Alex called me the other day, asking me if I knew how to save sound files from text-to-speech. Turns out, he was interested in getting his NetNewsWire headlines and descriptions converted into MP3 files that he could sync to his iPod. I had read some other people’s blogs about this very idea some time ago, and I remember thinking to myself that it would be trivial. After looking on Google, I was surprised to see that no one had come up with a good solution to this problem.
Fortunately, my experience developing various pieces to Soybo gave me the insight on how to write this application and how to write it quickly. So, over the last few days, we cranked out the product that we announce today, Read it to Me™!
Read it to Me creates a playlist of MP3 (or AAC) files in iTunes from your unread items in NetNewsWire using Apple’s Text-to-Speech that you can sync to your iPod. Now you can listen to your favorite news feeds’ headlines and descriptions while on the go! The voices that come with Apple’s Text-To-Speech aren’t the best, but they’re somewhat comprehensible. If we could combine the TTS technology from a company like Nuance, that would be most cool.
Download Read it to Me today! Read it to Me is donationware, so if you like it, please consider parting with some greenbacks.
Here’s a link to Alex’s announcement.
Here are some screenshots of Read it to Me in action!
tow.com 