This iPhone hack will let your phone “speak” to you
It’s easy to get totally backlogged on interesting or fun articles you’ve found while internet surfing that you want to read but just never have the time. Now, you can actually get caught up because your iPhone will happily and easily read you whatever you want. According to LifeHacker, all you need to do is turn on your devices “Speak Screen” and swipe with two fingers down anything you want read.
To find your device’s magical “Speak Screen,” you need to go on a quick treasure hunt through Settings > General > Accessibility > Speech
There you’ll see this option that you’ll want to activate by simply swiping the little button to the right so it’s green.
You’ll know it’s activated when a couple options show up underneath the Speak Screen that didn’t exist before, like this Speaking Rate scale which you can conveniently slide to your preferred reading speed with Siri giving you a sample of how fast that speed sounds as you slide between the adorably slow turtle and the charmingly fast bunny.
Don’t worry about setting the perfect speed rate here, though, since it can be easily adjusted later.
Another option you’ll see listed is a Highlight Content option. While part of the fun of this is that you don’t actually have to look at the text in order to read it, highlighting the text is also an easy way to follow along with the voice if you choose. I tried it because I figured I made it this far, I wanted to see all the bells and whistles this hack had to offer.
Now you can choose the voice you want to read to you. The default setting (for US English though there are plenty of other options) is the lovely-sounding Samantha for those of you who want to gab with your iPhone Sex in the City style.
While Samantha was lovely, I have to admit I was fascinated by the Alex option at the bottom. And, thanks to another recent hack I learned about, I have a little extra space on my phone these days. So I decided download this special (and totally worth it) Alex reading voice.
Once that is all set up, open any website or ebook (it will literally read anything and everything on the screen you tell it to), and swipe down with both fingers from the top of your phone. Your new iPhone voice/friend will immediately start reading everything on the screen and a gray box will appear on your screen that looks like this:
This box will allow you to adjust your speed or tell your digital reader specific directions like skipping certain sections or pausing. Once you get the speed to your liking, simply minimize this box by clicking the symbol in the upper left-hand corner.
And just like that, you can have anything you want read to you with the ease of a double-swipe. It even continues to read the content on your indicated page while you use your phone for other things. Like, say, you want the digital reader to keep reading that HelloGiggles article out loud while you search Instagram for “Aussiepoos” because they’re unbelievably adorable.
The minimized indicator will loyally follow you to every page just like these little fluffballs would loyally follow you around the park.
So now you can enjoy lots of hours of happy listening!
