DEVELOPER WON'T DEVELOP/FIX – Web Reader - Text to Speech Review

I used to use Web Reader all day, every day. As a result, I was able to send the developer a long list of problems (many of which others have reported) and various "feature requests". I sent my last email back in 2011; but NO CHANGE; and almost no response. So thank God there is finally a better product called "VOICE DREAM". This does everything and more than Web Reader; and does it BETTER. Occasional crash; but haven't found an app that doesn't crash occasionally. In fact, before VOICE DREAM, I actually had to use TWO apps by same developer, in order to work around all of the issues with BOTH of these apps (Web Reader & TalktoMe). With VOICE DREAM, I need only one app to do everything and MORE than these two apps did. Now I can save hard drive space, by finally getting rid of Web Reader and TalktoMe; and, most importantly, I now have an app that does everything I need it to do. So my entire office will be switching over to VOICE DREAM. List of problems/features reported/requested to developer that were never fixed/implemented: 1. NO SELECT ALL; but often App didn't work well, unless you use the COPY option (many words skipped for some reason) - but, for a while, the COPY to SPEAK stopped working; but was eventually fixed. No easy way to manually select large text dox, by dragging handles - always hit a limit; so I would spend so much time just trying to select text or figuring out ways to get this to work. 2. Sometimes app has trouble with displaying "portrait/landscape" - seeming to display portrait while in landscape or some such - very annoying. 3. HIDE IMAGES not always working properly - meaning images displaying when they should not 4. Unpredictable behavior - app would start speaking on load, even if this option was NOT selected or would unexpectedly STOP reading, in certain situations - more details about this, given to the developer. 5. Hitting FORWARD BROWSER BUTTON causes app to STOP SPEAKING - so no way to easily continue to browse for other articles/blogs, while in the midst of having app "read" a web page. You CAN use the BACK BUTTON or CLICK LINK on current webpage, without interrupting speech; but not the FORWARD button - odd. 6. Additionally, if you click in the address bar to change web page, the app will stop speaking - which agains totally limits how much you can do to prepare the next page for reading. VOICE DREAM handles ALL of this so much better!!! I can continue to fully browse and set up pages for "speaking", WITHOUT interrupting speech. 7. I requested a CUSTOM DICTIONARY; so we could tell the app how to properly speak certain words that occurred over and over again - in some cases many abbreviations have been paired with set words that do NOT always work. Roman numerals are a problem, for example. This was just a request; but not necessary - certainly not a "deal breaker", like most of the other issues. 8. App did not ALWAYS respond properly to headphone buttons, when it should have and often did 9. PDF reading has been implemented; but really doesn't work well, unless the PDF happens to be in the "perfect format" - whatever that might be. However, even when this feature works, I have NEVER had a perfect reading of a PDF. In fact, it is usually just a bunch of garbage words - no words that appear to be on the page or a combination of garbage and actual words. 10. If web pages have any UNUSUAL LAYOUT, Web Reader has trouble either highlight or reading. Again, VOICE DREAMS works so much better, in this situation, due to additional options that Web Reader and TalktoMe don't have. 11. Wondering if a way to SUPPRESS the speaking of URL's, because it is NOT NECESSARY and URL's are often very long and just a bunch of random characters. Seems like this would NOT be difficult to do: to make app SKIP the reading of URL's (or replace with standard word, like "web site"). 12. Highlighting text while reading has NEVER worked properly, as far as I can tell. The BEST that would occur is that an entire PARAGRAPH would get highlighted. And, in the event of a LONG PARAGRAPH, this would hardly be useful. Additionally, I would often notice that the WRONG text was being highlighted - NOT the text being read 13. Requested "FIND ON PAGE" option (like Safari) 14. Requested "MULTIPLE WINDOWS" option (like Safari) - but not necessary, if you can do full web browsing, while listening to the app. 15. "READER" feature (like Safari), to auto pull text out of a web page. I suspected Web Reader did something like this; but wanted something more like Safari. I finally got a version of this with VOICE DREAM. I should note that prior to the list (above) sent, this developer was very responsive; and tended to implement requested changes. However, I never heard back from the developer; nor did he opt to consider making ANY of the changes requested. So thank god there is now another option for those with the need for a serious, professional-level text-to-speech program: VOICE DREAM.
Review by drakedanecl on Web Reader - Text to Speech.