Reading Short Text with Seeing AI and Apple VoiceOver

[Ricky] Today we're gonna check out how to use an app along with the camera on our phone to read text on things around us. We can read product boxes, street signs, and room numbers, those envelopes that usually turn out to be junk mail.

Yeah, there's text everywhere. And with the Seeing AI app, we'll be able to get all that text spoken aloud, it's really cool. We're using VoiceOver in this workshop so we can do everything on our phone without looking at the screen. If you'd rather do things on your Apple device without VoiceOver, check out our series on using Seeing AI with Low Vision. And if you're using Android, we have a couple series just for you as well.

Now, if you're checking out these workshops and you've not used VoiceOver much before, it may help to get a little more familiar with it before you dive into this series. And hey, we've got you covered with a great group of workshops on learning everything you need to know to get up to speed with VoiceOver. We're gonna jump right in and start reading some text, but if you haven't had a chance to explore the app a little bit and get familiar with it, we do that very thing in our workshop on Exploring the App. So yeah, go ahead and check out that one first, if you haven't already.

Alright, so reading short text. We can use this mode for things like business cards, birthday cards, mail, envelopes, anything where you just need to quickly read without saving or reviewing the info. We've got seeing AI open on our phone here and we need to make sure we're in the right place in the app before we can start reading. Now we can always start at the top left and swipe right until we hear read tab, which is where we wanna be. But here's a little trick for getting there a bit faster. The read tab is in the bottom left corner of the screen, so we can just put our finger right there in the bottom left corner, and if we don't land right on it, we'll just slide up a tiny bit until we hear it.

- [VoiceOver] Document detect tab, bar selected red tab one of three.

- [Ricky] And there we go, we're in the right place here. Now if you didn't notice whether your phone said selected, you can always make sure this Read tab is selected by double tapping here. Great, now we're ready to start reading. Seeing AI will read any text that it can see through our phone's camera. So for today, we're gonna place what we wanna read on a flat surface. And then, we'll use the camera on the back of our phone to, essentially, look down at it and read it. Putting this on a flat surface does help to orient us in relation to the text, but we don't have to do that. If there's a sign up ahead or maybe a flyer posted on the wall, we can just face the camera toward that text and have it read aloud.

Okay, so let's start with something small. We have something here that's roughly the size of a business card. It's rectangular just like a business card and it's oriented. So the long part is facing us in this workshop. The phone is in portrait mode, meaning the short part of the rectangle where the charging port is, is facing us and our camera is on the back in the top right corner. Now we'll place the phone down on what we wanna read for this small business card type thing. We'll line up the top left edge of the phone with the top left edge of what we're reading. And now we'll lift the phone straight up because what we're reading is a small object. We need the camera to be pretty close to it to capture everything. So we'll lift the phone about five inches from our card here and then hold it steady.

- [VoiceOver] Hadley, Hadleyhelps.org, 800-323-4238

- [Ricky] Awesome. This is a signature guide with Hadley's info printed on it and our phone just read that print aloud, how cool is that? And by the way, Seeing AI can read this even if it's upside down, so we never have to worry about whether our print is facing the right way. Okay, let's try reading something a little bigger. This time, let's try something that's about the size of a greeting card.

This too is a rectangle and the short side is facing us. Now, because it's larger, our camera placement will be a little different so we can make sure it captures everything. Let's place the phone down right in the center of the card. And, just like before, we'll lift straight up. This time, because our object is larger, our camera needs to be further away in order to capture everything. So let's try about eight or nine inches. We'll lift straight up and hold steady.

- [VoiceOver] We're Hadley, bold. A nonprofit helping thousands with vision loss each year. Bullet, Here for you with practical help. Bullet, No cost, no catches, free always. Hadleyhelps.org, vertical line 800-323-4238.

- [Ricky] This is so amazing. Our phone just read out everything that's on this printed page here, wow. So I know you're anxious to go exploring on your own, pointing your phone at all the text around you and having it read aloud, but just a couple tips before we go. Today we've read printed text, but Seeing AI will read handwritten text as well, which is awesome for those times when someone has written a personal message inside a birthday card, for example. Also, with our short text option, Seeing AI will start the reading process over again each time the phone moves a little. That's good to know because, as you practice, there will be times when the phone isn't quite getting everything. Moving the camera to the left or right, or closer or farther away to find the sweet spot is just part of the process. When you get it right, just hold steady until Seeing AI has finished reading. If holding steady for a long period of time is difficult, or if you actually wanna review the text once it's been recognized by Seeing AI, you're gonna love our workshop on reading documents up next in the series. For now, have fun practicing with the short text option. You'll have a great time reading everything. Yeah, even the junk mail.

I'm Ricky Enger, and I'm glad you could spend a little time with me today learning about reading short text with Seeing AI, see you next time.