Emails Aloud FAQ
Emails Aloud reads your emails aloud so that you can stay connected with your friends and colleagues anytime, anywhere. It is part of VoiZapp's Aloud series of reading aloud apps that also includes Friends Aloud, Messages Aloud, and Tweets Aloud.
Emails Aloud includes speech recognition from Nuance on all iOS devices, so that you can not only hear your emails read aloud, but you can reply to them by dictating messages of your own. Just tap the little microphone icon on the right-hand side of its iPod controls, say anything, and let it transcribe and auto-send what you said. You can cancel auto-sending during its 5-second countdown (or turn it off altogether in the Speech Recognition settings screen), and edit its transcription with the built-in keyboard. Or tap the microphone icon in the speech-to-text box to add more. As with regular Nuance-based dictation, you may speak punctuation marks -- for example, to send "I think, therefore I am!" you would say, "I think comma therefore I am exclamation point." With Emails Aloud, you'll never need to touch a keyboard again to manage your emails on the go!
Emails Aloud features:
When you first start up Emails Aloud, you need to give it the credentials to access your email account(s). Tap "Account" and then "Add another email account". There, you can enter your real Name (John Doe), your Email address (john.doe@gmail.com), and your email password. If your email provider is not a common one (Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc.), you will be alerted to tap the Advanced button in the upper righthand corner to enter more account information. The information you'll need to complete this screen includes:
On the front Settings page, you may limit the number of paragraphs that Emails Aloud will read aloud (default = 5) and choose which dialect of English -- American or UK -- its speech recognition is optimized for. You can also turn off Auto-Send that automatically sends dictated replies after 5 seconds.
After you have everything set up the way you like it, tap Read Aloud Now and Emails Aloud will check your email account(s) for unread emails and read them aloud to you. You can skip forward or backward through the list of emails using the iPod-style controls at the bottom of its main screen, and tap the microphone icon on the lower right or the keyboard icon on the lower left to dictate or type in a reply to the currently-being-read email. On the email composition screen, you may also choose to send an email to a new addressee, whose full email address you will need to type in yourself.
What do I get if I pay $4.99 to upgrade to the Pro version?
The initial free version of Emails Aloud is limited to downloading and reading aloud your latest 5 emails from a single email account. It also includes advertisements, does not automatically refresh, and always ends with an aural prompt to purchase the Pro Version. Once you upgrade, you can check multiple email accounts, read aloud an unlimited number of emails, automatically check for and read aloud emails every few minutes indefinitely, continue reading aloud even in the background, get rid of that annoying "ding" alert at the end of reading aloud, and enjoy an ad-free email-by-voice experience.
How do I switch between reading only new unread emails and reading all emails displayed?
To read new emails only as they arrive, tap the refresh button in the upper righthand corner of the main Emails screen. To read all unread emails, tap on any displayed unread email to start reading aloud there. If you tap on an already-read email, it alone will be read aloud to you.
How long will Emails Aloud keep reading my emails aloud?
If Emails Aloud is kept in the foreground, even after the screen dims, it will read incoming emails aloud soon after they arrive in your Inbox for as long as your battery lasts. If sent to the background via pressing the Home button or via the Task Manager, it will continue reading all displayed unread emails aloud, but because of a limitation of Apple's iOS multitasking, it cannot automatically wake up and retrieve new emails from there. So if you want to check for and continue reading emails indefinitely, you must tap its icon to bring it to the foreground and refresh its list of emails to be read. You can then send it to the background and it will continue reading aloud all of the new emails it picked up while in the foreground.
Does Emails Aloud change my Inbox?
Emails Aloud is intended to be used as an auxiliary to your main email client, not as a replacement. It does not change your Inbox at all, delete any emails, or even mark them as read. It merely reads them aloud to you while you're driving, walking, working, or have your eyes otherwise occupied. Emails that you dictate and send from Emails Aloud will appear in your Sent Items folder on IMAP (such as Gmail and Yahoo) accounts.
Why did Emails Aloud stop recognizing my dictation?
Nuance limits you to 20 "speech events" per day, with each separate dictation counting as one event. They don't return any error code if you go over this limit; their servers simply stop responding to your device until the counter is automatically reset at midnight. Most Emails Aloud users will not notice this limitation, since we typically listen to many more emails than we ever reply to ourselves.
Why isn't Emails Aloud able to validate my email account?
If your email account is hosted by MS-Exchange, that is a complex email system from Microsoft that Emails Aloud cannot support at this time. It does support Exchange's IMAP functionality, however, so you might try asking your system administrator to "open up" your account to IMAP access if you want to use Emails Aloud on your company's Exchange server. If your email server is not MS-Exchange and still doesn't validate, you might try setting it up as a POP3 vs. IMAP (or vice-versa) account, using the information available in your provider's website help pages. If you have tried everything they suggest and it still doesn't work, please email us and we will try to help.
Please report any problems or make suggestions by emailing support@voizapp.com. Your feedback will make Emails Aloud even better!
Emails Aloud includes speech recognition from Nuance on all iOS devices, so that you can not only hear your emails read aloud, but you can reply to them by dictating messages of your own. Just tap the little microphone icon on the right-hand side of its iPod controls, say anything, and let it transcribe and auto-send what you said. You can cancel auto-sending during its 5-second countdown (or turn it off altogether in the Speech Recognition settings screen), and edit its transcription with the built-in keyboard. Or tap the microphone icon in the speech-to-text box to add more. As with regular Nuance-based dictation, you may speak punctuation marks -- for example, to send "I think, therefore I am!" you would say, "I think comma therefore I am exclamation point." With Emails Aloud, you'll never need to touch a keyboard again to manage your emails on the go!
Emails Aloud features:
- Reads aloud your unread and/or incoming emails in a pleasant, easy-to-understand young woman’s voice
- Dictate replies and compose new emails with Nuance-powered automatic speech recognition (just like Siri), complete with punctuation, and send them automatically with just one tap
- After first reading through all of your unread emails, automatically shifts to checking and reading aloud only new incoming emails for as long as you leave the app running, even with the screen autolocked to save battery
- Intuitive play, pause, and skip forward/back buttons, just like the native Music app
- Can continue reading aloud while in the background, just like the native Music app
- Understands and reads some common computer jargon such as smiley faces, texting-style abbreviations (LOL, ROTFLMAO, etc.)
- Strips XTML tags from emails
- Handles most IMAP and POP3 email accounts (but not MS-Exchange)
- Can manage multiple email accounts at once
- Read emails as far back in time as you wish
- Does not alter your Inbox in any way
When you first start up Emails Aloud, you need to give it the credentials to access your email account(s). Tap "Account" and then "Add another email account". There, you can enter your real Name (John Doe), your Email address (john.doe@gmail.com), and your email password. If your email provider is not a common one (Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc.), you will be alerted to tap the Advanced button in the upper righthand corner to enter more account information. The information you'll need to complete this screen includes:
- Whether the type of account is IMAP or POP3 (ask your email provider if you don't know)
- Your Name (as before)
- Your email Address (as before)
- A Description of the account (to be shown on the Accounts screen, and may be left blank)
- Information for your incoming mail server, including the Host name (such as pop.server.net), User Name (typically your email address), Password, and Port (usually 110 for non-SSL POP accounts or 993 for SSL accounts, but ask your provider if you don't know)
- Information for your outgoing mail server, including Host name (such as smtp.server.net), User Name (typically your email address), Password, and Port (frequently 25 for non-SSL accounts or 465 or 587 for SSL accounts; but again, ask your provider if you don't know)
On the front Settings page, you may limit the number of paragraphs that Emails Aloud will read aloud (default = 5) and choose which dialect of English -- American or UK -- its speech recognition is optimized for. You can also turn off Auto-Send that automatically sends dictated replies after 5 seconds.
After you have everything set up the way you like it, tap Read Aloud Now and Emails Aloud will check your email account(s) for unread emails and read them aloud to you. You can skip forward or backward through the list of emails using the iPod-style controls at the bottom of its main screen, and tap the microphone icon on the lower right or the keyboard icon on the lower left to dictate or type in a reply to the currently-being-read email. On the email composition screen, you may also choose to send an email to a new addressee, whose full email address you will need to type in yourself.
What do I get if I pay $4.99 to upgrade to the Pro version?
The initial free version of Emails Aloud is limited to downloading and reading aloud your latest 5 emails from a single email account. It also includes advertisements, does not automatically refresh, and always ends with an aural prompt to purchase the Pro Version. Once you upgrade, you can check multiple email accounts, read aloud an unlimited number of emails, automatically check for and read aloud emails every few minutes indefinitely, continue reading aloud even in the background, get rid of that annoying "ding" alert at the end of reading aloud, and enjoy an ad-free email-by-voice experience.
How do I switch between reading only new unread emails and reading all emails displayed?
To read new emails only as they arrive, tap the refresh button in the upper righthand corner of the main Emails screen. To read all unread emails, tap on any displayed unread email to start reading aloud there. If you tap on an already-read email, it alone will be read aloud to you.
How long will Emails Aloud keep reading my emails aloud?
If Emails Aloud is kept in the foreground, even after the screen dims, it will read incoming emails aloud soon after they arrive in your Inbox for as long as your battery lasts. If sent to the background via pressing the Home button or via the Task Manager, it will continue reading all displayed unread emails aloud, but because of a limitation of Apple's iOS multitasking, it cannot automatically wake up and retrieve new emails from there. So if you want to check for and continue reading emails indefinitely, you must tap its icon to bring it to the foreground and refresh its list of emails to be read. You can then send it to the background and it will continue reading aloud all of the new emails it picked up while in the foreground.
Does Emails Aloud change my Inbox?
Emails Aloud is intended to be used as an auxiliary to your main email client, not as a replacement. It does not change your Inbox at all, delete any emails, or even mark them as read. It merely reads them aloud to you while you're driving, walking, working, or have your eyes otherwise occupied. Emails that you dictate and send from Emails Aloud will appear in your Sent Items folder on IMAP (such as Gmail and Yahoo) accounts.
Why did Emails Aloud stop recognizing my dictation?
Nuance limits you to 20 "speech events" per day, with each separate dictation counting as one event. They don't return any error code if you go over this limit; their servers simply stop responding to your device until the counter is automatically reset at midnight. Most Emails Aloud users will not notice this limitation, since we typically listen to many more emails than we ever reply to ourselves.
Why isn't Emails Aloud able to validate my email account?
If your email account is hosted by MS-Exchange, that is a complex email system from Microsoft that Emails Aloud cannot support at this time. It does support Exchange's IMAP functionality, however, so you might try asking your system administrator to "open up" your account to IMAP access if you want to use Emails Aloud on your company's Exchange server. If your email server is not MS-Exchange and still doesn't validate, you might try setting it up as a POP3 vs. IMAP (or vice-versa) account, using the information available in your provider's website help pages. If you have tried everything they suggest and it still doesn't work, please email us and we will try to help.
Please report any problems or make suggestions by emailing support@voizapp.com. Your feedback will make Emails Aloud even better!
