Talk Mail Pro – Review

By
On March 20, 2009

My Amazon Kindle2 received a firmware update yesterday that added the ability for publishers to determine whether or not the text-to-voice feature would be enabled.

To be honest, while I thought the voice-to-text was something I would never use I have already found it to be rather useful a number of times- robotic voice and all. It is, perhaps, this experience that made me so very excited to try out this app. I’m glad I did because it is nothing short of terrific!

 

 

 

 

 

When you first start the app it asks you for your email credentials. I can accept any IMAP acount but has quick setup buttons for AOL an Gmail. Since I use Gmail I added that information and then went to "Settings".

In settings you can control a number of different aspects of the process of converting your email to speech. You can choose whether or not the app reads the date the emai arrived, the order with which emails are processed and read and whether or not read messages are marked as "read" in your account.

With regard to the text-to-speech process you can control the speed and pitch of the voice.

 

  
A nice feature of the app is the ability to use gestures to process email and work through your inbox. you can use a swipe gesture to advance or repeat a message, and skip forward or jump back. Tapping the screen twice archives the message and tapping three times deletes it.

Why is this important/ Because more than anything else this app makes managing email without looking at the iPhone possible The gestures complete the package.

 

 

 

 

To  use the app you start it, tap the email account you want and that’s it. The app tells you it is reading your inbox and asks for your patience while it processes.

The instruction voice is a robotic female voice. The emails themselves are read by a male robotic voice. While it does indeed sound robotic it is 100% clear and quite easy on the ears. The pronunciation is dead on and you can pause the process with a tap of the screens corner.

While the interface isn’t the most attractive the app itself works perfectly and, i suspect, the process of listening to your email rather than reading can quickly become a habit.

 

 

Quick Take

Value: VERY High
Would I Buy Again: In a second    
Learning Curve: Low. The interface is well designed and intuitive
Who Is It For: Anyone who gets a lot of email and wants the option to listen to it rather than read
What I Like: Works well, while still robotic the voices are very clear
What I Don’t: Interface is not the most attractive, the server requires your email credentials to work

Final Statement: This is what I wrote to the developer-
7 seconds using it and it is already clear- you have a homerun on your hands.
Wow! As someone who goes the other direction via MacSpeech Dictate, Jott and reQall this is super!

Get it HERE for $9.99.

Talk Mail Pro – Review

By
On March 1, 2009

My Amazon Kindle2 received a firmware update yesterday that added the ability for publishers to determine whether or not the text-to-voice feature would be enabled.

To be honest, while I thought the voice-to-text was something I would never use I have already found it to be rather useful a number of times- robotic voice and all. It is, perhaps, this experience that made me so very excited to try out this app. I’m glad I did because it is nothing short of terrific!

 

 

 

 

 

When you first start the app it asks you for your email credentials. I can accept any IMAP acount but has quick setup buttons for AOL an Gmail. Since I use Gmail I added that information and then went to "Settings".

In settings you can control a number of different aspects of the process of converting your email to speech. You can choose whether or not the app reads the date the emai arrived, the order with which emails are processed and read and whether or not read messages are marked as "read" in your account.

With regard to the text-to-speech process you can control the speed and pitch of the voice.

 

 

 

  
A nice feature of the app is the ability to use gestures to process email and work through your inbox. you can use a swipe gesture to advance or repeat a message, and skip forward or jump back. Tapping the screen twice archives the message and tapping three times deletes it.

Why is this important/ Because more than anything else this app makes managing email without looking at the iPhone possible The gestures complete the package.

 

 

 

 

 

To  use the app you start it, tap the email account you want and that’s it. The app tells you it is reading your inbox and asks for your patience while it processes.

The instruction voice is a robotic female voice. The emails themselves are read by a male robotic voice. While it does indeed sound robotic it is 100% clear and quite easy on the ears. The pronunciation is dead on and you can pause the process with a tap of the screens corner.

While the interface isn’t the most attractive the app itself works perfectly and, i suspect, the process of listening to your email rather than reading can quickly become a habit.

 

 

 

Quick Take

Value: VERY High
Would I Buy Again: In a second    
Learning Curve: Low. The interface is well designed and intuitive
Who Is It For: Anyone who gets a lot of email and wants the option to listen to it rather than read
What I Like: Works well, while still robotic the voices are very clear
What I Don’t: Interface is not the most attractive, the server requires your email credentials to work

Final Statement: This is what I wrote to the developer-
7 seconds using it and it is already clear- you have a homerun on your hands.
Wow! As someone who goes the other direction via MacSpeech Dictate, Jott and reQall this is super!

Get it HERE for $9.99.