Universally compatible with
all Apple devices
Voice4U
Voice4U is a communication app that provides, well, a voice for you straight on your iPhone or iPod Touch. This autism app features nicely drawn artwork throughout and a pretty healthy stock of images organized neatly in categories. Not only is the artwork nicely drawn, but it's consistent. I absolutely love the little unisex character used in all the images! He (or she) has a cool aura of positivity. It's very refreshing, even if some people think it looks like a little autistic alien. It's a cute little alien. And by default, there are several icons featured in Voice4U that you don't get with other communication apps, most notably dad, mom, speech therapy, occupational therapy, and others.
Within this iPhone app you surf to the image/phrase you want to say and you touch it. The next screen is a full size representation of that image. Touch it and you'll hear the corresponding phrase spoken. Like the unisex character, the voice is also mellow and unisex, so whether your child is male or female this app may be appropriate without much modification and little setup time. You can use it right out of the box, er, iPhone.
To find what you want to say there are several ways you can go about. You can browse alphabetically, type in a search, view the 'popular' list, view the 'recent' list, or browse by category. Nice! The developer tried to make it as quick and easy as possible for you to find the phrase you want to say.
You can import your own pictures and record your own voice if you want. This way you can add your own icons to customize the app as you want, to that extent. You'll probably want to do that, because there are only about 150+ icons in the library which somewhat limits what a person can express with Voice4U.
I give it 4 stars (which isn't bad at all) instead of 5 for a few reasons. First, the settings for Voice4U aren't tucked away in the iPhone's own settings area. That means a child, like my button happy son with autism, can accidentally or intentionally press the "edit" button and get frustrated because he's out of the main app and in a different screen. Second, you can't hide any of the icons to keep your child from selecting something inappropriate. It'd be great if Voice4U had a grid-style interface in addition to the interface they already have. That would allow you to have more control. Another thing that's either good or bad depending on your viewpoint is that you can't change the default voice to anything else unless you re-record your own (or someone else's) voice over all the icons for consistency. Naturally, any icons you add will have a different voice (your own voice) so they won't sound the same as the others. So you're stuck with the voice you hear for the most part, but I'm not convinced that's necessarily a bad thing.
Overall, I think Voice4U is a good communication app. I especially like how it's essentially ready to go as soon as you purchase it, the artwork is professional and consistent, and someone could use this app with little or no training.
