Having text in images on iPhone and iPad recognised and spoken without using VoiceOver

There are excellent ways to deal automatically with text in images if you use VoiceOver.

If you don't want to use VoiceOver there are still solutions available. All the solutions outlined below are normally capable of dealing with text in fancy fonts and with handwritten text.

The simplest solution is available to anyone whose iPhone or iPad supports Apple Intelligence. That's any iPhone 16 model, iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max and any iPad with an M1 processor or later.

If your device supports Apple Intelligence, get the image on screen and then instruct Siri to describe the image. Siri will then send a screenshot to ChatGPT for analysis and this will produce a description of the image and text contained within it.

If your device doesn't have Apple Intelligence you can ask an app to describe the image.

Be My Eyes or SeeingAI are both good choices.

If you install these apps, you will be able to share images with them for analysis. This isn't possible directly in all apps. You may need to save the image to your Photos or maybe take a screen shot but there will always be a way.

Since it works for every situation, let's describe how to get access to text in imagers using a screen shot.

If possible get the image displayed on its own or at least ensure it is displayed fully on screen.

Instruct Siri to take a screen shot.

Open Photos and tap on the new screen shot to fill the screen with it.

Tap the share button at bottom left and scroll up to find either Describe with Be My Eyes or Recognise with SeeingAI. Use either of these to have the image described and any embedded text spoken.

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