Major update to Voice: OCR Document Reader in the works; any other accessibility app requests?

By Shalin Shah, 5 May, 2020

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hey guys,

I'm Shalin, the creator of the app Voice–OCR Document Reader on the iOS App Store (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/voice-ocr-document-reader/id903772588).

The point of Voice was always to have a dead-simple interface that lets you scan and read documents faster than ever. I even posted about it a few months back (https://www.applevis.com/forum/free-ocr-app-voice-massive-update-after-2-years).

Quarantine has given me a lot of time to make that app better, so I will be launching another mega-update to the app. This time, I want to make pushing buttons almost obsolete by making the entire interface Voice-controlled. So you'd be able to say things like "flash on", "pick from photo library", "set language to Spanish," before capturing a picture, and then while Voice is reading your document, you'd be able to say things like "pause," "next page," "restart," and many more commands!

I really think this would be pretty fun to use, especially since it must be so annoying to navigate poorly designed and inaccessible interfaces. I will obviously release a quick manual that contains all the Voice commands, and will definitely post again it once the app is out in the market!

My question is, does anyone have any other accessibility app requests? Some examples could be a voice-controlled email reader, or a voice-controlled PDF reader with custom text-to-speech voices. Or any other things you guys wished existed that I didn't mention?

Since I have time this summer, I would love to build more accessibility apps, so comment below and I'll build the apps that are the most requested!

Thank you!

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Comments

By WellF on Sunday, May 10, 2020 - 04:11

I think it would be more interesting if the voice control feature was optional, as some users don't like talking with the phone much. Great jobe you doing, btw!

By JC on Sunday, May 10, 2020 - 04:11

how about a voice controlled recorder? I know their are a lot of voice recording apps, but they require button presses, which could be very annoying to some users, and sometimes Siri Shortcuts doesn't always work as intended. well, with your app, for example, just like the Voice OCR app, you can say simple things like Record, stop, play, delete, etc, and that could make it a lot faster and easier, rather then pressing lots of buttons.

By gailisaiah on Sunday, May 10, 2020 - 04:11

Hello Shalin:
I appreciate this app so much! Voice is my preferred app for reading and identifying things. I like that it's voice controlled. But if someone forgets the word CAPTURE to take the picture and READ, the buttons are clearly labeled.

By Devin Prater on Sunday, May 10, 2020 - 04:11

I request that emulators and other apps that are advanced and open source be cleaned up to be accessible, or given accessible interfaces.

For example, AltStore is an alternative App Store for iOS. However, some parts of it are inaccessible. See my issue on this. I also have issues for Delta and PPSSPP.

Thanks for any help with this.

By Justin Philips on Sunday, May 10, 2020 - 04:11

An easy app to copy clipboard information from the windows desktop to the iPhone and vice versa would be welcome. An accessible mindmap app would also be great.

By Karina Velazquez on Sunday, May 10, 2020 - 04:11

Hi and thanks for asking.
For me the voice command would be noT important either.

1. To could manage scan results as a textv and could navegate by it as a normal text, because now it is shown as a whole, and I can’t move to a certain part of the text but by coping the text to a word procesor.

2. To make the reading controls compatible with the 2-fingers-tab in order to play and stop the reading; this is because at this time it is very difficult for me to find the play button to stop the initial reading once the Scan result is shown.

Thanks in advance and I find very helpful your app on my daily working day.

By Ramy on Sunday, May 10, 2020 - 04:11

Hi, And thanks for your hard work, am always using VOice Dream Reader to Read Documents, but i idid not get the OCR because it does not support arabic, so, is there a hope to support Arabic? also, a general question, what about removing backgrounds etc from the scanned document? i mean, i saw an in accessible app called Camscan, it really scan documents like a real scanner, removing edges, etc, can Voice OCR do this? Thanks in advance

I think that there is an accessible mind map app. See that huge post about all stuff related to iOS, there is something about it there.