Changelog

Speaking Email is auto updated frequently with new features and maintenance fixes. See the latest changes we have implemented in our changelog below.

15 Jun 2024

- Fixed bug when selecting an email to play after email search

- Fixed bug with compose not picking up any contacts

30 Oct 2023

- Upgraded to latest Google Play billing

16 Sep 2023

- Ability to switch off reading out sender name and "unread email"

- New option to set up 'Dictation Auto Replace Expansions' which will replace any phrase you choose with your custom replacement 

30 Jun 2023

16 May 2023

- fixed issue with no speech recogntion prompt after subject

- fixed new Yahoo and AOL integration using secure sign in

- rebuild for latest Apple and Android operating systems

11 May 2023

- New Yahoo and AOL integration using secure sign in

- fixed issue with speech recogntion stopping

- can now tap command transcript to restart listening

- changed main menu to prompt for voice commands even when no account

- made 'account' command go to create account if there are no accounts

- option to skip message when forwarding

13 Apr 2023

- OCR text extraction from scanned PDF attachments

27 Feb 2023

- Rebuild for latest Apple and Android operating systems

10 Oct 2022

- App Store release to support iOS 16

26 Aug 2022

- Improved mailserver auto discover to handle uppercase MX records to ensure Google Sign-In is used rather than IMAP

21 Aug 2022

- Fixed undo delete on Microsoft 365

- Fix for Microsoft 365 sign in

- New option to just skip promotional emails without reading the date and subject

14 Aug 2022

- Improved permission handling

- Fixed android speech recognition bugs

27 May 2022

- New "resume" command plays from the email you were last on

- New "incoming" command takes you to the "waiting for incoming mail" screen

- Improvements to recipient recognition and prompting

13 Feb 2022

- Basic edition now has voice commands

- Ability to try basic edition while in premium

- "Switch account" prompt is less wordy

- Faster recognition of voice command

- Tweak to sounds-like algorithm for Kiwi accent

- Changed from "period" to "full stop" for puncuation to avoid 

- Improvements to voice based preferences

- Mail sending for all IMAP email accounts is via their corresponding SMTP servers where possible

- Extended auto reload timeout back to 30 minutes unless in Blind Mode, as the previous change turned out to be too much

31 Oct 2021

- Yahoo mail is now sent via Yahoo mail servers (and no longer using no-reply email)

- Improvements to recipient recognition and prompting

- New "resume" command plays from the email you were last on

4 Oct 2021

- We have decided to auto reload every time the app is resumed, if it has been in the background for more than 60 seconds. We have implemented this now and your app will auto update next time you launch it.

This means it will pretty much always land up at the main menu when ready for your command when you ask Siri to "launch speaking email".

It also means if you have "auto play on launch" switched on, it will auto play from the top every time you resume the app. Previously "auto play on launch" only happens when you launch the app after it was closed or after at least 6 hours. I know some blind users in particular found this frustrating since it was not easy to know what the current situation is when you resume the app.

- New "incoming" command takes you to the "waiting for incoming mail" screen

- Better spelling of people's names in dictated response - this new features looks at the names of the sender and recipients of the email for hints on how people's names are spelled - so for example if you are replying to an email from a 'Catherine', the speech-to-text will be more likely to spell it correctly, rather than spelling it 'Kathryn'.

Working on: 

- New "language" command lets you change reading language (in case the language detection is incorrect or the email contains mixed languages)

2 Sep 2021

- Archive and Sent folders are now playable like other folders on Gmail, Microsoft 365 and IMAP

- New "attachment" command jumps to reading out the attachment

- Office 365 renamed Microsoft 365

22 Aug 2021

- Gmail "Archive (All Mail)" is now available as a playback folder

- Faster syncing when switching folders on Gmail

10 Aug 2021 

- Demo/Tutorial can now be replayed or hidden from the Support menu

3 Aug 2021

- New 'large fonts' option under Misc Interface options

- Office365 now uses 'Immutable IDs' which Microsoft introduced recently to avoid issues with emails getting renumbered

- Prevents attempting to send an email when there is a connectivity issue, allowing you to try again (or save as draft - gmail only)

2 May 2021

- Improved context help information (when you say 'help')

- New always-present onscreen mic button in the bottom left corner, lets you interrupt any speaking and give a contextually relevant voice command. This works on all screens, including email reading, dictation, inbox, menu, plan, setup wizard, and preferences. (There are still a few screens that are not operable by voice command - in particular, account setup and support screens - but we wanted to get this feature in the hands of users as soon as possible - so on these screens the mic is present but it only has global voice commands such as 'menu')

- Improved voice controlled preferences

- 'Slower', 'faster', 'voice', 'upgrade' and 'preferences' commands are now available everywhere

- Improved text-to-speech of long strings of digits

- When you update your phone Contacts, it now gets the new contacts immediately

- Ability to say 'cancel' during 'replace' command in dictation

- New 'reload' command to start from the main screen in case you get stuck somewhere in an unknown state (this is in response to some issue blind users have encountered, needing to otherwise quit and relaunch)

21 Mar 2021

- In Blind Mode, when the app resumes from being in the background, it will prompt for a voice command

15 Mar 2021

- Custom replacements - enter your own text to be replaced or removed from the email spoken text

... sorry, we made lots of little improvements but did not update the changelog for about a year.... 

1 Feb 2020 (autoupdate) - Voice command

- New "voice" voice command. Say "voice" to change the reading voice. 

- Fixed some issues around expired tokens for Office 365 logins.

- Changed most error messages to voice based prompts (previously standard operating system dialog boxes which were not user friendly for blind users or drivers).

- Made help more user friendly with explanations rather than just listing commands.

18 Dec 2019 (autoupdate) - Blind mode

- New Blind Mode reads out all text on screen. Set this under Preferences > Misc.

- End Screen now shows any filters you have in place so you can see why there are no more emails. You can also say relevant voice commands on the end screen - previous, undo, account, compose, menu, inbox - and these buttons appear if you tap the screen.

25 Oct 2019 (autoupdate) - Email limit increased to 500

Speaking Email now speaks up to recent 500 emails. We increased this from 250 after a user reported he had 363 unread emails he wanted to get through in a session!

24 Oct 2019 (autoupdate) - ActiveSync sync window changes