App Of The Week: Read Aloud

<p>If you’re on the go a lot and want to make sure you make the best use of your time, get the bulk of your reading done aloud on your Android phone while you’re dashing about. Use earphones if you want to avoid bothering anyone else. Ideal for car and metro listening, @Voice Read Aloud is a great app to just send text to when you’re catching up on essential news, picking up links from Twitter, or just browsing. You use your Share or Send button to channel the content to the read-aloud app and get your eyes off the screen while the app reads for you.<br><br>A few tips though. You can collect a bunch of articles and use the app’s add-on feature to put articles into a play list. That way, you don’t need to get interrupted while doing something and get to the next piece.<br><br>Another thing is that you can even have your mail read out to you, which is worth it if it’s long and if you’re tired and don’t want to look at your screen any longer. In fact, reading aloud is a great way to save yourself eye strain overall. To listen to your mail, you can cut and paste the text into the app. Cut and paste is also always a good idea if some article ends up with a format problem and doesn’t show up on the app properly.<br><br>Another thing you can do to improve the experience is download a language pack for better quality voices. Once that’s done, the reading doesn’t sound horribly electronic and flat but instead is quite easy to listen to for extended periods.<br><br>The add-on and language packs can cost a small amount, depending on what you choose, but the Read Aloud app itself is free. It tends to go through a lot of updates, which is a little annoying, but on the other hand, it’s too useful to stay annoyed with for very long.</p>