Can your iPad read to you?! Well, yes....with a little work

How to access accessibility features....as of Oct. 2016!

Today I took yet another stab at having my iPad read to me.

I'm a sucker for learning while listening...especially since I spend a lot of time in the kitchen: cooking, prepping, cleaning, putting away dishes, etc.

This turns out to be a perfect time for me to listen to recordings, videos or podcasts!

This morning I had kind of burned out on podcasts, I knew I had reading to do for my graduate class, and I wanted to try a trick I'd learned about from my co-workers at CAST (an accessibility in education non-profit): having my iPad read to me.



There's lots of ways to have a computer read to you.   There are expensive accessibility programs, like Kurzweil.  There are web-based apps or programs like Capti or Natural Reader, and there's Google Chrome extensions, like Read & Write for Google Chrome.  But I was on my iPad and I didn't have any of those apps downloaded, and I wanted to try this.

The upshot?  It works....with a steep learning curve and some bugs.  It took me at least ten minutes to figure out how I wanted it to read to me and learn the touches and swipes required to use it (and I've played with this 3 or 4 times before, unsuccessfully).  I experimented with having it read selected text, tried getting it to read a whole page, and finally settled on just turning on the voice-over option for the whole device.  (The fact that I have a bunch of scar tissue on both my middle fingers probably doesn't help me when attempting the two- or three-fingered swipes necessary when using voice over.)

I did finally get it to work, and it was pretty cool.  I did the dishes and my iPad read my reading.  It takes a different kind of concentration to pay attention and focus on read-aloud material, and there's no good way to skim and get a general idea, and charts and graphs are a disaster, but overall, it worked.

And then I tried to turn it off and almost thought my iPad was lost to me forever...but more on that later (spoiler: it ended up OK).

Why is this cool?  It's cool because accessibility features are loaded into basically every device we use: phone, tablet, desktop/laptop.   This means, yes, that all of these things can read to you (it also means they all have voice to text so you can write by talking!).  So if you are someone who needs (or prefers) to listen rather than read, you actually can do that if you're willing to learn how.  And because it works on your phone, you can do it on the go.  This can be a great tool for a wide range of folks: dyslexics, people with vision issues, people with commutes (or very messy kitchens...).

The downside?  The learning curve...when I went to try to turn the voice over off, I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to do it.  I would touch a spot on my screen and an unrelated area would highlight, while this demonic voice would repeat the name of the incorrect area. I felt like I was stuck in 2001: Space Odyssey or something with an evil computer.  I even turned off my iPad & turned it back on...only to have the voice come back while I tried (unsuccessfully!) to enter my password.   The important thing to remember: slow down, breathe, your iPad is not possessed...and...double tap.  Touch the screen to select an option, then tap twice to actually initiate it.  

While this feature might not be perfect, I do like that it's embedded into the device, and not an app or expensive program for someone to download.

Happy listening!

(and if you need it: How to Turn off Voiceover)