This is a great idea, why does this not have more upvotes?
Plus one for this. I've tried Apple's text-to-speech and Speechify (which has great browser integration), but both leave me wanting. Voices just aren't great and Eleven blows them out of the water, but no easy way for someone like me to use without copying and pasting into the web app. Obviously reading highlighted text would be nice, but if it could use the Super smarts to know what to read (and be able to read down a scrolling window) in any app, that would be incredible.
MacOS has that possibility already built in. Just select the text, right-click and get it read. You should be able to assign it a shortcut.
Wolfgang Maehr - the voices are not great certainly far short of what whisper can do.
Hey Nicolo, yeah I think this is an interesting idea and something I would definitely consider if there was a good local option for it. The implications for people with disability or even just going hands-free as a productivity user are definitely valuable.
This is Varun here . I have low vision, and I have been using AI-powered dictation systems for a while. I have found Super Whisper on the Mac to be a really game-changing application for me. Since I have low vision, I would definitely love to have the text-to-speech option included as part of Super Whisper so that I do not have to rely on the Mac OS's built-in text-to-speech options. For implementation, we can definitely use Apple's built-in text-to-speech engine and list of voices, as Apple's voice selection is already very pleasant to hear , and it also gives you a lot of options.
Downvote, but this is based only on my personal needs and my personal experience that sufficient apps already address this need. Just my two cents.
Christopher Davis: Thanks for the perspective.
Christopher Davis - what apps?
This is an important need for many users. Apple’s current text to speech output often sounds mechanical and flat, and it does not handle mixed content well. For example, when there is a heading followed by body text and a bullet list, the voice does not convey the structure or emphasis clearly. That makes the experience less helpful for tasks like code review or navigating technical documents. The accessibility features available today are useful but fall short of a richer listening experience. Key usability improvements would include easy selection and playback controls, keyboard shortcuts for play and rewind, and the ability to resume from a selection instead of always starting from the beginning. These small interaction details greatly improve productivity and ease of use. Local processing is another important advantage. Apple supports local text to speech processing, and with the ability to run more advanced models locally on Mac hardware, the results could be exceptional. A local model that provides more natural intonation and better handling of document structure would be a game changer. It would be fantastic to see SuperWhisper offering a more conversational, expressive voice that can reflect headings, lists, and code semantics, essentially allowing us to listen “whisper” with high quality audio generated on device. I believe this is the right time to enhance the SW with improved voices and interaction features. Bringing more advanced local speech models and playback controls would deliver a far better experience productivity users alike.