The internet is filled with great written content, simply sometimes, you only don't take the time to read everything yourself. That'south where a handy but 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 folio," or "Read it to me," it will give you an audiobook version of the content yous're seeing. You lot can even attempt that with the text correct hither.

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

Features

When you say the command, you're thrown into a custom browser built specifically for the reading feature. In it, you'll see the article in the top two thirds of the interface and playback controls at the bottom. The website automatically scrolls forth as information technology'southward being read to you lot by default. Y'all tin leap back and forth via the rewind buttons next to the play button or by borer the paragraph you want to listen to. It's also possible to arrange the reading speed downwards to a tempo of 0.5x or up to 3.0x. I personally think 1.2x is the sweet spot, but that comes down to your preference.

When you tap the 3-dot overflow bill of fare in the top correct corner, you're presented with a few more than options. You accept a wide choice of alternative voices, and information technology's besides possible to plow off text sync if you don't want the commodity to ringlet along every bit it's being read. And if you come across foreign text or you'd prefer to listen to an English article in your native language, you can apply the third entry to interpret text into or from dozens of languages. With recent advances in Google Translate, you could almost think whatsoever you're existence read was translated by a professional.

Media controls with skipping astern and forward option.

Read It becomes especially magical once you lot turn off your brandish or open another app while it'southward reading your article. Like with any sound player, you can pause, stop, and skip back and forth via a notification. When you tap it, yous tin as well render to the text itself, should you desire to follow along with what's currently being read.

Limitations

There are also some limitations. The feature only reliably works in Chrome — if Firefox is your preferred app for surfing, you lot'll need to copy and paste URLs over to Chrome. Information technology also looks like a bug that we first ran into a yr ago still prevents yous from invoking the Assistant in some Chromium-based browsers like Vivaldi and Brave, and so Read Information technology 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'll need to open the corresponding websites in Chrome to get going. That's considering developers have to add some extra code to support the feature, and apparently, nobody seems to exist as well interested in it. Since the implementation doesn't seem to be that complicated, the demand likely simply isn't there. At least it works with Google News and Google'south new custom Search browser.

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

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

There you have it — while Read It is a joy to employ when it works, at that place are some rather odd limitations, even a year afterward it first launched. If Google wants the feature to be more widely available, it needs to do a better task at making it easily discoverable for users and make it desirable to add for developers. Let's hope the company does that sooner rather than afterward.

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Manuel Vonau (1601 Articles Published)

Manuel is a tech enthusiast and Android fan based in Berlin. When he'south non writing manufactures for Android Police, he's probably out and about every bit a videographer.

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