I can’t get system default TTS to work as expected

[mleoj]

Hello,

I’ve some troubles setting up tts. From my understanding, the option “System Mandarin tts“ should use the tts engine which I have set up in my settings. In my case, on iPad, that would be “Siri” which is the most natural sounding option on iPad OS. However, Pleco just always uses some very outdated robotic female tts voice.

I do also have the Qiang TTS option, which works great. is this the neural network one I read about in the Pleco release notes? Even though, I still like to use alternating voices with the siri option.

thank you for the great product btw. Using Pleco since ten years.

 

[mleoj]

After Browsing the board a little bit I found that there should be some new voices to be able to be downloaded in Pleco however I can’t download them. I have no such options in my add-in screen.

 

[mleoj]

Screenshots

 

[mikelove]

Apple doesn't give apps access to all of the system voices, unfortunately; also, some of them don't allow us to force them to use a specific pronunciation for a given character, which makes them unusable in areas like flashcards (where the audio has to match the Pinyin exactly), so of the voices we do have access to we specifically avoid voices like that.

 

[mleoj]

I see. Thank you. Any idea on the second issue (I only get Qiang TTS as option for new voices and I don’t have any other download option)?

 

[mikelove]

Sorry, that one is because we haven't set up in-app purchasing in the beta, and yet even in the beta Apple won't let us link to or allude to any other purchase methods, so the "Add-ons" screen only shows stuff that's free or that you've already purchased.

You can purchase other voices from our web store at store.pleco.com.

 

[mleoj]

Ah. Okay the web store worked for me. Thank you.