Let your iPhone read text: Take advantage of Apple's "Pointing Read" feature
Last Christmas, I bought an iPad for my grandma in her 80s. I know this is not a gift for all seniors, but I hope to keep in touch with her via video call and learn about her recent situation.
However, the results were not as good as I expected. The reason is: the application icon is too small!
Not only did grandma find it difficult to see the icons of her fresh iPad, but the buttons on her microwave also began to blur. She told me that she could no longer enjoy reading the magazines she liked as before.
However, I showed her that the iPad features much more than video calls and taught her how to use a magnifying glass to recognize and read all the text she wants to read.
In this article, I will introduce you to the method I taught her and how to use the "Point Read" tool on your iPad to read it aloud.
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You may be wondering, "Can my iPhone read aloud?" The answer is yes! Many apps can let your Mac or iPhone read text aloud, such as emails and messages on the screen.
However, there are few solutions that allow you to read aloud printed text or physical labels. For many, the best solution is Apple's accessibility feature "Pointing Read" which is available in the magnifying glass app.
Simply put, "Pointing Read" allows you to use the device's camera and fingers to recognize and read text. Your device’s camera has built-in text detection, which is recognizable with even the smallest font, making it ideal for reading hard to see content, such as restaurant menus or receipts.
Once your device recognizes the text, you just need to make sure the volume is turned up and the headset is connected and the iPhone will read the text clearly.
Tip: When using the text to speech tool, you usually rely on the clipboard to copy and paste text into the application to get your device to read aloud. This means you end up with many snippets of text that are difficult to track them.
This is why I rely heavily on Paste, the clipboard app, which saves all copied text, images and graphics in one place on my Mac, iPhone and iPad. If you use Paste on your Mac, you can access it from the Dock panel, which is very handy when you switch between windows to copy multiple fragments of text at once.
"Pointing Reading" is a cool tool that helps people with visual impairments read important information around them. If you have visual impairment or dyslexia, this is just one way to get your iPhone to read text aloud.
Other advantages of "suggestion and reading":
What's the best? No additional devices are required as it can run on your phone or tablet (if you are an iPhone or iPad user). This means you can make it easier to move around with the tools you already have. However, please be aware--it's best not to use it on an ATM!
Learning how to use it seems difficult, especially if you haven't tried it before, but don't let your concerns get in the way of you.
Follow the steps below to let your iPhone read it to you:
If you use the magnifying glass app for the first time, you will walk you through a tutorial outlining all available features. Once you're ready to start using "Pointing Reading", just click "Continue".
If the text on the screen is too small to see clearly, remember that you can turn on the Read Screen feature by navigating to Settings > Accessibility > Voice Content. There, you can open the Read Screen and listen to the instructions instead of reading them.
It's time to try it! With a magnifying glass, you can let your iPhone read text aloud, whether you are out or playing with new features at home.
Tip: Unfortunately, "Pointing Reading" only supports certain languages, which is a bit troublesome. The solution is to use the application for instant translation. That's why I like Mate Translate. The app allows you to translate text into 103 different languages (wow!) and there is also a voice translation tool.
Mate Translate is located in your Dock panel, so you can easily access it when reading text, browsing web pages, or sending messages to friends.
You only need:
"Pointing Reading" has been launched in 2023 as part of the iOS 17 and iPadOS 17 updates. This means older models don't necessarily have features that support it, you may need to update your iOS to access it.
The "Pointing and Reading" function can be used on the following devices:
If you have an older iPhone or iPad that doesn't support this feature, or need a reliable text-to-speech program for your Mac, TextSniper is a nice fast text recognition app that you can use instead.
With TextSniper, you can grab text from anywhere on the screen, such as videos, images, and PDFs, and convert it to speech.
It works as follows:
Now, my grandma knows how to use "Point Read" to get her iPhone to read text; she's using it all the time. While this is a great tool, you can enhance the text-to-speech functionality on your phone by using apps like Paste or TextSniper. If you are in multiple languages, you can use MateTranslate to translate text between languages and read aloud.
You can try these apps for free using Setapp’s seven-day free trial. The platform offers over 250 arguably the best iOS and macOS apps in one place and one subscription to help you get the most out of your device.
At the same time, start trying out accessibility features built into your iPhone or iPad – your device may offer much more features than you realize!
"Pointing Reading" is designed to identify an object one at a time and provide acoustic feedback. However, it can identify text written on any object, such as physical products, advertisements in magazines, road signs, and even numbers on the oven.
"Pointing Reading" is not available in all countries. Currently, the tool only supports English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, German, Chinese, Cantonese, Korean, Japanese and Ukrainian.
"Guiding Read" can read text in any language supported by your iPhone or iPad system language settings.
To use "Pointing Read" in different languages, you must set the language of the device to that specific language. For example, if you want your iPhone to read text aloud in Spanish, you must set the language of the device to Spanish.
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