Even though the ability to use Siri to turn eBooks into audiobooks is a fantastic feature, it's not a stock part of iOS and requires a little bit of fiddling with the Settings and this nifty scrolling trick that we'll show you here.
Siri Dictation isn't integrated directly with iBooks, but you can switch it on via the Accessibility settings. Click on Settings and General, now scroll down and tap Accessibility (see: iBooks 3 review).
Tap the Speak Selection menu to access the voice options. First change Speak Selection to On. This brings up an extra menu option whenever you select text in iOS to speak it out. The Speaking Rate is set to mid-way by default, although we feel it's a little more natural when slowed down a bit so move the Speaking Rate slider to the left. Finally set Highlight Words to on so you can visually see where it is reading.
Tap the Home button and head into the iBooks app. By default you can only select a single page of text in iBooks, which is fun to play with but not much use if you want your iPad to kick back and read to you for a while.
Tap the aA icon in the top right and tap Themes. Now change from Book or Full Screen to Scroll. This will enable you to do the scroll trick that we're about to show you.
Now what you do is tap to select some text, and while holding your finger down on the blue drag-handle use another finger, or thumb (as shown in this video) to scroll down the text. This was you can choose as much text as you'd like.
When you've finished selecting the text let go of the screen and tap Speak in the menu that appears.
Your iPad will now read the whole selection out loud.
See:
The complete list of things to ask Siri in the UK
Apple looking for a writer to evolve Siri's character and personality
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Comments received
timostler said on Mon, 18 Mar 2013
This is actually rather a limited way to use iBooks for audiobooks. What is clearly even less well known is that you can use VoiceOver to read iBooks from cover to cover, without quite such complicated gestures -- and it's been available long before Siri was even a twinkle in Steve Jobs' eye. It is an absolute boon -- since I discovered this just over two years ago I have read about 70 books. Just turn VoiceOver on, tap a line in a book and then swipe down with two fingers. VoiceOver will now read the whole book to you without further intervention.
Dragonfly said on Tue, 19 Mar 2013
There is a lot of research still needed in voice synthesis. The technology still seems a bit 1990s where it uses phonetics to try to closely match words and phrases. I think it would be good if a computer actually simulated every sound that emanated from a human mouth and could adjust inflection more naturally, not in a pre-recorded way. So if a computer read a word 100 times, it would sound slightly different every time.
Voice synthesis has come some way. A company called Cereproc claims to have developed the most advanced system, it sounds very good, especially "Stuart" with Scottish accent.
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