Our very first iOS app -- Friends Aloud -- is emerging this week from the formal beta testing process and headed to the App Store for approval by Apple. Thanks to all of our beta testers, we have our fingers crossed that it will sail through their approval process and show up for sale within the next week or two. Not a single beta-tester has reported a crash, and it seems to work just fine on all devices runnin iOS 3.1.3 and up.

For the beta testing process, we discovered and productively used a free web service called Test Flight App that enabled us to broadcast updates as needed over the air to all of our beta testers. We highly recommend this service to any and all iOS developers, and will be using it for all of our pre-sale distributions of our subsequent app products.

Speaking of which, please check back for announcements of those upcoming products now in our development pipeline: 

• Messages Aloud -- reads your Facebook messages aloud in a natural, intuitive way)
  
• Tweets Aloud -- reads your Twitter feed aloud
• Emails Aloud -- reads your Emails aloud. It interfaces with all of the usual cloud-based as well as server-based email services.

If you would like to be considered as a beta test candidate for any/all of these new products, please email us at bobwesson@gmail.com. Thanks in advance for your interest in VoiZapp's line of reading-aloud iOS apps.

One of our favorite speech translation companies -- Mobile Technologies LLC -- has been busy adding languages and platforms to their handheld translators. Their press releases are reprinted here. 


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PITTSBURGH – Mobile Technologies, LLC, developers of “Jibbigo,” the leading iPhone and Android apps for speech-to-speech foreign language translation, today announced that the company’s top-selling voice translation apps are now available for translating spoken French, German, Korean and Tagalog (Filipino).

Jibbigo voice translators enable users to speak into the phone in one language, and the statement is automatically translated and repeated aloud in another language.   Jibbigo is the world’s only voice translation app that functions without an internet or phone connection, enabling users to understand spoken language in locations without reliable phone/data connections, and without fear of incurring high roaming fees.

With today’s announcement, Jibbigo users can now translate spoken language between English and any of the following languages: Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, German, French, Korean, Iraqi Arabic and Tagalog (Filipino).

Since the launch of Jibbigo for the iPhone in October, 2009, the app has garnered significant praise for its groundbreaking technology.  In May 2010, Apple featured Jibbigo in international television campaigns for the iPhone, and the Jibbigo Japanese-English translator become a top-selling app in Japan within the first two weeks of its launch. In August, Travel & Leisure magazine named Jibbigo a “Top Travel App” for 2010.

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PITTSBURGH – Mobile Technologies, LLC, developers of “Jibbigo,” the leading iPhone apps for speech-to-speech foreign language translation, today announced that the top-selling voice translators are now available for Android devices through the Android Market.  Users of Android devices now have access to the world’s only voice translation app that functions without an internet or phone connection.

Android users can now utilize Jibbigo translators to translate spoken language between English and any of the following languages: Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, German, French, Korean, and Tagalog.

"We’re very excited to bring Jibbigo translators to the Android platform," said Dr. Alex Waibel, Mobile Technologies’ Founder and Chairman. "With the explosive growth in the number of devices supporting Android apps, this significantly expands the number of people who can use our voice translators worldwide.”

Jibbigo voice translators have been available for Apple iPhones for more than a year, and were the first apps in the category of “Speech-to-Speech Translators” – users simply speak into the phone in one language, and the statement is automatically translated and repeated aloud in another language.   Jibbigo is the only app of its kind that functions without an internet or cell phone connection – enabling users to communicate in foreign countries without the fear of losing connectivity or the risk of incurring high roaming charges.