Trouble a'brewin' for iPad?

by Valerie Merians

In this post on geek.com, poster John Brownlee asks “Will the iPad’s text-to-voice eBook feature cause issues with book publishers?”

He goes on to explain that “according to Appleâ€™s own documentation, the iPad will happily read all ePub format eBooks outloud to you, if you want it to. Under a heading on the updated iBooks page, Apple explains that â€œ’iBooks works with VoiceOver, the screen reader in iPad, so it can read you the contents of any page.’â€

Brownlee notes the obvious benefits of the function, “it turns any eBook into a low-rent audio book, and itâ€™s a huge boon to visually impaired.”

But then there was that little problem Amazon ran into with the Kindle’s text-to-voice function. Authors and publishers protested that the automated reading feature violated their audio book rights, and that monetary compensation would be in order if the function were used.

Brownlee opines the author and publisher claim “was always a bit garbage, frankly. I can understand publishers not wanting text-to-voice cannibalizing audio book sales, but the techâ€™s just not there yet to simulate the excellent reading performances weâ€™ve all come to expect from the best audiobooks out there.”

But the real question is, will Apple press the issue, and fight the battle Amazon lost?

Valerie Merians is the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.

2 Comments

Frank at 12:03 pm on March 15, 2010
My sister is blind and has to read all books on her computer via JAWS screen-reading software.
Just thought I’d mention it in relation to the publisher claim that voiceover violates their terms.
Frank at 12:03 pm on March 15, 2010
My sister is blind and has to read all books on her computer via JAWS screen-reading software.
Just thought I’d mention it in relation to the publisher claim that voiceover violates their terms.