# TTS on Android?



## flips (Dec 9, 2012)

Hi! My Kindle DX has Text-to-speech, which helps me read academic stuff faster.
I have not found this in the iOS app (iphone/ipad), but heard someone mentioning that the Kindle Fire family has TTS.

So, does all devices running the Kindle app on Android offer TTS? (Like the Nexus 7) Or just Amazon's own devices?


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## Toby (Nov 25, 2008)

It works on the Fires, except the original Fire. I don't have the other devices.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

I have the android Kindle app on my phone and a tablet (not a Fire).  I just checked my phone and there is no TTS within the app.  I believe there are 3rd party apps that may add the functionality but it's not something I'm particularly interested in so I've never really gone looking.  I do remember at least one blogger (Bufo Calvin of "I Love My Kindle") saying he'd found something that let him listen to kindle books on his original Fire -- which also did not have TTS.  The current HD models, however, do, I believe.


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## flips (Dec 9, 2012)

So, I guess TTS is something Amazon provides in it's custom firmware, not by default in stock Android ...


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

flips said:


> So, I guess TTS is something Amazon provides in it's custom firmware, not by default in stock Android ...


Android doesn't have much by default. . . it's just an OS. It's the apps that are developed that may or may not use a given feature. Most android devices will have speakers, and there are apps which will let the device read what is on the screen to you. Amazon did not choose to utilize that feature in their Kindle app for android.

On the FIRE, Amazon has put it's on stamp on the basic Android OS ('forked' it, if you will) and the Kindle app is more closely entwined into the OS than is possible on a 3rd party manufacturer device. My guess is they did this because it's been a feature of many of their eInk readers and customers asked for it back when the first Fire shipped without it.


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## readingril (Oct 29, 2010)

The TTS API has been a part of the Android OS since early on; unfortunately Amazon chooses not to incorporate TTS in its Kindle app. There are other reading apps that you can use that can read DRM free books in various formats, off the top of my head I know of Moon+ Reader & FBReader.


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## flips (Dec 9, 2012)

Great, thanks for good answers!


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