What’s new

SaySoTalker is looked after. Here is what has changed, in plain language.

To see which version you have, open Grown-up settings in the app and look at the bottom. If it is older than the one at the top of this list, close the app completely and open it again. It updates itself.

2.0.21 September 2026Latest

Back and Next work properly inside a category. On a category page the page counter was describing the main board instead of the page you were on, so it could say page 1 while you were looking at page 2, and Back stayed greyed out. Pressing Next did turn the page, which meant a child could end up on the second page of Food & drink with no visible way back. The counter now names the page you are on, such as Meals & snacks 1 of 2, and Back and Next switch on and off to match.
Changing the button size asks first. It is the one setting that moves buttons your child has learned, so it now says so before it happens instead of changing the board the moment you tap. Saying no leaves everything exactly as it was. Setting up a new device does not ask, because there is nothing learned yet to move.

2.0.11 September 2026

Setting up a new device asks one question, once. A new install was being greeted by two setup screens stacked on each other: the new button-size chooser, and the older welcome it was meant to replace, which was still there and still offering the sizes it used to offer. Only the button-size chooser remains.
Grown-up settings no longer offers the old layout choices. The list of 12, 21, 40 or all 96 words was left over from before button sizes existed, and it did something quite different from what it looked like it did: it hid words rather than changing the size of the buttons, and on an updated board it could leave most of the vocabulary hidden. It is gone, and the button-size choice is there in its place.
Changing the button size never changes which words are hidden. They are two separate things now and cannot affect each other. Hiding a word is only ever something you do on purpose, one word at a time, with Edit turned on.
Opening Grown-up settings asks the sum once. The gear had been wired up twice over, so the check could appear more than once for a single tap.
If a word disappeared from your board after you used the old layout choices, nothing is lost: turn on Edit in Grown-up settings and tap the empty cells to bring those words back, or restore a backup file from before it happened.

2.01 September 2026

Choose how big the buttons are. Four sizes: 15, 30, 60 or 96 buttons on a screen. Bigger buttons are easier to see and easier to hit accurately, and that is the only thing the choice is about. Every size still has all 96 words, on extra pages reached with Back and Next. No size is a level to work up from.
Nothing changes for a board you already have. Updating puts you on the 96-button layout, which is the board you have now, with every word in the cell it has always been in and everything you had hidden still hidden. You are not asked to set anything up. A different size is there in Grown-up settings if you ever want one.
The words can be bigger. Small, medium or large, in Grown-up settings. It changes the writing and nothing else: no button moves.
Turning the device keeps the same board. Each size has a layout for upright and for sideways, both worked out in advance, so a rotation never rearranges anything on the spot.
Buttons you made stay where you put them. Your own buttons have a place of their own at each size, kept when you rename one, and when you remove one its space is left empty rather than given to the next button you add, so nobody else appears where your child had learned to find somebody.
The Quick screen never changes. Nine words, three by three, in the same nine places whatever else you choose. It is the screen you reach for when something is wrong.
A phone held sideways is usable. On a short screen the logo and title step aside so the board gets the room, while every button stays at least the size a finger needs.
Your backup file carries all of it, photos included, and syncing between devices carries your layout as well without ever sending a photo. A device still on an older version keeps working from the same code.

1.531 August 2026

You can get around the board without reading. The Categories screen and the menus inside each category were words only, which meant the one screen deciding which pictures you could reach was the one screen a child could not read. Those buttons show pictures now, the same way every other button does.
A page for naming your body, and for saying it hurts. Body & self-care now has Head & face, Arms & hands, Legs & feet, Private parts, Hurt & medical and Toileting. Every one of those pages starts with my, hurt and I’m hurting, so a child pointing at the part that hurts can say so without leaving the page. The anatomical words are included and clearly grouped, because a child who cannot speak needs to be able to name their own body, and that is how harm gets reported.
Urgent words are on the Safety page. It hurts here, I can’t breathe, I’m choking, I’m bleeding, I need a doctor, someone hurt me, I don’t feel safe, stop touching me, call 911, I’m lost.
The three empty buttons on the main board are filled: some, but and because. Nothing moved to make room. They were the last three cells, which is why they could be filled without shifting a single word.
New words and a new page. A Transportation category, a Sensory page for loud, quiet, bright, dark and how a room feels, and the words that were dead ends: bowl, straw, napkin, bottle, jacket, swimsuit, hospital, pharmacy, playground, pool and work.
Word buttons look like a set. They used to be sized to their own word, so a page of them looked uneven. They now share one size, with a single smaller size for the few words too long for it, and a long word breaks between syllables rather than in the middle.

1.431 August 2026

Every button is now a picture or a word. The board used to fall back to an emoji when a word had no picture yet, and an emoji is rarely the word. A red heart stood in for “like”, a green circle for “go”. Those are gone. A word that has a pictogram shows the pictogram, and a word that does not yet shows as a large, clear word button. A word button is a real button, not a picture that failed to load.
The pictures are all the same size as each other. Each one used to carry its own amount of empty space around the drawing, so two symbols in identical buttons could look noticeably different in size. Every picture has been trimmed to sit the same way in its button.
More words have real pictures. Pictogram coverage on the main board has gone up, and more are being added. Nothing moves when a picture arrives: the word stays in the button it has always been in, and simply gains its picture.
Colours are shown as the colour. The Colours page used to draw a pictogram for each one, which meant a picture of something that happens to be that colour. Each button is now the colour itself, with the word underneath. White has an outline so it reads as a button rather than an empty tile.
The farm bird is a hen. “Chicken” was on two pages meaning two things, the animal on the farm and the dinner in Meals & snacks, and both had to share one picture. They are now separate words with their own pictures, so a child can say either. The farm button speaks “hen”.
Three words that were missing. Home things had a spoon but no fork or knife, and Clothes had no underwear. Nothing moved to make room: the new words took the next free buttons and every word already on the board stayed where it was.
Category pages show their pictures. Words inside Food, Animals, My People and the rest were showing as plain words even when a picture had been added for them. The picture only appeared once the word was tapped and reached the sentence strip, which made a button mean one thing to press and look like another a second later. The board and the strip now look for a picture the same way, so a word either has one in both places or neither.
Long words are no longer cut in half. On a phone, a word too wide for its button used to break wherever it landed, so “under” read as “unde r” and “don’t” as “don’ t”. Words that need it are now set slightly smaller so they stay whole.
Adding your own button asks for a photo or a word. The emoji list has been removed, so there is no longer a choice between a photo and a rough emoji stand-in. If you already made buttons with an emoji, those buttons still work and now show their word.

1.330 August 2026

A picture can no longer fail to save without telling you. If the device has run out of room, the app says so and keeps your word and your photo in the form, so you can free up space and try again. Before this it could look like the picture was added, and then be gone the next time you opened the app.
Restoring a backup is safer. If the restore cannot be saved, the board you already have is left exactly as it was, instead of being replaced by a half-finished one.
Turning on sync explains itself first. Before anything is uploaded you are told what it copies, including the words you type on buttons, that photos are never uploaded, and that anyone holding your code can see or replace your synced setup.
Better with a keyboard or a switch. Settings, help, the welcome screen and the grown-up check now keep the focus inside them, close with Escape, and can no longer be tabbed past onto the board behind.

1.230 August 2026

Choose how many buttons to start with: 12, 21, 40, or all 93 words. Each choice is shown as a picture of the board, so you can see how full it looks before you pick. Every word is always on the board. A smaller choice simply shows fewer at once, and nothing moves when you change it.
The welcome screen now actually appears the first time the app is opened. It never had.
A note about Silent mode beside the voice setting, because on an iPhone or iPad it can mute the app while everything still looks like it is working.

1.130 August 2026

The first tap speaks in the voice you chose. It used to fall back to the computer voice on the first press of a session.
“Load from another device” no longer deletes pictures you added on this device, or their photos.
Four pictures that had been uploaded but never appeared now show up, including my turn on the main board.
Long phrases are no longer cut off partway through when a sentence is read out one word at a time.
Easier to see and to hit: bigger delete and clear buttons, stronger colour contrast, and the sentence strip now tells a screen reader what changed.
The demo on this website no longer changes a real board that was set up in the same browser.

1.0August 2026First release

The first public release. A free picture-and-speech AAC talker: tap pictures to hear words and build a sentence, on a board where words keep their places so they can be learned. Category pages for topic words, a quick screen for urgent ones, spelling, your own pictures and photos, recorded or computer voices, backup files you keep yourself, and optional sync. Works offline, and installs like an app.

Versions 1.1 to 1.3 arrived close together during one focused round of testing and fixes, which is why they share a date.