I'm obsessed with this app that has a robot read me any article I want

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Pocket, which lets you easily save articles for offline (or just convenient) reading, is one of the most useful apps I have on my phone.

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But lately I've become obsessed with a feature many Pocket users have probably never even heard of: having a robot read articles to me.

This feature is called "Listen TTS" (text-to-speech), and has been available since last year on both iOS and Android.

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The basic premise is that Pocket will scan the article you saved and read it out loud to you. Let's get this out of the way first: it's not perfect. The robot's voice isn't the quality of your latest premium audio book, and there are going to be times when it sounds awkward.

But I found that, after about the first 30 seconds, it was easy to understand. None of stories I was trying to absorb were getting lost in translation. This feature is particularly useful for my commute, which switches from "times I can stare at my phone" to "times I really shouldn't stare at my phone." Since Pocket tracks where you are in the narrative, you can toggle start listening and then finish by reading, or vice versa.

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If you want the robot to speak faster or slower, you can also toggle that.

Here's how you turn on the feature if you are interested in trying it out: