OCR application similar to ZoomReader...

Submitted by Rocco on Wednesday, June 29, 2011.
Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hello,

I just purchased an iPhone about 3 weeks ago, and love it. I've downloaded many apps, and have found most to be very accessible with voiceover. However, I'm still looking for an app, which acts in a similar way to ZoomReader. I'd like something to scan bottles, signs, menus, or any other text, and have it read aloud. I am totally blind, so it would need to indicate whether the camera was posissioned correctly, etc. I'm just wondering if anyone has seen any app like this, other then ZoomReader. If not, we'll just have to wait for the app developpers of ZoomReader to create a more reliable app for a portable phone. :)

Rocco

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Comments

Submitted by AnonyMouse on Sunday, July 3, 2011

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team
I've tried a handful of so called OCR programs and yet to find a really good one. Most if not all have the same results of having a mix of text and gibberish. I believe its the camera on our devices. I just don't think the resolution on the camera are high enough to be able to get a good reading on a standard letter size paper. I am curious with the new iPhone to be released this fall will do any better if they come with the 8 MegaPixels camera that I've heard they will come with. I have seen that if I do part and closer to the documents that I have better luck but its tedious because I'm only getting a portion of what I want it to read. The SayText for being free does as good as any other OCR programs I've tried. So that is why I think its the camera resolution is why we don't have a good and clear why to OCR a page. I know this didn't help out but just thought I give you my observations on OCR programs I've tried. Good Luck to you and if you find one that works rather well. Please let me know!

Submitted by Rocco on Sunday, July 3, 2011

Thank you both for the input! I tried Say Text, and it worked farily well, once someone posissioned the camera correctly. It still had a few mistakes though, which, like anonamous said, that's what you can expect from an iPhone camera. I'll keep my eye out for any new apps like this. I'd be interested to try ZoomReader, but I'm waiting for the price to come down--with I don't think is likely. But thank you everyone for all of your help!