Earlier this year, we looked at ToBe SAID on Android, one of the first practical attempts to bring modern Pocket TTS voices directly into the operating system as an offline text-to-speech engine.
Now the same idea has arrived on the Mac.
ToBe SAID is now available for macOS on the Mac App Store, bringing Pocket TTS-based AI voices to applications that can use macOS system text-to-speech voices.
This is an important development for anyone interested in offline AI text-to-speech on Mac, particularly because it does not require running a separate TTS server or sending text to a cloud service.
Pocket TTS Running Locally on the Mac
The most important technical point is the same one we highlighted with the Android version: ToBe SAID uses Pocket TTS.
Pocket TTS is part of a new generation of relatively small neural speech models that can produce surprisingly natural speech without requiring the enormous computing resources associated with many cloud AI voice services.
With ToBe SAID, speech generation happens locally on the Mac. According to its App Store description, the app works entirely on-device, without sending text to external servers.
More importantly, it can operate as a system-wide TTS engine. This means compatible Mac applications can use its voices instead of requiring users to read everything inside a dedicated ToBe SAID application.
A good system voice is considerably more useful than a voice tied to a single application because it can become part of an existing reading workflow.
ToBe SAID Works with Speech Central on Mac
One particularly useful combination is ToBe SAID together with Speech Central for Mac.
Speech Central can use compatible macOS text-to-speech voices while providing the reading features needed for PDFs, web articles, books, documents and other long-form content.
In other words, ToBe SAID provides the Pocket TTS voice engine, while Speech Central provides the complete reading environment.
Download Speech Central for Mac from the Mac App Store.
For users who already use Speech Central, this makes experimenting with Pocket TTS considerably simpler than traditional setups involving locally hosted TTS servers.
Most of What We Said About the Android Version Still Applies
Most of the observations from our original article about ToBe SAID on Android apply equally well here.
- Speech generation works fully offline.
- Text does not need to be sent to a cloud TTS provider.
- No external TTS server setup is required.
- The voices are based on modern Pocket TTS technology.
- The engine can be used by other compatible applications through the operating system’s text-to-speech infrastructure.
- Custom voice creation is also supported.
This is exactly the direction offline text-to-speech has needed to move.
Modern open-source and compact AI speech models have existed for some time, but actually using them in ordinary reading applications has often required significant technical setup. Applications such as ToBe SAID are turning these models into something much closer to an ordinary system voice.
Free and Pro Versions Are Available
There are currently two editions of ToBe SAID for macOS.
The standard ToBe SAID app is free. There is also a ToBe SAID Pro version priced at $9.99.
At the moment, however, it is not clear what the practical difference between the two versions is. Their public descriptions do not provide an obvious feature comparison explaining exactly what users receive by purchasing the Pro edition.
It is possible that the free version already has limitations that are not immediately apparent, or that additional limitations or Pro-only capabilities will be introduced in the future.
For now, users interested in trying Pocket TTS on the Mac can simply start with the free version.
What About an iPhone and iPad Version?
According to the developer, an iOS version is also being considered.
However, iOS imposes stricter technical and system-level constraints than macOS and Android, and at this point the developer has not managed to overcome those restrictions sufficiently to provide the same experience on iPhone and iPad.
This is not particularly surprising. Third-party system text-to-speech integration has historically been much more restricted on Apple’s mobile platforms, while macOS gives developers considerably more freedom to integrate software with the operating system.
An offline Pocket TTS system voice for iPhone and iPad would certainly be interesting, particularly for accessibility and long-form reading, but for now ToBe SAID remains a Mac and Android solution.
Offline AI Voices Are Becoming Practical
When we wrote about ToBe SAID on Android, the larger point was not only about one application. It was evidence of a broader transition.
Modern AI text-to-speech is beginning to move away from the assumption that natural voices must come from large models running in the cloud.
Pocket TTS demonstrates that useful neural speech synthesis can run locally on ordinary consumer hardware. ToBe SAID turns that capability into something much easier to use by exposing it through the operating system’s text-to-speech infrastructure.
The arrival of the Mac version makes that trend even more significant. Android users already had access to ToBe SAID, and Mac users can now experiment with the same concept, including using Pocket TTS voices with Speech Central.
Unlike cloud AI voices, there is no requirement to upload everything you read to an external service.
Where to Download
Download ToBe SAID for Mac from the Mac App Store
Download Speech Central for Mac from the Mac App Store
For more background on Pocket TTS, offline AI system voices and the Android version of ToBe SAID, read our earlier article:
ToBe SAID: Android AI System Voices – The Rise of Offline TTS on Mobile
The fundamental idea remains the same: Pocket TTS is becoming practical as an offline system voice rather than merely an interesting AI model that technically runs on local hardware.