Is LookTel Money Reader dead?

By Gordon Kent, 5 November, 2014

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

I have to say that if I had known that the look tell money reader doesn't work in iOS 8 I would not have upgraded. Of all the apps I have, that is the one I used the most. As a working musician I get a lot of tips at my house gig. Being able to count them myself has been a major breakthrough. Although the app does come up, it doesn't do anything. Are there any other alternatives? Thanks
Gord

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Comments

By Allison Hartley on Monday, November 24, 2014 - 16:24

I use this app all the time on my six plus running iOS 8.1. It works fine here. I also have used it on my former 5S running the same operating system.

By MarkSarch on Monday, November 24, 2014 - 16:24

Hi this LookTel bug only has been confirmed with some iPhone 5 devices not all of them running iOS8 and newer.
I don't know if is something with hardware on this device but personally I do have an iPhone 5S and not problem it all on it with LookTel MoneyReader my iPhone is running iOS8.1

By Bryan Jones on Monday, November 24, 2014 - 16:24

If you have not yet emailed Looktel support about your issue, please do so and supply as much information about your hardware, software exact list of steps to reproduce, etc, as possible. While I am not personally experiencing the issue on my iPhone 5S, I did take a minute to email LookTel, mostly just to see if they were still in business. I quickly received the following response:

From: LookTel Info <info@looktel.com>
Subject: Re: LookTel Inquiry: Money Reader issues under IOS 8.
Date: November 5, 2014 at 1:44:46 PM EST
To: Bryan Jones

Dear Mr. Jones,

Thank you for contacting us. We are aware of the issue with MoneyReader, and are investigating the cause of the problem. We found that the issue only affects certain devices and we've been unable to reproduce this on devices available to us.
This is an important issue to us and as soon as we have figured out the reason for the performance you observed and others, we will update you.

Regards,
LookTel Support

On Wed, Nov 5, 2014 at 11:59 AM,

Dear Looktel,

Would you be so kind as to reply to let me know if Looktel is still in operation? As reported on applevis.com and in various listserves, some iPhone Users are apparently unable to use Money Reader after upgrading to IOS 8x,. We are wondering if Looktel is aware of this issue and if you can provide any feedback regarding the issue.

Thank you,
Bryan Jones

By Tom Shill on Monday, November 24, 2014 - 16:24

I am able to use the Looktel Money Reader with an iPhone 5s with IOS 8.1.
It reads the bills for me, but doesn't speak on Launch "Money reader running".
To confirm, bills can be scanned and its amount is spoken.

By sockhopsinger on Monday, November 24, 2014 - 16:24

I am running an iPhone 5s with 8.1. No problems at all.

By Gordon Kent on Monday, November 24, 2014 - 16:24

Thanks to all who responded. I am currently using an iPhone 5. I'm waiting for my iPhone 6 plus to be delivered. Although it would be a bit awkward, I can try installing it on my iPad air for now.
Gord

By KE7ZUM on Monday, November 24, 2014 - 16:24

I just emailed them the servey info I collected from 7 of you guys. I'ma ctualy surprisedmore did not partipate in said survey. They got back to me wiht in 5 minutes and I'm in direct contact with someone over there. I'm quite happy about where this is going.

By Serena on Monday, November 24, 2014 - 16:24

hi. i'm not sure what's going on there with the 5, because it did work on my 5, before i sold it on. i now have an iPhone 6, and the app still works perfectly. and yes, it does say that it's running when i open the app. perhaps a particular subset of the iPhone 5 has a problem? either way, don't fear, this app hasn't been a total waist of money. it's still functioning.

By KE7ZUM on Monday, November 24, 2014 - 16:24

Well I did email them with the results and I think they're on to something. it is a subset of the 5 actually as we figured out.

By Missy Hoppe on Monday, November 24, 2014 - 16:24

Hi there! I just wanted to add to this thread. I have a 64 GB Iphone 5S running IOS 8.01 or whatever that newest, newest version number is. Anyway, I rarely have cash on hand, but I seem to recall having some trouble with this app last week when I had a few bills I wanted to check. In fairness to the app, the bills I had been given felt positively ancient and were very worn, but the app basicly did nothing. I know some people use Eyenote, but I've had even less luck with that and have actually removed it from my phone. Hopefuly Looktel will be able to pinpoint the problem and provide an update fairly soon.

By Gordon Kent on Monday, November 24, 2014 - 16:24

I tried EyeNote and it doesn't work at all with my iPhone 5 and iOS 8.1 at all. When I launched it and gave it permission to use the camera, I got nothing but a blank screen with no buttons recognized by voice over at all. I tried it a couple of times. I've seen this happen with a couple of other apps as well. I did just get my iPhone 6 plus, now I just need to get it activated. I would do it myself but the aT&T site is a pita to navigate.
Gord

By Santiago on Monday, November 24, 2014 - 16:24

Hello,
I tried the LookTel Money Reader app on my iPhone 6 Plus running iOS 8.0.2 a couple of weeks ago. The phone itself has been updated to 8.1 already, but I assume it still works. Anyway, when I used it a couple of weeks ago, the recognition of cash was working perfectly fine. Since its working on a 6 Plus, I assume it should still be working with older iPhones, considering it hasn't been updated in a while.

By Siobhan on Monday, November 24, 2014 - 16:24

Hi, checked it with a 20 last night, and I found it does work for me. Of course when I've pulled out the app to show i didn't hear the speech but it was a loud place, so I'm sure that was the problem. I'm guessing the sub set of devices this effects is very small. Still maybe it should get an IOs update or something maybe that will fix the small issues? just an idea.

By Deb on Monday, November 24, 2014 - 16:24

I am using Looktell on my IPhone 5, and although I haven't updated it to IOS 8 yet, sometimes run into the issue of it not reading. I have tried these two things and each time it has worked. First use the app-switcher and close some of the apps that are running that almost always works for me. If this doesn't I have turned off my phone and restarted it. I use this app a lot as I own a small business.

By KE7ZUM on Monday, November 24, 2014 - 16:24

That does not appear to work for some people I already sent my survey results in so sorry those of you who neglected to take it. It's too late now. I had it up for about a month and only 7of you took it. But it still helped and I sent it private to who I believe is the look tell dev.

By clarence on Monday, November 24, 2014 - 16:24

I switched from a I-phone 4 to a 5c and the Look-tell works very well. Infact, it is faster than it was on IOS 7.

By david s on Monday, November 24, 2014 - 16:24

It’s dead for me. I have an iPhone 5 and restored it to factory and installed only Money Reader but it still did not work. I’m glad they narrowed it down to the 5 with IOS 8. That means they will fix it sooner rather than later.

By Roxann Pollard on Monday, November 24, 2014 - 16:24

Yesterday, I activated the money reader for the first time since updating to the latest iOS on an iPhone 5. I had no problems. It asked me for permission to utilize the camera. After clicking okay, the app performed flawlessly as I expected. I can't understand why others are having any problems. I thought that if anyone would have issues it would be my iPhone 5 as it's rather obsolete now. Perhaps it's one of those hit and miss bugs that will be smashed once the next iOS update comes down the line.

By david s on Monday, November 24, 2014 - 16:24

I just got an email from Looktell that Money Reader has been updated.

I changed my phone to the 6 from a 5 so I can't tell if the update fixed the iPhone 5 issues.

Good luck!

By jim on Monday, November 24, 2014 - 16:24

After writeing to the look tell people i finally got a response.
it has been reworked andt is once again reading bills the way it should.
thank you look tell is now in the appstore all fixed up.
my Iphone 5 is happy with it once again.
Jim

By KE7ZUM on Monday, November 24, 2014 - 16:24

Actually I'm seeing crash reports o the 5s phones. Look in the apple vis app directory for more info.

Take care.

By Sounds2Good on Monday, November 24, 2014 - 16:24

Since I posted comments back in October about my problems with LookTel Money Reader, I wanted to post here that the new version 2.42 is now working just as well as it did before I upgraded my iPhone to IOS8. My thanks to the LookTel developer for correcting the issues with the app and iPhone 5 and 5s.

I saw that the update was available and downloaded it while riding in a cab and fired it up. That made my day. Now I have the iPhone 6 plus and it, along with all other OCR apps, smokes. That is with the exception of text detective, which only shows the help screen when launched, too bad. But talking gogles really works great, and the KNFB reader works better as well. It's all good.