Speak context menu: need a better way to get speak selection to work from the iPhone

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Level 1

8 points

Speak context menu: need a better way to get speak selection to work from the iPhone

This is the suggestion I made to Apple's feature recommendations

When an edit menu item has been selected, move that menu item to the front of the pop-up menu so it will only take two taps to reuse that selection.

This will help anyone who uses the edit menu for the same command frequently, as I do. Besides occasionally using copy or paste, 95% of the time I use the menu on my iPhone to to select "speak" so I can have text voiced for me.

For iOS ver. 18.1

iPhone 13 Pro Max, iOS 18

Posted on Nov 14, 2024 9:00 AM

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Answer 1

Mike Matvy Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 19, 2024 12:38 PM in response to Mike Matvy

Here's why we need a better way when we use our iPhone.

Speak selection works great on the Mac. It takes about 0.25 seconds to 0.75 seconds to hear my selected text spoken using the keyboard shortcut. However, on my iPhone, it takes up to 6 seconds to navigate through the context menu, find and tap "speak ", if everything goes well. Unfortunately, using the context menu requires multiple taps of the right arrow to get to the "speak" menu item. Each time one taps, the menu is redrawn, and the menu arrow moves slightly, and it's easy to miss tapping that right arrow the next time. For me, the result is that about 20% of the time, I make a mistake and miss the right arrow as I search through the menu to find "speak." This means that I have to start over, adding another five seconds or so before I can hear the text spoken for me. This menu setup is a big barrier for those of us who need to have the text spoken aloud.

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