Google TTS or Text-To-Speech, has seen a new update this week. Bringing the app to version 3.9.6 (there is also a version 3.9.11 floating around out there). There’s a few pretty important features in this update. Of course, the most important one is the ability to select text system-wide. What we are talking about here is that floating text selection toolbar that appeared in Android 6.0 Marshmallow when that was released last year. That was only available in a few apps, in fact developers had to put it into their app themselves. That was until this version of Google TTS started to roll out. This toolbar is now available anywhere in the system. Allowing you to select text and then be able to translate it, search, and do much more with it. Making things much easier, all around.
The update also brings Swedish and Vietnamese to the list of languages supported by text-to-speech. So if you do use either of those languages, then this is good news for you. You can head into the TTS app and select these yourself, or just let the system do it. Especially if you already have one of them set as the default on Android.
Not a whole lot that is new here in this version of Text-to-Speech, but there are some pretty cool features here. Of course, the system-wide text selection is a nice feature to have. As we mentioned before, this is version 3.9.6, however we did also mention that there is a 3.9.11 version floating around out there. So what’s the difference? Well the 3.9.6 version has the system-wide text selection toolbar, while the 3.9.11 version does not. It simply adds support for Swedish and Vietnamese languages to the supported list.
We do have the APK available for Google TTS. Which you can download using the link below. Remember, to install this APK you will need to go into the settings of your device and into security to enable “Unknown Sources”. Once you’ve done that, you’ll be free to install the new APK. It’s also worth noting that this isn’t the version on Google Play, but rather it’s the version from Android N Developer Preview 3. It does work fairly well on Marshmallow as well. So there shouldn’t be any issues, but if you are waiting for it to roll out from Google Play, you’ll be waiting a good little while.
Download: Google TTS v3.9.6