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iHear Network (TTS)

iHear Network - If Only Tweets Could Really Talk

by Yan Matusevich on Mar 10, 2011 11:50:49 PM — read 2,107 times

Tested version: 1.3.3
Latest version: 2.0.2
Requires Android: from 2.2

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Summary

Twitter is a constant source of short yet extremely important information. The latest events in Egypt have shown us how people can rewrite history with the help of social networks. Twitter and Co. is a great tool, but it can also be used in other interesting ways. iHear Network is designed to deliver the latest information fresh off the Twitter "printing press". Find out what the app can do in our test.

 

Features & Use

Section rating:

 Information and communication are crucial components of today's highly industrialized tech-savvy world. At this junction in history, Twitter appears to be playing a very big political and cultural role. iHear Network collects all of this information and organizes tweets by location.

iHearNetwork - Listen to what's being said

iHear Network let’s you hear what’s being said around you. The app does this by reading out the latest tweets in any given area on your Android phone via TTS (Test-to-Speech). Unfortunately, the audio voice sounds more like R2D2 than a real human being, but you can still switch between robotic American and British English (not that it sounds any less artificial). The voice’s volume can also be adjusted in the settings. A tweet disappears as soon as it is read, but iHear Network allows you to go back to previous tweets at any point.

It’s not difficult to find an interesting location to listen in on. Major events such as the revolution in Egypt and the Oscars are bound to provide fertile ground for a stream of interesting tweets. You can use Google Maps and its search feature to listen to any location in the world. As soon as you’ve zoomed in on a location, the robotic voice starts reading things out loud. Tweets are not the only thing the app spits out: sometimes it just begins reading random content that is completely unrelated to your location. Regardless of where you are on the planet, the app tends to only read English tweets, which isn’t going to be very helpful if you’re looking to hear what locals are saying.

Too much gibberish?

Despite the interesting concept behind it, iHear Networ tends to relentlessly read out random tweets. The tweets range from completed runs with Runkeeper to useless gamer tweets about winning an online game. Oh and did I forget to mention all the check-ins through services such as Gowalla and Foursquare? Yep, there part of the fun, too. It’s extremely annoying to put it mildly. iHear Network fails to filter out all the mundane useless information, leaving you with a sea of random and boring tweets. You can forget about trying to see what people are up to on Twitter in Libya during the revolution. The only positive side is that it’s possible find some interesting snapshots and links attached to some tweets.

Pros

  • Listen to location-based tweets
  • Nice design and easy controls
  • Listen to previous tweets
  • Great search feature (zoom-in to a specific street etc.)

Cons

  • Lack of interesting content
  • English-only tweets
  • TTS voice too mechanic and unpleasant
  • Starts reading automatically with no warning.

Bottom Line:
The idea itself is great, but the implementation is very questionable. The voice together with total amount of gibberish being transmitted is both irritating and useless. The app tends to work better with major event, but don’t be surprised if your ear has had enough after just a couple of minutes. The fact that the app starts up without any warning is a major fail on the developers’ part. Imagine iHear Network turning on in your pocket. Now that’s what I call embarrassing.

Screen & Controls

Section rating:

The developers did a great job with the design for iHear Network. The transparent-looking menu comes across as both classy and professional. In the notification bar, you can see all the read tweets and open any links that are attached.

Google Maps helps you navigate and allows you to find the closest pharmacy in your neighborhood. With the menu buttons, you can pause the voice and jump between different tweets. Using the like and dislike buttons you can let the app which tweets you find useful. Unfortunately, this user feedback isn’t being used properly to filter out the garbage.

 

Speed & Stability

Section rating:

iHear Network performed reliably when it's open. The only problem is that the app starts blathering without any warning! EPIC FAIL!

Price/Performance Ratio

Section rating:

iHear Network can be downloaded for free from the App Center

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Reviews of this app in other languages

Review "iHear Network (TTS)" from Mar 10, 2011 (German)

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Social news narrator that reads your news feeds aloud.

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Perapart Toolkaew
Mar 16, 2011 12:36:22 AM

yes

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Market Comments

People, Apr 12, 2012
Speech is awesome It's nice to listen to my feeds. Cool speech options let you easily change voices and how they sound. Shows and reads full web pages.
Brandon, Apr 12, 2012
Easy to use and provides excellent service This app is great. I found it to be extremely easy to use and very responsive. With this app I found the customization to be a huge feature that left me happy. All of the sections kept me busy and kept me interested. All in all, this app is very useful and I found it offer many things that other apps promise but do not deliver. Great for in the car or on the go!
Nikki, Apr 10, 2012
Really cool but needs more ease of use with sites The different channels load quickly. I like that you can choose different voices in the settings and adjust pitch, very nice feature that I have not seen in similar voice-reading apps. I do think it needs to have some sort of easier way to choose entertainment/news articles than just taking me to the front page of a website which is hard to navigate on my phone. The humor section was funny, and the Facebook and Twitter sections functioned fine. Overall I really like it, and I think it will be useful for listening to in the car or on the go.
Tina, Apr 10, 2012
really love the app I just recently installed the app and its a new favorite.its easy to use,to link to Facebook,twitter,and to create a read it later account.I love the concept and its a great to be able to listen while I'm multi tasking.the computer voice is a little tediuse after awhile but that's the only 'issue' I have,it works great I havn't had any glitch issues.
Ryan, Apr 10, 2012
I Hear Review I just recently downloaded I Hear and installed it on my Droid X and I am pretty happy with the App. I didn't even know that there were apps that read your blogs to you. I Hear is easy to navigatge and does what it is supposed to do. It worked with all of the articles that I have tried it with so far.
rohit, Apr 8, 2012
No audio stream. Just buffers Works fine. Great concept. Would like to see some community curated channels. Galaxy Nexus
alpha13, Apr 7, 2012
Broken Each channel has only 1item from over a month ago, and no way to skip forward or update
Verizon, Mar 7, 2012
Really cool channels I just use the tech and Android channels, and love listening to them in the car.
shouky, Mar 2, 2012
Best no hands feed reader ! I'm using the built-in android news feed, and it's just mind blowing , very polished UI, Many streams options . Some glitches , dev response to mail was so quick i felt as if he was working for me. Amazing !
Jo, Mar 2, 2012
Need some enhacement but its a great concept I really like to listen to my blogs when in the gym...this app does the work but the interface as well as more lenguages support needs some work
Anakhsenamun, Feb 26, 2012
I┼ đ๏єş Щ๏rK….єVєЙ┼ЦąLLY. I ђąVє ą VIşЦąL IMPąIrMєЙ┼ ąЙđ GąVє ┼ђIş ą ┼rY. ┼ђє MąIЙ Pr๏ßLєMş I F๏ЦЙđ ąrє 1).Й๏ şєąrcђing ßąşєđ ๏Й IЙ┼єrєş┼ş. I┼ đIđ rєąđ"şPєąK" ßЦ┼ ┼ђєrє'ş ą 6-8min đєLąY ąЙđ rєąđ ą rąЙđ๏M ąr┼IcLє ąF┼єr I ßącKєđ ๏Ц┼ ๏F I┼. 2) ┼єﾒ┼ ๏Й ┼ђє ąr┼IcLєş Iş Fąr ┼๏ şMąLL ┼๏ şєLєc┼ ą ┼๏PIc I đIđ FIЙđ I ЩąЙ┼єđ ┼๏ ђєąr, ßЦ┼ LącK ๏F 乙๏๏M MєąЙ┼ I ђąđ ┼๏ ђєąr ┼ђє єЙ┼Irє şєc┼I๏Й ąş I c๏ЦLđЙ'┼ rєąđ I┼ IF I ┼rIєđ. Йєєđş đЦąL FЦЙc┼I๏Й F๏r ┼ђ๏şє Щђ๏ Йєєđ ┼๏ şєє ą şєąrcђ ąЙđ LIş┼єЙ.
Matthew, Feb 5, 2012
Best version so far! This app is amazing. Does what it says and makes following my social media outlets so much easier when Im on the go! Highly recommend! Follow me on Twitter @MattCFletch
mike, Jan 21, 2012
Integrates with "read it later" Crashes a lot with "read it later" tie-in and the interface to browse your articles is kind of weak. No way to show the list, you have to cycle through them. Other than that it delivers on TTS.
Jai, Nov 18, 2011
Interesting concept and Easy to use I like the concept and the interface of the application. It makes life easier to some extent as you don't need to read everything and can just listen to it. There are a lot of channels available. I liked the concept of adding facebook and twitter feature. However, at times the mechanical sound seems too boring, although it gives a feeling of computer games which I like at times.
jill, Jul 30, 2011
Has some potential for greatness App worked well and did not freeze up on my phone like a lot of other apps tend to do. However, I lost interest fast because it just seemed like another twitter app. I was hoping to be able to select certain topics of interest. (entertainment, sports, conversations, etc.) But most were random tweets having nothing to do with anything of importance to me. Could be an awesome app with a little more innovation and development!!
Kellie, Jul 29, 2011
iHear This ap worked a lot better than I expected it to. I think it would be really useful to check twitter reviews and feedback for a place. Close to my neighborhood are several resturants and I listened to some of the comments by people that had checked into those establishments. I wonder if it would work well at a concert venue to get real time tweets from people attending the same show and maybe making virtual and reality followers unite! Seems pretty interesting!
Kaisha, Jul 29, 2011
Although the concept for this app is interesting, I don't really see what the practicality of it is. Also, the computerized voice is super creepy!
Brandon, Jul 28, 2011
I thought this was going to be at least slightly intellectual, silly me.
markmayhew, Jun 29, 2011
I like listening to the conversations near me on Twitter
Jen Book, Jun 29, 2011
Cool App, but lost interest fast This app seems to take peoples tweets from any geographic location and and plays them as audio. App works well, I just have no interest in random peoples tweets. I guess it would be nice to be able to find out if anything interesting is going on around town, but the person would have to be tweeting it at exactly the right time.
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