Reader View and Speech in iOS
Reading articles and hearing them
Recently, I want to try out the Reader View in browsers and want to test the feature when reading articles. I also subscribed to some RSS feeds, not only wanting to read them on my phone but also listening to the content using Spoken Content in iOS.
I want to have a better reading experience on my iPhone. I tried to make use of the Reader View but it seems like the feature behaves differently in browsers. I’ve tested in Safari, Firefox, and Edge on both desktop and mobile. Apparently, I’m no expert but I can tell you if you own a blog, and you want the content of your post to display normally in Reader View, your best bet is to put all the content, including footnotes in the same container. Don’t try to wrap content in <div>, <section>, or <footer> inside the main container. The content might be skipped entirely in Reader View on mobile even if you have tested it on desktop and it seems to work. After serval updates to my HTML structure, only Safari works normally on desktop and mobile. So, maybe I’ll have to live with that for now.
Another thing I want to mention is the Spoken Content Accessibility features on iPhone. When I was reading RSS I wish to listen to them as well using Speak. I think Apple is doing their job in this regard. It’s very easy to use, you can put two fingers on the top edge of the screen and swipe down, and then the Speech Controller panel will show up. You can also enable it in Settings > Accessibility > Spoken Content > Speech Controller.
However, the Voice Over is always sounded monotone. Reading the content word by word feels strange. In Edge, the Reader Mode comes with Read Aloud and plenty of features, such as Text / Read Preference, and Grammar Tools. Microsoft is doing a great job at that because those features are all baked into their browser. The default Voice Sonia reading content very smoothly, it’s so much better than the voice in iOS.
Sometimes, I just want to read easier and listening to them will definitely help to digest better. I also want to admit I cringed every time I read the posts that I wrote. Being able to express myself without caring too much what other people may think. I’m not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing. If anyone’s reading, you can tell me about it and I prefer direct honesty.
See you next time.
This is #Day22 of #100DaysToOffload.