Magnifier

What is Magnifier?

Magnifier is an app which transforms an iPhone or iPad into a video magnifier with many of the features, including colour filters, to be  found in video magnifiers sold as specialised devices. Magnifier also has a surprise up its sleeve. It can speak descriptions of the scene or objects that it sees and also speak printed text and some handwritten text. Magnifier is a powerful tool for low vision users, some of whom may like to use VoiceOver to make it easier to locate the buttons and controls. Blind VoiceOver users can also use Magnifier for describing the world around then and having text spoken to them but there are alternative options which many will find more convenient.

Setting up ways to start Magnifier

There are so many ways to access Magnifier. The Magnifier app can be opened with the Siri command "open magnifier". If you prefer to open it from an app screen, the Magnifier app can be found in the Utilities folder in the App Library, which follows after your last app page. If you wish, it may be dragged from here to a location of your choice. on one of your app screens. Magnifier may also be added to the Control Centre by opening the Control Centre and using the add controls button near top left of the screen. Or you can replace either the torch or camera quick action buttons on your lock screen with Magnifier. Magnifier may also be added to the accessibility shortcut in Settings / Accessibility / Accessibility shortcut. The Accessibility Shortcut is a triple click on the circular home button if your device has one, or the side or top button if your device has no home button.

Using Magnifier for low vision users with VoiceOver turned off

Open Magnifier. Magnifier always seems to start as you last left it. Once you have set the magnifier the way you like it, that is how it will stay. To use Magnifier, point the iPhone or iPad camera at your subject and pinch out with two fingers to magnify and pinch back in to reduce the magnification. 

There may be up to three rows of controls visible at the bottom of the screen. Reveal or hide these controls by dragging the top control up or down. Hiding the controls gives you a larger magnified image so you may want to hide them when you have finished making changes with the controls. Generally, there will always be one row of controls visible, the so-called primary controls. 

iPhone screenshot of Magnifier showing all three rows of controls visible at the bottom of the screen. The top portion of the screen shows a magnified medicine package. The top row of controls shows a single control, a slider for Zoom level. The second row shows four small icons with a fifth partially visible at the right edge. To see it and any other hidden controls beyond it drag the row to the left. These are brightness, filters, contrast, camera chooser and focus lock. The third row shows four larger icons for Activities, Detect, Capture and Settings.

Customising Magnifier

The icons that appear in the controls on the Magnifier screen will depend on your Settings which can be changed by tapping on the Settings icon in the bottom row of controls. If you can't see this drag a visible control upwards. With the default settings, the only control that is permanently on screen is the Zoom slider to control magnification. For most low vision users this is unnecessary since a two finger pinch on the screen can be used to control magnification. You might want to go in to Settings, remove the Zoom slider and replace it with controls that you would like always to be on screen. As an example, you might use Magnifier to check your makeup or examine your eye. I have absolutely no idea if it's practical to examine makeup with Magnifier; I'm just guessing! You might find the camera switcher control and brightness controls useful for this. All you need do in Magnifier Settings is remove Zoom from primary controls and then drag Cameras and Brightness up to primary controls using the drag icons.

If you prefer to use the full screen area for magnification you can empty the row of primary controls in Magnifier settings. If you do this and hide the two remaining controls by dragging down there will be an up pointing arrow at the bottom of the screen which can be used to reveal the two rows of controls again.

Screenshot 1 is of the Magnifier settings page with red circles highlighting the buttons to delete the Zoom control and to drag the Brightness and Cameras controls. Zoom is the only item in Primary Controls and  Brightness and Cameras are both in Secondary controls.

Screenshot 2 is of Magnifier settings showing the page after the changes. Cameras and Brightness are now listed under Primary Controls.

Screenshot 3 is of Magnifier being used to examine the author's eye. There's a lot of reflections on the eye itself but the image may demonstrate how this might be useful for makeup - not something of which your author has any experience! The two primary controls - cameras and brightness are displayed at the bottom of the screen.

There's much more customisation you can experiment with and you may want to remove controls you don't intend to use. There's even more choice within some controls. If you like using colour filters you probably won't want to scroll through the full set of available filters to select the handful of filters you often use and you can specify which filters are on offer when you tap the filters control. To select your set of filters in Magnifier Settings tap the word filters in the list of controls and then ensure that only the filters you want available are ticked in the list that appears.

Screenshot showing the first screen of the filters on offer. They include no filter, greyscale, inverted, yellow on black, black on yellow and many more. Initially all the filters are selected with a tick and will all be available for you to scroll through and select from when you tap on the filters button. It's best to unselect the filters you never use.

Freezing the magnified image

When you are trying to examine something with a magnifier it's often hard to hold the magnifier steady. With the Magnifier app  this isn't a problem. Tap the large circular button in the bottom row of controls and the magnified image will be frozen. The frozen image can be pinched and panned to examine it at different magnifications. To unfreeze, tap the image to show the controls again if necessary and tap the large circular button again. Before you tap the button to unfreeze, you also have the option to share the magnified image in all the usual ways with a share button at bottom left of the screen.

Live recognition 

Live recognition, which is available through the button labelled Detect in the bottom row of controls,  introduces features which go beyond magnification. The features available here will depend on your iPhone model. All features will be available on recent Pro models and a limited set of features will be available on other models. 

To select the live recognition options or features you want to use, rest a finger on the Detect button and a list of available options will appear. Those that are ticked will operate simultaneously whenever you tatp the Detect button in the future. The first screenshot shows the options list on an iPhone 15 Pro and the second screenshot shows the options on an iPhone SE, 2020 model. Options on the 15 Pro are Scenes, People, Furniture, Door, Text and Point & Speak. Options available on the SE are Scenes, Text and Point & Speak. You may select as many options as you wish but the result may be a bit overwhelming if you get carried away. The best way to get familiar with Live Recognition is to experiment with each of the options, all of which will probablyl speak their findings by default.

All of the Live Recognition options are configurable to determine the kind of feedback they give you. Tap on Magnifier Settings to configure them.  Tap on Detect and choose your settings. The screenshot shows the first page of Detect settings in the Magnifier app. There are settings to specify what feedback is given when Live Recognition is paused with a two finger double tap. Speech, sounds and haptics are all available when Live Recognition is paused.  Below is a list of Detectors, the Live Recognition options. You can tap on these to configure how they operate. The Point & Speak option even lets you specify whether you point from below or above the text. 

If you would like to change the speed of the voice used by Live Recognition it seems to be controllable in the main Settings app at Settings / Accessibility / Spoken Content / Speaking Rate although I couldn't access the full range of speeds for Live Recognition when I discovered this.

I'm unsure how useful these Live Recognition features will be for low vision users. There are other options which may be more convenient than using Magnifier such as SeeingAI and Be My Eyes. I'd love to hear how useful low vision users find the Live Recognition features in Magnifier at blindiosuk@gmail.com please. 

Activities

If you use Magnifier for different tasks and they require different sets of controls then Activities are just what you need. The Activities button in the bottom row of controls lets you save your current Magnifier setup and give it a name. You might have an activity called make up and another called newspaper for example. To create a new activity, configure the Magnifier the way you need it for that activity and then tap the Activity button and tap Save as New Activity and give it a name. To use those settings in the future tap on Activities and select the activity.

Using Magnifier for blind and low vision users with VoiceOver turned on

All the Magnifier controls are fully accessible with VoiceOver and some low vision users may find it convenient to use VoiceOver to help identify some of the control buttons. 

VoiceOver users can control magnification level by tapping the Zoom slider and then swiping up or down to increase or decrease magnification.

Although the Detect button options may be very useful for some blind people, VoiceOver users can access them more quickly with a four finger triple tap at any time without using the Magnifier app.

The screenshot above isn't of the Magnifier. It shows a home screen with Live Recognition enabled. At the bottom of the screen is a Stop Recognition button and above it is a row of icons representing all the Live Recognition capabilities of a recent iPhone with LIDAR. In the screenshot, only the text button is selected but multiple options can be selected as they can in Magnifier. If you find the four finger triple tap gesture difficult, Live Recognition can be configured to be started in other ways including back tap and quick settings.

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