Windows Phone 8 brings numerous enhancements to the TellMe service aka the speech engine behind Windows Phone. One area that has improved is voice dictation for email messages (as opposed to just text) and developers can also now incorporate STT/TTS into their apps directly, which is especially useful for things like Twitter or blogging apps.
Text-to-Speech by Morphsoft is a free, straightforward app: you hit a button, bark out your prose and let the TellMe service translate it into text. You can then easily select-all and copy the text into other applications. With the enhanced multi-tasking in Windows Phone 8, you can easily switch to your other app and paste the contents, saving a lot of keystrokes.
The app is especially useful for those apps on your phone that have not yet been updated for Windows Phone 8 or do not have voice capabilities.
There’s not too much else to say about the app: it’s simple, well designed, and free and it helps fill a gap between old and new Windows Phone apps. You can even select the voice choice under settings and there looks to be a non-ad-supported version in the works too.
Pick Text-to-Speech up here in the Store.
Windows Phone 8 devices only. See our other Windows Phone 8 app highlights here.
Daniel Rubino is the Executive Editor of Windows Central, head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft here since 2007, back when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, Microsoft Surface, laptops, next-gen computing, and arguing with people on the internet.
