The tour

A reader to follow along, and a studio to make the reading

ai1y has two sides. The reader reads a book aloud and lights up each word as it’s said. The creator studio gives every character a voice and lets you shape each reading, down to the waveform.

The first sentence of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in the reader, each word lit in turn as it is read.

The reader Words that light up as they’re read, a page set the way you like it, and a book you can talk to. See the reader

The creator studio’s Timeline: a lane of waveforms for each voice, sound effects and a background.

The creator studio A voice for every character, then every reading shaped on a Timeline, or fixed right in the reader on your phone. See the studio

The reader

Read it, hear it, follow it

On a laptop, a tablet or a phone, and it works with Yoto.* Pick what you’d like to see, or let the screens take turns.

The word being said and its sentence light up, so your eyes and ears stay together. Tap any word to read on from there.

The reader on a laptop, reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The word “of” is lit inside its lit sentence, and the bar at the bottom says one minute is left in the chapter.

The same book in the reader on a phone, a word lit as it is read.

Hold any word to see the letters that make each sound, and hear it.

Sound it out open on the word “time”: the letters t, i, m and e, with the i and the silent e lit together, and a Hear it button.

Pick a spelling like silent e, and every word in the book with it is underlined, to find and tap.

A pattern hunt for a_e in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: “made” is found, with Back and Next to move between the words.

Jump to any chapter, keep your place with a bookmark, and see how long is left.

The Contents panel open beside the book, listing the opening pages and Chapter I, with how far along you are.

Read in light or dark. Drag the handle to see both.

Pick the text size, the spacing, the font and how fast the voice reads. The reader keeps your choices for every book.

The reader’s Settings panel: a sample of the page, text size, spacing and a choice of fonts.

Turn on short spoken summaries of pictures, tables and code, labeled as written by AI, with the original a tap away.

A table in a book with its short summary written by AI above it, and a button to hide the original.

Talk to your book: ask a question out loud and hear the answer from the book, then ask the next one. You can type a question too. Asking uses an online service.

Asking Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland “Why was Alice getting tired?” out loud: the question as heard, the answer quoting the book, Show me in the book, and an Ask out loud button beside the box to type in.

The same question asked out loud on a phone, with the answer from the book and a microphone button.

Put a narrated book on a Yoto Make Your Own card: each chapter becomes a track. It works with Yoto.*

The library with Put “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” on Yoto open: its chapters become tracks in a playlist in your Yoto account, to link to a blank Make Your Own card in the Yoto app.

The creator studio

Make a book sound the way you hear it

Give every character a voice, then shape each reading on a Timeline with a lane for every voice, sound effect and background.

Each voice, the sound effects and each background on a lane of its own. Mute or solo a lane, and play the mix.

The Timeline on chapter 2 of The Tortoise and the Hare: lanes for the narrator and the Hare opened to their waveforms, footsteps on the sound effects lane, a breeze on a background lane, and the chapter’s text beside them.

Zoom in and every reading shows its waveform, clip by clip, word by word.

The Timeline zoomed in on the narrator’s and the Hare’s lanes, each clip drawn as its waveform under its words.

Pick a clip to make it louder or quieter, or trim a click or a breath from its ends. Nothing is read again.

The panel for the Hare’s line “I have time for a nap,”: Record this line, a Louder or quieter slider, and the clip’s waveform with a handle at each end to trim it.

Draw a volume line on a clip to bring part of it down or up, right on its waveform.

A volume line on the Hare’s “you are the slowest animal I have ever met.”: level for most of the clip, then sloping down to its last word.

Cut a clip in two with the scissors. The cut snaps between words.

Cut picked on the Timeline: a line over the Hare’s clip “Mr. Tortoise,” says it would cut through “Tortoise”.

Drag the pause after any clip longer or shorter, with Undo right there.

The pause after the Hare’s “Mr. Tortoise,” made 0.35 seconds long, with a note and an Undo button under the lanes.

Describe how each character should sound, and pick their voice by ear.

The studio’s Cast screen for The Tale of Peter Rabbit: the narrator, and Mrs. Rabbit with a description of how she should sound.

Every change is listed in words, and any version can come back.

The History screen: two pause changes, newest first, each with Go back to this version.

Edit in the reader

Hear a sentence, fix it right there, even on your phone

With the studio running, open the book in the reader, tap a sentence that needs work, and change who says it, how it’s said or which take plays. Hear the change in place before you update the book.

Listening on your phone? Turn on Fix, tap the sentence that needs work, and its sheet opens right over the book.

The Fix sheet on a phone, open on “Mr. Tortoise,” he said, “you are the slowest animal I have ever met.”, with Play the sentence and Hear it in place.

Further down the sheet: who says “Mr. Tortoise,”, and Take 1 and Take 2, each with Use this take.

Change what the voice says, mark how it goes, or read it aloud yourself: your stress, pauses and tune are put into words for the voice.

What’s said and how, open on a phone: ways to say it, like shouting, whispering or sounding out of breath, then Show how it goes, to read the line aloud the way it should go, with a Read it aloud button.

Same words elsewhere, open under the narrator’s “he said,”: the book’s reading of “he said” from chapter 2, with Use this reading.

Make a clip louder or quieter, or trim its ends on its waveform, with your thumb.

Volume, trim or clean up on a phone: a Louder or quieter slider, and the clip’s waveform with a handle at each end to trim it.

The Fix bar on a phone says one sentence changed since the build and you hear it as it is now, with Hear changes on and Update the book.

The same sheet opens beside the book on a bigger screen. Changed sentences play as they will after you update the book.

Open

Your books, in an open format

An ai1y book is a folder of plain files: the text, each narration, and the timing of every word, kept on your device. The format and the reader are open source, so nothing you make is locked to one app.

Open a book How the format works Read the docs