Puzzled by text msg with voice

[spectre72]

Sorry if this question has been asked and answered before, but my wife's Fascinate really puzzled us this afternoon. She received a text message from our daughter that was longer than the maximum number of characters for one message. When she tapped the message to bring up the entire content, the text popped up on the normal black screen, but the phone also started reading the message in a computerized voice. As you can imagine this startled both of us because we had never heard a voice delivery of a text message.

Her phone is purely stock, and she is using the stock text message application. She doesn't have any application on her phone that wasn't there when we bought it at our local Verizon store (except for Angry Birds).

We tried, but were unsuccessful in duplicating the condition by having our daughter send another long message, plus I sent her one as well.

Has anyone else experienced this, or has any knowledge of how and why it happened?


BTW, our daughter uses an HTC Incredible.

 

[Sta11i0n]

Sounds like she had the car dock running.

 

[tk020507]

Isn't text to speech a stock function of the phone? And I believe Verizon to Verizon messages can exceed the limit of characters.

 

[spectre72]

Isn't text to speech a stock function of the phone? And I believe Verizon to Verizon messages can exceed the limit of characters.

If text to speech is a stock function we could not find anything about it when we attempted to search the running applications for anything that could have inadvertently been turned on. Only the one text message was affected, i.e., it was delivered with both screen text and voice. We were unable to duplicate the voice delivery with subsequent messages from three different incoming sources (all three using Verizon).

As to the limit of characters on Verizon text messages, yes Verizon will accept more than the standard (160 characters I believe) maximum message size. The portion of the sent message that contains the overflow counts as an additional message. However, my understanding is that depending upon the messaging plan, the overflow message does not count against the total messages used so long as both sender and receiver are using Verizon.

 

[Xopher]

Text to Speech is a stock function (I think you have to have the extended speech module installed). You can turn on "Driving Mode" under the phone's Settings > Voice Input & Output > Text-To-Speech Settings.

I'm not sure what it reads, or how, but it is an option.

 

[TwinsMom]

I use this feature all the time when I receive a text while driving. Sometimes I'm too curious to wait to know what it says but I don't like to set a bad example for the kids by reading the text.

Was maybe what you did was inadvertently held down both the up and down volume keys while reading the message? Give it a try, it'll work on any of those test messages or any others for that matter. Cheers!

 

[spectre72]

Was maybe what you did was inadvertently held down both the up and down volume keys while reading the message? Give it a try, it'll work on any of those test messages or any others for that matter. Cheers!

@TwinsMom, Thank you very much. We tried your idea and it worked perfectly. Looking back at the time we first heard the computer voice, we realized that my wife was holding the phone up so that I could read the message at the same time she did. Apparently she was gripping the volume bar very tightly such that both ends were being depressed simultaneously.

Again, thank you very much for the solution. I will be able to sleep better tonight since my brain won't be struggling with "what happened, and why can't we duplicate it."

 

[Landshark]

Text to Speech is a stock function (I think you have to have the extended speech module installed). You can turn on "Driving Mode" under the phone's Settings > Voice Input & Output > Text-To-Speech Settings.

I'm not sure what it reads, or how, but it is an option.

Thanks for the info. I just tried that out, and it is a great feature for when you are driving.

 

[bigjobber69]

doesnt work for handcent though guess ill still be looking at texts illegally

 

[TwinsMom]

Glad to help!

Again, thank you very much for the solution. I will be able to sleep better tonight since my brain won't be struggling with "what happened, and why can't we duplicate it."

Been there, that's the worst!! Glad to help, sleep well!

 

[jorger81#AC]

Thank you for this fun little feature that I had no idea about !!

 

[Sta11i0n]

Was maybe what you did was inadvertently held down both the up and down volume keys while reading the message? Give it a try, it'll work on any of those test messages or any others for that matter. Cheers!

The volume up button is the only one that needs to be held to read messages. Holding volume down puts the phone in silent mode.