You Can Make Your Phone Read Web Pages to You
In case you haven’t noticed, there is a lot on the web, and quite a few are being added every day. One way to deal with your ever-growing list of articles to read is to read stories from your phone, which the default browsers on both Android and iOS can now handle.
This feature is of course also useful for those with low vision and is not difficult to get started with. This means you can listen to articles from your favorite websites while you wash the dishes, drive, fall asleep, take a walk, or do anything else where you can pay a little attention to the source of the sound.
If you think about all the places you can watch podcasts or audiobooks, web pages that read to you can work the same way. Everything you need is already on your phone, and you won’t have to install any additional apps.
Browsing the Internet on Android
On Android, the task of reading articles on the Internet is performed by Google Assistant, which works with the default Google Chrome browser. When you open a page in Chrome, simply say, “Hey Google, read this page” to hear it. Depending on your phone, you can also press and hold the power button to launch Google Assistant.
As you read the article, you will see playback controls appear at the bottom of the screen. You can pause and restart the audio, move to another part of the page, and change the reading speed using the watch face icon on the right. To exit read-aloud mode, tap the back arrow in the top right corner (or use the back gesture).
Tap the three dots (top right) and you can find options to change the voice used to read web pages. You can also turn text sync on or off, which makes words in a web article appear blue when you read them. Another option is Translate if you want Google Assistant to not only translate the web page, but also read it.
It’s also worth noting that if you’ve installed Google’s Reading Mode app for Android, it also comes with a built-in read-aloud feature. Once you set up the app, it allows you to browse the web without ads, menus, or other distractions, and there’s a play button at the bottom of the interface that lets you listen to articles in audio format.
Browsing the Internet on iOS
While iOS has long been able to read everything on screen for you as part of its accessibility settings, Apple added a dedicated ability for Siri to view and read the text of web articles with the advent of iOS 17. This makes it much more intuitive and efficient user interface, which we talked about earlier .
When you open a webpage in Safari on your iPhone, say “Hey Siri, read this” to hear the text read aloud (the media playback bar will also appear at the top of the screen). Of course, you can also press and hold the Side button or Home button on your iPhone to launch Siri. If you want, you can tap the double A icon in the address bar at the bottom of the screen, and then tap Listen to Page .
If you choose the second option, you’ll see a speech bubble icon next to the website address: tap it and you can change the audio speed, pause and restart playback, or move forward or backward a page. Click End Listening to stop the audio and return to normal viewing.
Safari also has a built-in reader mode that lets you focus on the text of a website, removing much of the formatting and unnecessary furniture on the page: you can activate it by clicking the double A icon in the address bar and selecting Show reader; The read aloud function can be launched in the same way from reading mode.