text to speech · 31 languages · no cloud · open source
Any text, read aloud.
Share an article, a PDF, an EPUB, a Word file or a video, and a parrot reads it to you in a natural voice while you cook, while you walk, or with your eyes closed. The model runs entirely on your device: nothing ever leaves it.
free · no account · no per-character fees
cloud 31
languages
press play: this came out of the same engine you carry in your pocket
This is how it sounds.
En 1492, tres carabelas zarparon de Palos. El siglo XV terminaba, y nadie a bordo sabía que llevaban el mapa del mundo por dibujar.
The highlighted words are the ones the reading script rewrites: “1492” is said “fourteen ninety-two” and “15th century” is said “fifteenth century”, with the rules of each language.
why it exists
No cloud, no accounts, no per-character fees.
Other text-to-speech apps send whatever you read to a server and charge you by the character or by the listening hour. Yappy has no server to pay for, so it has nothing to charge you for listening.
Nothing leaves your device
The voice is synthesised on your phone or computer by an open model. It works offline too, and it always will.
31 languages, properly
Ten voices, every one of them polyglot. A text quoting another language switches on its own, paragraph by paragraph.
No hours, no characters
Listen to whatever you like, for as long as you like. There is no counter, because there is no bill to share out.
Open source (MIT)
The engine, the reading script, the app and this very website are published. You can read them, build them and check them.
sharing is the door
Whatever it is you are reading.
From Safari, Mail, Files or any app: tap Share and choose Yappy. The page cleans itself up — menus, banners and footers gone — and what is left is the prose, with its headings and its rhythm.
what it is for
Three moments, one gesture.
While you cook
Share the article, prop up the phone, and the voice keeps reading over the stove.
On the walk
Last night's book, now an audiobook with chapters, comes with you up the hill.
The night works
Leave it rendering at bedtime; when you wake up, the audiobook is in your pocket.
the piece nobody else shows
It reads like a person, not like a machine.
Reading aloud is not spelling out: it is interpreting. “1492” is said “fourteen ninety-two”; “Henry VIII” is said “Henry the Eighth”, but “Louis XIV” in French is “Louis quatorze”; “EL CID” is not a Roman numeral; the FBI is spelled out and NASA is not. Before synthesising a single syllable, Yappy turns the text into a reading script: the score of what the voice is actually going to say.
Try it right here: this is the same Rust that runs in the app, compiled for your browser.
The script will appear here, with the rewritten parts highlighted.
as it looks, unretouched
Screenshots of the actual app.
No painted mock-ups: this is Yappy running, with real texts on the perch and the reader with its script ready.
Tap a bird and it tells you how it sounds.
Ten birds, thirty-one languages.
All of them polyglot: the same voice reads Spanish, English or Japanese without changing timbre. And a text quoting another language switches on its own, paragraph by paragraph.
the money, straight
Genuinely free, plus a wind-up parrot.
The free parrot carries three documents at a time on its perch and reads them with no time limit. Take one off and another fits. If you want a bottomless perch, the audiobook press and the bridge to your computer, wind it up.
A parrot, in your pocket.
Free, with no account and nothing to register. Install it, share a text, and it speaks.