acapela TTS for iOS and iOS 6 beta.

This is now fixed, and we’ve released a new 1.301 version.

Evaluation package is available in the download section. Customers could contact their sales manager for the device lib (voice data doesn’t change and are identical to 1.300).

1.301 solves the following issues:

Patch for iOS 6 compatibility

Bug fix iOS6.0 : Delegate method speechSynthesizer:didFinishSpeaking: always sent didFinishSpeaking with NO

- Bug fixes

QueueString fixed
Fixed a handle leak: Multiple consecutive speak (more than 1300) hang corrected (Was not occuring if stop was called)

1.300 and iOS6: small issue info for developers

Jean-Michel Reghem — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 09:48:23 +0000

We got several reports from customers informing us that in iOS 6.0 (beta 4), the return value of our didFinishSpeaking delegate is always FALSE, even if there is no error.

          - (void)speechSynthesizer:(AcapelaSpeech *)sender didFinishSpeaking:(BOOL)finishedSpeaking {}

For iOS4/5, at normal termination, argument “finishedSpeaking” is “TRUE”.
However iOS6, even if normal termination, argument “finishedSpeaking” is always “FALSE”.

If you are testing this argument to detect error, your application may have a problem when running on iOS 6.

As a workaround, you could choose to not use the return value.

We are currently validating a 1.301 SDK update that restore the correct behaviour. It should be available next week.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Acapela Group and AssistiveWare: Bringing Children’s Voices to Apps

Jean-Michel Reghem — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 15:12:17 +0000

A lot of press coverage in June and July about the new UK and US English children voices realized by Acapela Group in collaboration with AssistiveWare (Proloquo2Go).

These 4 voices (Josh, Ella, Rosie, Harry) are exclusively available into Proloquo2Go during 6 months. Then, they will be available for all our other customers.

Here is some really interesting posts and video compilation showing how kids TTS voices are disruptive for the AAC market.

Press and info:

http://www.assistiveware.com/first-real-childrens-voices-proloquo2go-available (With a comparison between old Kenny and Nelly Fake Children voices and new Harry and Rosie UK voices)
http://www.loopinsight.com/2012/07/10/proloquo2go-2-0-for-ipad-helps-children-communicate/
http://nyti.ms/OmsNaw The New York Times: For Children Who Cannot Speak, A True Voice
http://www.bootcamp.com/interview.jsp?interviewId=1257 Bootcamp Radio: AssistiveWare gives kids who can’t speak real voices via iPad
http://www.thedaily.com/page/2012/07/26/072612-tech-apps-proloquo2go-scharr-zzphotoglzz/ The Daily: Giving Voice
http://bit.ly/PTijCw CNN: App gives kids with autism a voice
http://bit.ly/QsWZGA Text-to-Speech App Now Features Children’s Voices

Video:

Acapela TTS for iOS 1.300 is released

Jean-Michel Reghem — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 15:32:25 +0000

Version 1.300 is finally released.

Evaluation package is updated in download area.

For existing customers, if you didn’t received a full update of voices and libraries by mail, you could contact your sales manager

Here is the new features of 1.300 new major release:

- New voices :

Existing languages

Italian: Fabiana (Female voice)
Belgian Dutch: Zoe (Female voice)
Dutch: Daan (Male voice)
Dutch: Jasmijn (Female voice)
German: Andreas (Female voice)
Norwegian: Bente (Female voice)
Spanish: Ines (Female voice)
Swedish: Emil (Male voice)
US English: Will (Male Voice)

New Languages

Mandarin Chinese: Lulu (Female voice)
Japanese: Sakura (Female voice)
Australian English: Tyler (Male voice)
Swedish (Scania): Mia (Female Voice)
Swedish (Gothenburg): Kal (Male Voice)

Special Voices

(available in hqm-ref-22kHz only, but smaller than other HQM)

UK English: Queen Elizabeth (female voice – impersonation of the Queen)
US English: Saul (Hip Hop male voice)
US English: Micah (Texan male voice)

Emotive Voices

(available in hqm-ref-22kHz only, but smaller than other HQM)

Belgian Dutch: Jeroen (in Happy, Sad versions)
UK British: Peter (in Happy, Sad versions)
French: Antoine (in Happy, Sad, UpClose, FromAfar versions)
French: Margaux (in Happy, Sad versions)
Greek: Dimitris (in Happy, Sad versions)
USEnglish: Will (in Happy, Sad, UpClose, FromAfar, LittleCreature, BadGuy, OldMan versions)

- Voice Update

All voices are updated (bug fix and enhancement in voice database and linguistic data)
Voices include now a predefined userdico for static entries (see howToAddTTS.rtf and documentation for details)
Loss of compatibility: voice data from 1.10x or 1.20x should not be used with new SDK 1.300. Some may work, some other could have linguistic problems, and some may crash! As for the 1.20x release, If you are implementing InAppPurchase, your updated app with 1.300 have to erase the old data and request a new voice download (update from 1.20x to 1.30x data) from your end-users.

Acapela for iPhone and ARC

Jean-Michel Reghem — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 16:41:51 +0000

Hello

As you know, Acapela for iPhone 1.201 is fully compatible with iOS 5.

ARC mode (the new memory management system, introduce with iOS 5) is also compatible with our SDK.

However, there is some adaptation needed for using our SDK with ARC mode

AcapelaSetup helper class

This class, available in source code, is written in classic retain/release manual reference counting.

In order to use it with ARC, you could either remove all retain/release in this code + deleting the dealloc function, or compile the file with -fno-objc-arc compiler flag (see http://www.acapela-for-iphone.com/documentation-quick-start-how-to-add-tts-in-your-app – Step 5b)

MyInterruptionListener

In order to have a correct behaviour of MyInteruptionListener, you have to add a small keyword in out TTSDemo sample code and documentation

(Thanks to Non Umemoto, developer of Lisgo app )

In non ARC mode, the implementation listener is implemented like this:

void MyInterruptionListener(void *inClientData, UInt32 inInterruptionState) { AcapelaSpeech* anAcapelaSpeech = *(AcapelaSpeech**)inClientData; if (inInterruptionState == kAudioSessionBeginInterruption) { [anAcapelaSpeech setActive:NO]; status = AudioSessionSetActive(NO); } if (inInterruptionState == kAudioSessionEndInterruption) { status = AudioSessionSetActive(YES); [anAcapelaSpeech setActive:YES]; } }

In ARC mode, you have to bridge the inClientData in order to use it:

void MyInterruptionListener(void *inClientData, UInt32 inInterruptionState) {
AcapelaSpeech* anAcapelaSpeech = (__bridge id) (*(void **) inClientData);
if (inInterruptionState == kAudioSessionBeginInterruption) {
[anAcapelaSpeech setActive:NO];
AudioSessionSetActive(NO);
}
if (inInterruptionState == kAudioSessionEndInterruption) {
AudioSessionSetActive(YES);
[anAcapelaSpeech setActive:YES];
}
}

If you have other trick or incompatibilities with ARC, don’t hesitate to tell us.

TTS Libraries minor update: Version 1.204

Jean-Michel Reghem — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:00:02 +0000

We have released for all customers a cumulative patch of some small fixes that we did since the 1.201 version.
Customers could download it from the same ftp where they download previously the 1.201 universal libraries.
If you have problem to download it, don’t hesitate to contact me.

List of bugs fixed are:

This version solves also some other small issues …

- warning with visibility hidden + impossibility to use ogg vorbis static library into your apps
- removing Thumb compilation mode (in order to solve problems with customers using Unity Framework)
- some hang in seldom case

I would like also to inform you that the next major version 1.300 will soon enter in QA and external beta test.

vBookz PDF Reader

Jean-Michel Reghem — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 16:19:23 +0000

Mindex International Ltd have released a new app using Acapela TTS voices.

After the successful vBookz Free AudioBooks app, that reads your endless ePub books out loud, here is vBookz PDF Reader !

Features of vBookz PDF Reader:

16 languages with Acapela voices.
•Open any PDF directly from the mail, dropbox or iTunes sync.
•Read almost any PDF aloud.
•Stunning UI.
•Reading orientation tools.
•Auto text follower mechanism.

These features are described on the vBookz product page.