Text to Speech with iOS7 UIWebView

The WebKit with iOS 7.0+, and mobile safari now supports direct TTS Calls using SpeechSynthesis APIs. It's super cool because with relatively sparse code you can have your app talking to you in nearly 36 different voices, along with numerous pitch and rate modifications. Here below is a simple Method where you can pass in text String and have the app dictate it back to you (remember you need to be using iOS 7+ SDK):

- (void) speakThis: (NSString*) text {

        //speechSynthesis.speak(new SpeechSynthesisUtterance("%@"));

    [webview stringByEvaluatingJavaScriptFromString:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"speechSynthesis.speak(new SpeechSynthesisUtterance(\"%@\"));",text]];

}

Custom Transition(s) Using QuartzCore

UIStroryBoard when you push view controllers, or segues, it doesn't let you customize too much. What I ended up doing was override the perform method and used QuartzCore Animations to customize our transitions. I subclassed UIStoryBoardSegue and overwrote the perform function.

Below to customize for Push or Pop then for Segues. (For segues remember to change the class to the custom class in IB).

To do it from a normal pop or push (this does cross fade animation, adjust it for yours):

   #import <QuartzCore/QuartzCore.h>


 - (IBAction)launch1990:(id)sender {
    CATransition* transition = [CATransition animation];
    transition.duration = .45;
    transition.timingFunction = [CAMediaTimingFunction functionWithName:kCAMediaTimingFunctionEaseInEaseOut];
    transition.type = kCATransitionFade;
    [self.navigationController.view.layer addAnimation:transition forKey:kCATransition];

    UIStoryboard *storyboard = [UIStoryboard storyboardWithName:@"1990Storyboard" bundle:nil];
    UIViewController *vc = [storyboard instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:@"1990"];
    [self.navigationController pushViewController:vc animated:NO];
  }

 

To do it from segue:

 

//ZHCustomSegue.h
#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>

@interface ZHCustomSegue : UIStoryboardSegue

@end


//  ZHCustomSegue.m
#import "ZHCustomSegue.h"
#import "QuartzCore/QuartzCore.h"

@implementation ZHCustomSegue


-(void)perform {

    UIViewController *sourceViewController = (UIViewController*)[self sourceViewController];
    UIViewController *destinationController = (UIViewController*)[self destinationViewController];

    CATransition* transition = [CATransition animation];
    transition.duration = .45;
    transition.timingFunction = [CAMediaTimingFunction functionWithName:kCAMediaTimingFunctionEaseInEaseOut];
    transition.type = kCATransitionFade; //kCATransitionMoveIn; //, kCATransitionPush,   kCATransitionReveal, kCATransitionFade
   //transition.subtype = kCATransitionFromLeft; //kCATransitionFromLeft, kCATransitionFromRight, kCATransitionFromTop, kCATransitionFromBottom



    [sourceViewController.navigationController.view.layer addAnimation:transition
                                                            forKey:kCATransition];

    [sourceViewController.navigationController pushViewController:destinationController animated:NO];

}