Voice Brief for iPhone is updated with some welcome new features

I first reviewed Voice Brief in March. The app uses a synthesized voice to read your email, Twitter feed, Facebook, the current weather, stock prices you follow and some RSS feeds that you choose. I liked the app and said it had great potential but needed some updated features.

Today it has some of those new features, and they are worthwhile improvements.The new version integrates with your alarm clock, so it can wake you up to the latest news and weather. It supports Google Reader and improves linking with RSS feeds. It now allows integration with multiple calendars and allows a musical selection to function as a bridge between topics. There are also some bug fixes that should make the app more stable, although I didn't find any issues with the original version.

Voice Brief is not a small app. It weighs in at 271 MB because all the voice files are on your iPhone. The next update will add a fresh GUI and improved mail account support. The current version only supports Apple's built-in mail and Gmail. I always thought Voice Brief would be great if it was combined with the Siri app, which has powerful search and speech recognition, but it doesn't talk. Apple has bought Siri, and it's likely to be part of the iPhone OS at some point in the future, so I expect lots of upgrades.

Voice Brief is US$3.99 in the App Store, and you can see a video of the app in action here.