Screen Reader on Apple devices

[Benny H.]

Hello,
I conducted a search to see if anyone knows something about the screen reader functionality on Apple devices and how to activate that, but I didn't find what I was looking for. So this is actually my question: How do you use the screen reader on an iPhone 4S to read messages in weixin, for instance?
I have been using the new feature on my phone constantly since its launch back in May/June, but my friend can't find the function or how to activate it in the iPhone settings. How do you guys fare with unknown characters in a chat application such as WeChat or WhatsApp?

Regards,
Benny

 

[mikelove]

Screen Reader isn't available on iOS - it's not technically possible, Apple doesn't allow third party apps to spy on what other apps are doing like Android does.

To me, the fact that Android does allow that is a massive security flaw - there may be an opt-in dialog, but it's way too easy to persuade non-technical users to click through those (especially with Screen OCR - show people three or four other dialogs first and they'll probably click through that one without reading it; Screen Reader at least is a settings screen rather than a dialog, which makes it a bit more obvious what you're doing). It's because of stuff like this that I'd personally never recommend an Android phone to a non-technical user. But regardless, it's a legitimate, official Android system feature so we're happy to take advantage of it to make Pleco better if we can.

We're working on a clipboard monitoring Today widget that will let you look up unknown words on iOS pretty efficiently by copying your Weixin etc message to the clipboard and then swiping down - bit similar to our revamped Clipboard Monitor function on Android, but with a nicer UI since iOS allows for more complicated UI in its widgets than Android does. So you'd just long-press the message, tap "Copy," then swipe down from the top of the screen to look it up. We're also working on a "Share" extension option for word lookups - even more efficient since in most apps that appears right in the text selection menu - but it's not supported in Weixin so we've had to cobble together that alternative option for them.

Also, while those extensions aren't quite ready yet, in the minor update we're about to submit we've added a new option to automatically pull up the last screenshot taken in OCR when you open Pleco (taking advantage of a new iOS 9 feature that lets us easily distinguish screenshots from other photos), so assuming your friend's iPhone is running iOS 9, that one at least should be available in just a week or two - workflow would be that you take a screenshot (press the home and power buttons) and then switch into Pleco, so only a tap or two more effort than is involved with Screen OCR now.

 

[Benny H.]

Thanks Mike,

I will pass on the information. I couldn't agree more about the security issues in Android, although I don't really like the limits Apple sets. It takes a little bit more care and attention to what you're doing. It's a choice. Well, it's the wrong place to discuss this, so I won't do that.

Thanks for your great answers,
Benny

 

[RanDOM]

Is there something developing in this matter? Before I had android and I could learn a lot because instead of translating the whole text which I have to do now I can look at the individual word. So I exactly know the meaning and can add to the vocabulary. But it's way to complicated copying the whole wechat text to pleco, then searching for the wanted word. Also, the switching between applications takes very long. So with apple its like not a real learn effect.

 

[mikelove]

No - no sign of any improvement on this from Apple. Fastest option at the moment would probably be to add "OCR last screenshot" to the 3D Touch shortcut menu via Settings / Miscellaneous, then take a screenshot of your WeChat and use that command on the Pleco icon to pull up OCR.

 

[Martijn]

No - no sign of any improvement on this from Apple. Fastest option at the moment would probably be to add "OCR last screenshot" to the 3D Touch shortcut menu via Settings / Miscellaneous, then take a screenshot of your WeChat and use that command on the Pleco icon to pull up OCR.

Hi Mike, is there any chance that there could be a share action between the new screenshot feature in iOS 11 and Pleco OCR? It would be really great when can directly send the screenshot to Pleco OCR, it would even allow using the screenshot function to crop out unnecessary parts, and eliminating the step to save the screenshot in the photos library. Thanks for your great work!

 

[mikelove]

That should be in 4.0 - they don't support sharing of image files from that screen, as far as we can tell, only share extensions, but OCR is finally getting an extension in the re-architected 4.0.