Safari's new "Listen to Page" Feature in iOS 17

Aug 22, 2023

In the upcoming iOS 17, you will be able to listen to certain web pages in Safari. The feature is called Listen to Page.

Safari's new Listen to Page feature doesn't work for every web page, only web pages where long-form text is detected like articles and blog posts. Generally speaking, it seems to work wherever Safari's reader mode works. And we suspect the very same text extraction algorithm behind Safari's reader is used by Listen to Page.

You cannot use Safari's Listen to Page feature for listening to web content such as forum discussions or PDF documents. It also doesn't offer word highlighting for those who want to follow along as they listen.

If you want to listen to ANY web page regardless of its underlying structure, if you want word highlighting and the ability to listen to PDFs, you'll need a tool like WebOutLoud.

As for voices, it appears Listen to Page uses your selected Siri voice. So whatever voice you have chosen on your device as your Siri voice will be used in Safari's new Listen to Page feature.

If you want a wider selection of premium voices, and you don't want to be limited to those provided by Apple, you'll have to use an app like WebOutLoud with hundreds of high quality voices to choose from across all languages.

In summary...

In iOS 17, Safari's new Listen to Page feature will allow listening to specific web pages with long-form text like articles. It's linked to Safari's reader mode and uses the selected Siri voice. However, it doesn't support all web content, such as forum discussions or PDFs, nor does it offer word highlighting. For broader functionality, including a wider selection of voices and the ability to listen to any web page structure, a tool like WebOutLoud will be necessary.

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