Despite the fact that audiobooks and podcasts are not taking off in Spain, in many countries they are doing so and among companies as well.
If we recently saw how even the most basic Kindle had the option to read ebooks and news to you , now Apple is trying to offer a similar audio service. The service is integrated into iTunes and is called iTunes Spoken Editions , a unique service that will work not only with the iPad but also with the iPhone and MacBook.
Apple's idea is not to offer its customers a podcast or audiobook service, but to allow people who don't have free hours a day to listen to these materials to listen to read news.
iTunes Spoken Editions will deal with news from important media such as the Times or Forbes
Thus, iTunes Spoken Editions includes news from major media outlets such as Times, Mic, and Forbes, among others . It will also read other types of materials, such as audiobooks, but that will not be its primary function.
But the most interesting thing is that the voice in these audio news stories won't be that of a standard narrator, but rather an artificial intelligence voice. Something similar to Amazon Echo's Alexa, but we don't yet know what kind of assistant it will be. However, given that Siri has now arrived on desktop systems, it wouldn't be unreasonable to think that an updated version of Siri could narrate this iTunes Spoken Editions.
This also raises the possibility of an Apple competitor to Amazon Echo, but this hasn't been confirmed yet. In any case, it's certainly interesting that Amazon Echo and Alexa have strong competition to offer users an alternative to audiobooks and podcasts. After all, not everyone has time to sit down and read on an eReader , do they?