Hi everyone, I am one of the creators of Speakaboo. I saw that someone had posted it to the App Directory a couple weeks ago and just wanted to say hello and thank you for using the app, and please let me know how my team can continue to improve it to better suit your needs.
Speakaboo offers spoken descriptions for photos, similar to how BeMyAI and other apps function. However, my team has designed it with the goal of making it as simple and convenient as possible, so you can get the information you need without extra steps or distractions.
You can check it out here: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/speakaboo/id6480101099
If you have any questions, concerns, or ideas on how we can make Speakaboo better for you, feel free to share.
I hope you find it helpful!
Patrick
Comments
@Brian
Thank you for your kind words and for being a premium subscriber! I’ve tested the repeat and follow-up feature on my end, and it seems to be working as expected. For the feature to work, you need to have used the main button first to get a quick description or have your question answered, which it sounds like you’ve done.
Could you please try restarting the app and giving it another shot? If the issue persists, feel free to let me know so we can look into it further.
Thanks again for your support!
@Space Dog
Hi Space Dog,
I sent you a private message. To summarize here, I tried rebooting my iPhone and restarting the app. The repeat/follow up feature only seems to work when I use either of the Siri shortcuts to use the Speakaboo app. If I open the app directly, repeat/follow up does not work. Also to note, using one of the shortcuts to open Speakaboo, when I use repeat/follow up there, I get Multiple replies. In other words, instead of it just repeating the description once, it will do it two or three times consecutively.
Also on a sidenote, one of the Siri shortcuts cannot be assigned to a gesture through voiceover settings/commands. It is the quick description shortcut. I am not sure why, but it simply does not show up through the commands menu.
HTH.
Follow-up working for me.
Hi,
I updated the app, and initiated it from the homescreen. I got an initial description, and was then able to get follow-up questions answered.
Bug might have something to do with the type of phone? Not sure that's a thing, but mine is a 16 pro, just in case it is.
The lifetime subscription is a great deal for me, as I use the app at work a few times every day. I haven't tried it on menus or documents yet, but will try and remember when I'm out next.
Thanks!!!
I emailed you about 15 minutes ago then I got on here and saw this so basically I would like to know how do I use Siri and what phrase in order to get it to perform the action. I'm looking forward to using this daily and great update! The team Did an awesome job so far, as far as I can tell.
Some feedback that would be nice to have in the app
I'm sure most people don't need that double tap to repeat because anyone can just take the photo again and have it repeat exactly what you took in a few seconds. I would really prefer to have that button double tap and hold to ask a follow up question about the photo Instead. That's just me but I don't really need to hear the repeat of what was already said. I don't know why it's there and what it's for but I can hear perfectly fine and am mentally sound. I guess some people will need that though.
I actually like the repeat function
Because why yes you can retake the photo, you may not get the exact same description. So that repeat functionality is very handy.
@Martin @Brian @Louise
@Martin
Thank you for your feedback! Speakaboo is designed with minimalism at the forefront, so we put a lot of thought into the utility of every feature we add. Here are a few reasons people might find the repeat button useful:
• Some folks may not be able to see well enough to point the camera at the exact same spot twice.
• They might be using Speakaboo in a noisy environment.
• They may want to repeat the description for a friend.
• They might need to hear a password or code with complex characters repeated.
To set up the shortcut for gestures like Back Tap or your Action Button, and use it with Siri:
1. Make sure it’s configured in your Shortcuts app. You can quickly set this up using this link: https://speakaboo.app/quick
2. To use Siri, say “Hey Siri” or activate it with your preferred gesture, then say: “Quick Describe with Speakaboo.”
Let me know if you need any help setting it up!
@Brian:
Hi Brian,
We’re still working hard to figure out what might be causing the issue with the repeat button not functioning correctly on your device. It could be related to the iPhone SE model, and we’re currently trying to source one so we can reproduce the problem and address it.
In the meantime, please try uninstalling and reinstalling the app to see if that resolves the issue. Thank you for your patience as we investigate this!
@Louise:
Thank you, Louise, for confirming that everything is working smoothly on your end! I'm very glad to hear you’re finding the lifetime subscription useful. If you run into any other issues or have feedback, we’re always happy to hear from you.
That's dope. I love it!
Ah thanks for explaining and absolutely love this Siri shortcut! The way I have it set up in the settings it gives me a detailed description and love being able to ask more follow up questions afterwards so it's a really cool update right now. I used it with my Ray-Ban Meta AI smart glasses on and hopefully we'll be able to give commands through that instead of just the iPhone soon. 🙏 I'm going to leave a good review on the App Store for this app. Thank you for listening to our suggestions and implementing what you could. Also, I would certainly love to have a way to take a photo using the volume up and down button like I can with be my AI as I have that mapped to my action button currently. I would love to be able to replace B my AI with this app but now I have it as a Siri shortcut and I could also map it to my screen lock widget. Well actually I can use that as a way to open speakaboo with the action button to get a full description right away. 🕺😁
I like it so much. 😁
I just have to give props for doing that Siri shortcut. I love having this as the default action button app now I can just press the action button once to take a photo, get a detailed description then press it again to get another photo description then being able to ask follow up questions by just swipe once to the right double tap hold and release, that's really cool so thank you very much.
I wish I had purchased a lifetime subscription instead of the monthly one because I would certainly be able to do that but unfortunately, there's no option for me to change it. I'm upset about that but it is what it is.
Free vs Premium
I've been unable to locate documentation or a web site for this app. I'm wondering what features are available in the free version and what features get enabled in the premium version. The description mentions something about limits, but I haven't been able to find out what those limits are. Anyone know?
@Martin @Jeff @Brian
@Martin
Hey Martin, so happy to hear you are enjoying Speakaboo! Thanks for calling out the lack of an option to upgrade from monthly to lifetime—it was an oversight on our part, but we’ve now fixed it. After updating Speakaboo, when you navigate to Settings, the top item should now give you the option to upgrade to a lifetime subscription.
Let me know if that works for you, and thanks for being a Premium user and sharing your feedback!
@Jeff
Hey Jeff, great question! Here’s a quick breakdown of the main differences between Free and Premium today:
Free Features:
• Main button for quick descriptions or questions about your environment
• Imperial or metric measurements
• Support for English, Spanish, French, German, and Hindi
• Quick Describe shortcut (Siri, Action Button, or Back Tap) | Set it up quickly with this link: https://speakaboo.app/quick
Premium Benefits:
• Repeat and follow-up button for more detailed interactions
• Voice selection
• Toggle between concise or detailed responses
• Turbo Mode for lightning-fast results
• Enhanced AI performance
• Unlimited uses
Hoping that is helpful, happy to answer any more questions!
@Brian
Hey Brian, we’re still hard at work trying to figure out why the Repeat/Followup button hasn’t been working as expected for you. We haven't been able to find another iPhone SE user but we've tested on an iPhone 8 and an iPhone 11, both of them have that button functioning normally. However, we made a couple of tweaks to the way Speakaboo handles Repeat/Followup in the latest release, so could you update the app and give it another try?
If the issue persists, uninstalling and reinstalling the app might make a difference. Let me know how it goes, and thank you for your patience!
@Space Dog
OK I tried updating to version 0.24. That alone did not fix the issue. So I uninstalled it, and then reinstalled the latest version.
That seems to have worked. Now the repeat function works no matter how I open the app. Also the repeat function is not repeating itself. It only repeats once, after I double tap on the button.
Thank you for fixing this.
Also, love the Christmas jingle on first launch of the application! 🎅
Too expensive for me but thanks
Hey there, I appreciate you. I now know why I chose to do monthly subscription. $99 is extremely expensive for a person with a disability on a fixed income who lives independently especially during the holiday season when I'm buying gifts for people that I love.
Also, even though there's a lot of good features on this version of the app I still don't have certain features that would even get me to keep the app for a whole year if it don't have those and the first one would be the ability to save the photo with the description into my photo library. And the second one would be to be able to share a photo from my library to the app, get the description and then save it again to my library with a description. I'm already paying for another app that does this but unfortunately that app does not have a shortcut that I can map to my action button for quick access to take a photo. If those can be implemented into a future update then I could see me continuous paying for the monthly subscription. If you don't want or can't do that then I would understand.
@Brian @Martin
@Brian
Thank you for following up, and I'm so glad to hear the repeat & followup function is now working for you! Sounds like it ultimately had something to do with the installation itself, but thanks to our rigorous troubleshooting for your issue, the repeat/followup button has had its functionality supercharged - it can now recall and answer questions about its previous description, even if that description was from several days ago.
Thrilled that you noticed the Christmas jingle :) Just a small bit of fun to celebrate the holidays!
@Martin
Thank you for the thoughtful feedback, I totally understand your perspective. I am truly grateful for your support with the monthly subscription, and it means a lot to us that you’re enjoying the app!
Thank you for your great suggestions regarding integration with the photo library. We’ll definitely keep these in mind as we continue to develop new features!
Repeat question for Space Dog
Thanks, Space Dog, for answering my questions, but I'm still wondering something. In your list of premium features, you listed:
• Unlimited uses
This implies there is a limit on the free version of the app. What is that limit? Is it a daily/monthly limit on the number of requests? Or a max number of requests before the app stops working? Or something else?
@Jeff
Hi Jeff, thanks for following up! That is a great question. You’re correct: there is a daily limit on the free version of the app. It depends on our server load but it will currently give you around 15 uses per day.
When you’re nearing the end of your daily usage limit, the app will start telling you how many uses are remaining, similar to services like ChatGPT or Claude. This helps ensure you’re aware of your limit for the day while still giving you a chance to make the most of your free experience.
Let me know if you have any other questions, happy to answer those!
Cool I'm wondering...
I'm wondering what other new cool features could be added that would be helpful to the Blind community with descriptions of this app. I wish there was a way we could map this action button into the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses to get it easy description or multiple descriptions. Their AI platform is generic and gives basic descriptions without including people's appearance but if asked the right question, it can certainly do better but this AI model, whichever one that is being used is very detailed right off the bat. I like that! But yeah, only if there was a command we can give to the smart glasses and it would Get a description from this app, that would be a nice step ahead. I'm also wondering how good is this app at describing people. Haven't really tried it for describing people so I might have to do that and see what happens but if it's capable of describing people in detail then I love it. I have not used it either to read any type of documents so that would be something next on my list. Is AI capable of reading a full document? I'll guess I'll find out soon and see.
Re: People
Try taking a selfie with the back facing camera, using Speakaboo. It gives you a brief description, which is still better than what Meta AI does at this point in time.
People describing by AI...
That's true Brian and we shouldn't have to use multiple apps in order to get good people descriptions but looks like that's what I'll have to do in the meantime since be my AI has done a fantastic job with this so far. Would be great when it was hands-free though. I'm hoping they're able to add that be my AI to The Ray-Ban glasses. They need to make this a fair situation for blind people to have ease of access to everything visual that sighted people can see by just a glance. Well hopefully moving in that direction soon!
@Martin, fully agree.
I don't want my AI eyes to put limits on what I can understand or can't understand in the world.