Podcast 'Em All
Give it a PDF, a Word document, a text file or the link to an article. It comes back either as a straight reading in one voice, or as a podcast where two hosts talk the thing through — in Italian, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese or German, at whatever depth you asked for.
A reading, or a conversation
“Read it” gives you one voice and the text as it stands. “Podcast” casts two voices who discuss it instead. Same document, two very different listens.
Six languages, and it translates
Italian, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and German. Italian is the source language; pick any of the others and your sources are translated before they are spoken.
As deep as you want
Overview for the gist, Balanced for the key points, In-depth for every detail. There is also a box for your own instructions on how it should be handled.
Several sources, one piece
Add more than one document, or mix documents with a link, and they become a single listen rather than a queue of separate ones.
Keeps going without you
Generation runs in an Android foreground service, so it carries on if you close the app and picks up after a reboot. Each finished line is written to disk as it is made, so a kill costs you one line at most.
Follow along, or take it with you
The player highlights the line being spoken as it plays, at one of five speeds, and the finished piece exports to MP3.
Four steps, and only one of them needs you.
Add your sources
One or several: PDF, Word, plain text, Markdown, or a pasted link to an article. Choose the language, whether you want a reading or a podcast, and how deep it should go. There is a box for your own instructions, and a switch that lets it search the web for context around your sources.
The text is pulled out and a script is written
Clean text is extracted from every source — for a link, the article is lifted out of the page without the navigation and the banners. A language model then turns it into a reading or a two-host dialogue in the language you picked, translating along the way if that is not the language the sources are written in.
The script is spoken, line by line
Each line is synthesised and comes back as audio, then gets stitched into one track with the pauses in the right places. Every finished line is saved the moment it arrives, so the work survives a force-close, a flat battery or a restart.
Listen, or take it with you
Finished pieces land in the library. Play them at the speed you like while the script scrolls along with the voice, or export to MP3 and put it wherever you keep your audio.
Where the work happens
Worth being straight about, because the other app in this family does everything on the phone and this one does not. Podcast ’Em All needs a connection: the text of your sources is sent to a server, where the script is written and then spoken, one line at a time. What comes back to your phone is the audio. If you are working with documents you would not want leaving the device, this is the app where that matters — Convert ’Em All is the one that never sends anything anywhere.
What you can feed it
A monthly plan, because the work is not free to run.
Writing a script and speaking it costs real money every time. This app cannot follow the one-time rule the rest of the family does, so it is priced to be honest about that rather than to squeeze you.
10 podcasts a month.
30 podcasts a month.
50 podcasts a month.
- Three podcasts free to start, once, with no card and no plan
- Readings in the original language are always free and unlimited, plan or no plan
- A podcast that fails costs you nothing — only finished ones count
- One counter, no credits and no packs to buy on top
- Move up a plan and it applies at once; move down and it waits for the renewal
- No adverts, no tracking, and nothing collected about what you listen to
Unused podcasts do not roll over to the next month. Plans are billed through Google Play and can be cancelled there at any time.
Questions worth asking
When can I get it?
It is in closed testing and not on Google Play for everyone yet. There is no release date to promise, and it will not be announced here until it is real.
Does it work offline?
No, and this is the thing worth knowing before you install it. The text of your sources is sent to a server, where the script is written and then spoken; your phone receives the finished audio. Unlike Convert ’Em All, this app cannot do its job without a connection.
Is anything free?
Two things. The first three podcasts, once, without a plan. And readings in the original language, which are free and unlimited forever — it is the translated readings and the two-host podcasts that count against a plan.
Why a subscription, when the other app is free?
Because every podcast costs something to produce. Convert ’Em All runs entirely on your phone, so it costs nothing to give away. This one writes and speaks on a server, and a monthly plan is the honest way to cover that instead of pretending it is free and finding a worse way to pay for it.
What happens if I close the app?
Nothing stops. Generation runs in an Android foreground service rather than in the screen you are looking at, and each finished line is written to disk as it arrives. Force-close it, or restart the phone, and it carries on from where it was.
Can I listen in a language my documents are not written in?
Yes. Italian is the language sources are expected in; choose English, Spanish, French, Portuguese or German and the material is translated before it is spoken.
Who makes it?
Vittorio Vesco, an independent Android developer in Turin working solo under the name The Yellow Apps — the same person behind Convert ’Em All.