The internet is filled with nifty written content, just sometimes, you just don't accept the time to read everything yourself. That'southward where a handy merely rather hidden Google Assistant feature comes in. When yous invoke the Assistant while looking at an article and say something like "Read it," "Read this page," or "Read information technology to me," it will give you lot an audiobook version of the content you're seeing. You can even effort that with the text right here.

While the voice command is all yous demand to know if you want to jump into the feature real quick, there are a few things y'all should exist aware of if you're interested in using Read It extensively.

Features

When y'all say the command, you're thrown into a custom browser congenital specifically for the reading characteristic. In information technology, you'll come across the commodity in the top two thirds of the interface and playback controls at the lesser. The website automatically scrolls forth as it'south existence read to you by default. Y'all tin spring dorsum and forth via the rewind buttons adjacent to the play button or by tapping the paragraph yous want to listen to. It'south also possible to adjust the reading speed down to a tempo of 0.5x or up to 3.0x. I personally remember ane.2x is the sweet spot, but that comes down to your preference.

When you lot tap the three-dot overflow menu in the pinnacle right corner, you're presented with a few more options. Y'all have a broad selection of alternative voices, and it'due south too possible to plow off text sync if you don't want the article to gyre along as it's being read. And if you come across foreign text or yous'd prefer to listen to an English article in your native language, you lot can use the third entry to translate text into or from dozens of languages. With recent advances in Google Translate, you could almost think whatever yous're being read was translated by a professional.

Media controls with skipping backward and frontward choice.

Read Information technology becomes especially magical once y'all turn off your display or open another app while it's reading your article. Like with any audio player, you can break, stop, and skip back and forth via a notification. When you tap it, you can likewise return to the text itself, should you want to follow along with what'southward currently beingness read.

Limitations

There are also some limitations. The feature only reliably works in Chrome — if Firefox is your preferred app for surfing, y'all'll demand to copy and paste URLs over to Chrome. It also looks like a bug that we showtime ran into a year ago still prevents you from invoking the Assistant in some Chromium-based browsers like Vivaldi and Brave, and so Read It doesn't work there.

Similarly, Read It doesn't work for all apps. I tried it on the New York Times, CNN, The Guardian, Medium.com, and Feedly, but they all aren't compatible — you lot'll demand to open up the corresponding websites in Chrome to get going. That'south because developers have to add some extra code to support the characteristic, and plainly, nobody seems to exist likewise interested in it. Since the implementation doesn't seem to be that complicated, the demand probable merely isn't at that place. At least it works with Google News and Google's new custom Search browser.

Left & Middle: No ads thanks to Scroll, which doesn't deport over to Read It. Correct: No luck at all with NYT, for example.

Paywalls are likewise a trouble for Read It. That's because information technology's basically a split browser with its own cookies, logins, and history, and so fifty-fifty when you're logged into a website like the New York Times in Chrome, Assistant will tell yous that it tin't read text from websites that require a subscription. The same is true for Scroll, the service that removes ads from some websites like ours for a small monthly fee. You'll accept to endure ads while the commodity is read to yous. Similarly, yous'll see cookie privacy notices, even if you've already agreed or disagreed in your default browser.

In that location you have it — while Read It is a joy to use when information technology works, there are some rather odd limitations, even a year after it first launched. If Google wants the feature to be more than widely bachelor, it needs to do a better chore at making it easily discoverable for users and brand it desirable to add for developers. Let's hope the company does that sooner rather than subsequently.

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About The Author

Manuel Vonau (1598 Articles Published)

Manuel is a tech enthusiast and Android fan based in Berlin. When he'south non writing articles for Android Constabulary, he'southward probably out and nigh equally a videographer.

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