Mavis AAC
Mavis AAC is a simple app for interacting with Apple’s built-in speech synthesizer.
Our goal is to replace the built-in Live Speech app with something a bit more capable and user-friendly for those who rely on speech synthesis daily.
If available, Mavis can speak using Apple’s Personal Voice as well.
For maximum reliability, Mavis AAC is completely offline and requires no Internet connection to function correctly.
Mavis AAC works on MacOS as well as iPads and iPhones. It is very similar on all platforms, but each version has small tweaks so that Mavis feels better integrated with your device.
On the iPad, Mavis AAC has been optimized for use with an external wireless keyboard.
Features At A Glance
History Repeat
Quickly repeat any of the last few phrases without having to retype them. There are simple keyboard shortcuts to control the selection.
Tab Complete
Using the tab key, you can quickly access frequent phrases that best match a few typed words. Your list of phrases can be easily edited — refer to the Tab Completion section of the Help document for more detailed information.
Pronunciations
English is a fickle beast, so you can edit the pronunciations of specific words so that it sounds how it should. This is most often useful with proper nouns, names and acronyms.
You can also use this to expand texting shorthand. More information and examples are available in the Fixing Pronunciations section of the Help document.
Soundbites
If you have done some voice banking, Mavis AAC can play your exact voice from the recordings when you type the exact word or phrase in the soundbite.
Phone/FaceTime Integration
If you are making phone or FaceTime calls on your iPad/iPhone the audio generated by Mavis AAC is automatically sent on the call, even with your microphone active. The other participants can hear you laugh or make other sounds, but you can quickly speak clearly with your voice synthesizer when you need to.
Soundbites do not currently work over FaceTime/Phone calls. When a call is active, soundbites will be synthesized rather than played back from the recordings.
Installing on iOS
Mavis AAC is available on the App Store for iPad and iPhone.
Personal Voice
Mavis AAC can use your Personal Voice if you have one, but you must first configure Apple’s Personal Voice settings within the Accessiblity section to allow third-party applications to request Personal Voice permissions.
Documentation
More detailed information is available in the Help Docs.