what "inaccessible" apps work well with screen recognition
By Cory K, 13 May, 2021
Forum
iOS and iPadOS
What doors have been opened for you thanks to screen recognition? I just got my new iPhone 12 pro and want to try apps that are usable with screen recognition.
I got an Ember smart mug to hold my coffee for Christmas. I was simultaneously stunned at how helpful and useful it was and shocked by how inaccessible the app is. Screen recognition doesn't solve every problem all the time but it's really handy for pairing mugs and setting up temperature presets. If keeping coffee and tea hot for long periods of time in your cup is something you care about, screen recognition will save you in that particular app.
Occasionally, kindle books (usually academic books) are published as print replicas. As the name suggests, these are designed to look exactly like the printed book. Unfortunately, VoiceOver does not read them. It’s odd because you can search the book, and the text to speech in kindle for PC can read them, so the file must include the text of the book, and not just the image. The kindle for PC solution doesn’t work for me, because I don’t have access to a PC, and even if you do use that, you can only use the built-in text to speech to read it; you can’t use a screen reader like NVDA, so it’s not possible to, say, copy a sentence that you want to quote. So, I’ve been using screen recognition to read my print replicas. It does a very good job of recognising the text, but the experience isn’t quite as smooth as reading a standard kindle book. It doesn’t automatically turn the pages while reading, and the scroll gesture that would normally turn pages manually doesn’t work when screen recognition is on. I find that the easiest way to do it is to connect my bluetooth keyboard to my phone and use the right arrow (with quick nav turned off) to turn the page, but I suppose you could also turn screen recognition off to turn the page, then turn it back on to read the page.
I've been using Quizlet for about a year now, and there's a long-standing accessibility issue, where, unless screen recognition is enabled, voiceover will not read the text of flashcards.
You have to disable screen recognition, in order for the other buttons to work.
At one point, I was a beta tester for them, and brought this issue to their attention.
I recently emailed them, and they responded, and said, "We'll add it to our list, but don't expect us to fix it anytime soon."
They had the issue fixed once, while I was beta testing, then broke it in the very next beta release, and have not fixed it again since.
Around Thanksgiving time last year, they had a sale on Quizlet plus, so I bought a subscription. However, their refusal to fix this issue, is making me want to consider canceling.
I’m starting college in the fall, and would love to be able to use Quizlet to study flashcards for the classes I will be taking. Last year, I attended classes online, from a different college, & was able to enter the name of the school, & classes I was taking.
However, when I tried to do this with the most recent version, I entered the name of my school, then tried to enter my class names, and they briefly appeared on screen, but once I pressed the done button, they disappeared, as if I had never entered them.
I’m really not sure what to do here, so would greatly appreciate any advice/assistance in advocating from this wonderful community.
well I use both image descriptions and screen recognition in Safari on anime websites. It lets me watch Japanese anime, and while screen recognition is turned on I can then read the subtitles as the characters are speaking. I can't wait for screen recognition and image descriptions on the apple tv box to watch Japanese anime on my tv and have voiceover read the English subtitles for me while the characters speak.
Comments
I got an Ember smart mug to…
I got an Ember smart mug to hold my coffee for Christmas. I was simultaneously stunned at how helpful and useful it was and shocked by how inaccessible the app is. Screen recognition doesn't solve every problem all the time but it's really handy for pairing mugs and setting up temperature presets. If keeping coffee and tea hot for long periods of time in your cup is something you care about, screen recognition will save you in that particular app.
Kindle print replicas
Occasionally, kindle books (usually academic books) are published as print replicas. As the name suggests, these are designed to look exactly like the printed book. Unfortunately, VoiceOver does not read them. It’s odd because you can search the book, and the text to speech in kindle for PC can read them, so the file must include the text of the book, and not just the image. The kindle for PC solution doesn’t work for me, because I don’t have access to a PC, and even if you do use that, you can only use the built-in text to speech to read it; you can’t use a screen reader like NVDA, so it’s not possible to, say, copy a sentence that you want to quote. So, I’ve been using screen recognition to read my print replicas. It does a very good job of recognising the text, but the experience isn’t quite as smooth as reading a standard kindle book. It doesn’t automatically turn the pages while reading, and the scroll gesture that would normally turn pages manually doesn’t work when screen recognition is on. I find that the easiest way to do it is to connect my bluetooth keyboard to my phone and use the right arrow (with quick nav turned off) to turn the page, but I suppose you could also turn screen recognition off to turn the page, then turn it back on to read the page.
Quizlet
I've been using Quizlet for about a year now, and there's a long-standing accessibility issue, where, unless screen recognition is enabled, voiceover will not read the text of flashcards.
You have to disable screen recognition, in order for the other buttons to work.
At one point, I was a beta tester for them, and brought this issue to their attention.
I recently emailed them, and they responded, and said, "We'll add it to our list, but don't expect us to fix it anytime soon."
They had the issue fixed once, while I was beta testing, then broke it in the very next beta release, and have not fixed it again since.
Around Thanksgiving time last year, they had a sale on Quizlet plus, so I bought a subscription. However, their refusal to fix this issue, is making me want to consider canceling.
I’m starting college in the fall, and would love to be able to use Quizlet to study flashcards for the classes I will be taking. Last year, I attended classes online, from a different college, & was able to enter the name of the school, & classes I was taking.
However, when I tried to do this with the most recent version, I entered the name of my school, then tried to enter my class names, and they briefly appeared on screen, but once I pressed the done button, they disappeared, as if I had never entered them.
I’m really not sure what to do here, so would greatly appreciate any advice/assistance in advocating from this wonderful community.
interesting use for screen recognition
well I use both image descriptions and screen recognition in Safari on anime websites. It lets me watch Japanese anime, and while screen recognition is turned on I can then read the subtitles as the characters are speaking. I can't wait for screen recognition and image descriptions on the apple tv box to watch Japanese anime on my tv and have voiceover read the English subtitles for me while the characters speak.