This is our text-messaging application, featuring Speech Recognition and Text-to-speech, so you can perform eyes-free messaging.

The link on Google Play.

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Eyes-free and Accessible

When you text with Text Talk, you don’t even need to look at the screen, which makes it perfect for many situations where you should be “paying attention” elsewhere. Here is how easy it is:

Push the Volume Up key,
Wait for the tone and the vibrate,
Start talking,
Listen to the read-back to confirm,
Wait 3 seconds,
Push the Send button.

You can build up even longer messages by repeating the steps. The best part is you can do all this (except the last step) with the phone held up to your face, just like a phone call!

Talk and Listen

The eyes-free experience uses two important features found in Android smart phones and tablets:

Speech Recognition
Text to Speech

Making good use of these now turns an attention-grabbing typing task into an eyes-free conversation.

For even more control you use the Volume Up/Down keys to start the process, and also to scroll through lists, e.g. select a contact to text.

Troubleshooting

If you hear the earcons (tones) but no speech, you most-likely do not have the Text to Speech resources installed. Go to the device Settings for Speech Input and Output, and install them. That screen should lead you to Google Play to download and install that package.

If Speech Recognition is not installed on your device, Text Talk displays a message to that effect, and you should also hear it via TTS.

Text Talk relies on Android’s built-in features, which manufacturers can choose to “leave out” of certain devices. If you have other speech-enabled apps that “work” then these are implementing their own TTS and/or Speech Recognition, and they are not using the “system” version of these services.