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Comments on “Pocket Listen”
Posts » Pocket Listen » Comments
Ryan Hoover@rrhoover · Founder, Product Hunt
Me and Pocket: Well done, @nateweiner and team. I haven't tried this out yet but robot readers have always been obnoxious to me (not for @nireyal) which is why I loved Umano, an app of articles read by professional narrators (recently acquired by Dropbox and shut down). Are you using the on-device text-to-speech or something proprietary? See more
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Nate Weiner@nateweiner
Thanks @rrhoover! The iOS version uses the system (Siri) voice. On Android you can use third party voices. Umano was pretty cool. We looked at it and something we definitely still think about. The challenge was scaling it. We see millions of new articles a day in Pocket. That is a lot to get recorded :) Plus we are working to just find a way to skip that … See more
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Arjun Ram@arjunram · Tinkering Past:Investor & Product leader
@nateweiner Nate any plans to support Sonos? Would love to have long reads played on Sonos! Also given that you are using the iOS API - can you provide the time it might take to listen to an article? Thanks! @rrhoover
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Ryan Plumley@rplumley
@nateweiner @rrhoover IAP for voices seems to work in other apps. Siri is very basic to me. Maybe personal preference for alternative accents
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Ryan Hoover@rrhoover · Founder, Product Hunt
@nateweiner haha, a few years ago I asked myself the question, "If I could make ONE thing more efficient, what would it be?" My answer was knowledge transfer. I want Matrix-like learning. 😁 My short blog post on the topic (add to your Pocket).
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Preslav Rachev@preslavrachev · Full-Stack Software Engineer
@nateweiner Congrats on releasing TTS support for iOS! I have been enjoying it for ages on Android, not even assuming that it wasn't available on iOS until very recently. I guess, I am just curious to know what issues have prevented you guys from releasing it on iOS sooner. Were those technical issues, like lack of native TTS support, or something else?
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Mitali Pattnaik@mitali · Co-founder @IntroHQ. pm @ TWTR, GOOG
@rrhoover @nateweiner - this is the BEST upgrade to one of my favoritest apps ever. Thank you! I agree professional narrators would be better at some point but this is already amazing as a start.
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Josh@twandjosh · VP Eng @ThreadMeUp, Founder @NarroApp
@rrhoover If you liked Umano, and are enjoying this basic speech for Pocket, you should try @narroapp for higher-quality voices and text-to-podcast support. It syncs with your Pocket account and everything! http://producthunt.com/tech/narro
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benburns@benburns · Product Manager, Bose
@nateweiner @rrhoover For what it's worth, I would completely love (and pay for) narrated versions of just the most popular selections from my Pocket feed (the ones you've marked "Best Of", for instance.
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Blake Thomas@bosblaket · Engineering, Product
Are there any plans to implement different (better) voices than siri for iOS?
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Ram Gangisetty@ramgangisetty · EdTech Startup Co-Founder.
Always wanted to listen to the blog posts and articles while multitasking! This should help :)
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Nicholas Sheriff@nicholassheriff · Founder, Quest
@rrhoover This really aggravates me to the point of disbelief. I don't understand This is just a demo of the algorithm we were developing to integrate into Quest using a Concatenative Speech Synthesis approach which is exactly the innovation Ryan is talking about. https://www.dropbox.com/s/hnkx1k... I say this with all the love and admiration I posess tha… See more
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Alex Greene@alexg473 · Cal Poly student
@nicholassheriff what?
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Carl@cprins_ ·
@nicholassheriff fun fact, by actually commenting we help keep it at #1 😂
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Nicholas Sheriff@nicholassheriff · Founder, Quest
@alexg473 @nicholassheriff I was pointing out that their was no innovation at all tied to this offering from not a 2 member team but a company that raised tens of millions of dollars in funding and waited years to offer this....like 5 years. Was just stating facts we should all innovate period...this is just a implementation of Apples API without any edits n… See more
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Nicholas Sheriff@nicholassheriff · Founder, Quest
@nicholassheriff they could have made it better...that's what we expect from companies to innovate. Instead they didn't everyone does it like this I was hoping for something more.
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Alex Greene@alexg473 · Cal Poly student
@nicholassheriff as far as I'm aware, products are not successful because of the technology they use, but because of how much value they provide.
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Nicholas Sheriff@nicholassheriff · Founder, Quest
@alexg473 @nicholassheriff I never said that the technology was what is valuable it is the innovation around the experience buddy if you view my last sentence I clearly said this "true innovation is about adding incremental value that offers not creates more pain."...we are in disagreements with the experience I think it isn't adding value..you do, so we're … See more
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Nicholas Sheriff@nicholassheriff · Founder, Quest
@cprins_ @nicholassheriff lol lmao just realized this thanks for the late warning Carl. I'm not like Pocket grr curse you I think it's a good offering from a great team I just wish their was more innovation everywhere and this was an example where I was just shocked.
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Prateek Sharma@prateeks · Co-founder, mygola
Super valuable feature. I'm one of those who moved from android to iOS. Missed the text to speech a lot. Glad that it's here now.
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Joe Belsterling@joebelsterling · CEO, MajorClarity
Love this app already, but great update! Keep the quality coming guys.
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Andy McIlwain@andymci · Content & Community @ GoDaddy
Happy to see this pop up in my feed today. I'm a happy Pocket reader who also regularly listens to podcasts. This feels like a lovely mesh of the two worlds. Not to mention that I can catch up on my reading while going for a walk around the neighbourhood... :)
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Dylan Jhaveri@dylanjha · Co-founder and Engineer at Crowdcast
I love pocket and I use it constantly to read. I was very excited for this feature, but after trying it, I am very disappointed. I can't see myself actually using this. The voice (Apple's native Siri voice) is not even close to bearable and mispronounces frequently, and the has no tempo to the reading. I really hope the Pocket team can innovate and actuall… See more
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Justin Fowler@somewhatjustin · Business Analyst, Upswing.io
@dylanjha Agreed. I'd love to see Pocket develop their own voice, but that can't be easy.
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Josh@twandjosh · VP Eng @ThreadMeUp, Founder @NarroApp
@dylanjha You should try @Narroapp for more voices and better quality audio - it syncs with your Pocket account! http://producthunt.com/tech/narro
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Evan Zhou@evanczhou · Co-Founder, STEEZY
Just tried it out. Great potential, but still got a ways to go before I'll actually use it. But it'd probably still be extremely helpful for the blind and others. http://www.wnyc.org/story/braill... TL;DL we may think Siri sucks, but works extremely well for blind people
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Dylan Jhaveri@dylanjha · Co-founder and Engineer at Crowdcast
@evanczhou good point about accessibility
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Patrick Loonstra@buxx · Designer at patrickloonstra.nl
Love Pocket and with this innovation they got even more love. Hope this will not be the premium option in the future, I find that way overpriced.
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Harry Williams@hrywlms
This is a hugely valuable feature for an app I love and use everyday. However the implementation of Siri's native voice is pretty disappointing and tarnishes what is otherwise a wonderful addition. I hope they can provide something more natural and easier to listen to in future!
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Ian Mendiola@ianmendiola · Dropbox
<3 @rrhoover
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Helen Crozier@helencrozier · technology coach
Not as friendly as my Australian Siri - look forward to seeing improvements. If the voice was more human.....
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James Koole@jameskoole · Product Manager, Hover.com
As a dad with a 12-year-old who is essentially unable to read due to a genetic condition that causes significant learning issues, this seems like a nice addition. However, the functionality already exists in iOS in the form of Speak Screen which is easily invoked by pulling down with two fingers (when configured in Accessibility). My daughter uses that to "… See more
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Paul Tomkinson@paultomkinson · Founder, Textras
These comments are a bit of a shark tank so I'm hesitant to weigh in without reading it all, but I use Pocket with Ivona on a daily basis and absolutely love it! Mostly for reading & saving, sure, but when I'm in the zone, travelling or otherwise occupied on any non-work tast...I'm either listening to articles on pocket, or a podcast. They're an essentia… See more
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Chris Smith@chris_smth · Co-founder of Curaytor
This feature may break the "tried once and never again" record. Is it cool? Sure. Will Ryan actually listen to articles a lot next week and moving forward? I doubt it. And for those of you that compared this to podcasts. Shame on you. If a great podcast was as easy as a blogger (or robot) reading their articles there would be more. Totally different skill se… See more
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Andy McIlwain@andymci · Content & Community @ GoDaddy
@chris_smth Haven't seen any comments comparing this to a podcast, just a couple of comments from podcast listeners -- myself included -- who enjoy consuming audio. I totally appreciate that podcasting is above and beyond just reading articles out loud.
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Evan Varsamis@evanvar · Founder & CEO The Gadget Flow
awesome feature!
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Miriam Schwab@miriamschwab · Founder & CEO, illuminea & Strattic
Pocket already had a feature for having articles read to you. What has changed?
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Miriam Schwab@miriamschwab · Founder & CEO, illuminea & Strattic
@miriamschwab Never mind. I see that the big news is that iPhone has finally caught up to Android :)
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Wayne Silbermann@waynesilby · Co-founder, Sortd.com
I always thought there should be a way for the OS to read anything to you natively. I could do that when I had an Android phone (I think it was a 3rd party app). It wasn't great because you always had to select the text you wanted it to read - and that's definitely not the smartest thing to do while driving, which I think is a massive use case for this. L… See more
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Josh@twandjosh · VP Eng @ThreadMeUp, Founder @NarroApp
Just to point out that Narro (http://producthunt.com/tech/narro) integrates with Pocket and gives you a much larger range of better voices - plus Podcasting support!
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Del Williams@delwilliams · Founder, Private Curator
I shall wade in from a different point of view, as that of a former teacher. The sell is "reading is hard" uh no, it's not. People learn in a variety of ways. Reading gets no better with hearing a robot read to you. In fact, I would think it might make the ability to read out loud worse. To say nothing of the fact, that it lacks innovation and is lazy. The "… See more
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