Books, Reading, Radio, and Podcasts Apps
| App | Developer | Cost | Other Costs | Subcategories | Description | Available on iPhone? | Available on iPad? | Notes | |
| AccessWorld | American Foundation for the Blind | Free | “This is the official app of the American Foundation for the Blind’s online publication AccessWorld.” | Yes | Yes | ||||
| Audible | Audible, Inc | Free | App is free, but audio books require purchase. | Audio Books | “Enjoy books and great stories? Download Audiobooks from Audible, an Amazon company, to listen to books on the go.” | Yes | Yes | ||
| BARD Mobile | Library of Congress | Free | In Vermont, you must be a patron of the Vermont Department of Libaries Special Services Unit to get BARD access | Audio Books; Braille | “The BARD Mobile app provides access to braille and talking books directly from the NLS Braille and Audio Reading Download (BARD). BARD contains nearly 70,000 books, magazines, and music scores in audio and braille formats, with new selections added daily.” | Yes | Yes | ||
| Kindle | AMZN Mobile LLC | Free | App is free and offers some free content, but most audio books and eBooks require purchase. | Audio Books; eBooks | “Carry a library in your pocket anywhere you go. Get access to more than 3,000,000 books and audiobooks including over 850,000 Kindle exclusive titles. With the Kindle app, get your book once and read it on any device and share across your family’s devices. Choose from a wide selection of books, newspapers, and magazines from Wall Street Journal, New York Times to Reader’s Digest.” | Yes | Yes | ||
| Learning Ally | Learning Ally | Free | “Learning Ally is for people with an eligible print disability.” Paid membership options for parents and adults. Educator memberships also available. | Education; Audio Books | The Learning Ally app allows students, teacherts, parents, and others to access audio books and audio textbooks. | Yes | Yes | ||
| NOOK | Barnes & Noble | Free | App is free and offers some free content, but most audio books and eBooks require purchase. | Books, Reading, Radio, and Podcasts | “NOOK free book reading app for your iPad, iPhone and iPod touch! This free reader app has a library of over 4 million free best-selling eBooks, magazines, comics, and kids’ books in every genre including fiction, romance, business, sci-fi, mystery, and more – including 1 million FREE titles” | Yes | Yes | ||
| OverDrive | OverDrive, Inc. | Free | Must have affiliation with a public library. | Audio Books; eBooks | “Borrow eBooks, audiobooks, and streaming video from your library using OverDrive on your iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. More than 30,000 libraries worldwide offer titles from OverDrive, so download the app and find your next book today!” | Yes | Yes | ||
| Voice Dream | Voice Dream LLC | $14.99 | “Read with your ears! Voice Dream Reader is a widely acclaimed desktop-class app that reads articles, documents and books out loud. With advanced text-to-speech and a highly configurable visual layout, it can be tailored to suit every reading style and level. “ | Yes | Yes |
Global Positioning System (GPS) Apps
| App | Developer | Cost | Other Costs | Subcategories | Description | Available on iPhone? | Available on iPad? | Notes | |
| Blind Square | MIPsoft | $29.99 | “BlindSquare uses GPS and the compass to locate you. It then gathers information about the surrounding environment from FourSquare. BlindSquare has some unique algorithms to decide what information is the most relevant and then speaks it to you with high quality speech synthesis.” | Yes | Yes | To get the most out of this app, you’ll need mobile data. |
Identification
| App | Developer | Cost | Other Costs | Subcategories | Description | Available on iPhone? | Available on iPad? | Notes | |
| Aipoly Vision | Aipoly | Free | Item Identification; Color Identification | “Aipoly is an object and color recogniser that helps the blind, visually impaired, and color blind understand their surroundings. Simply point your phone at the object of interest and press the large toggle button at the bottom of the screen to turn on the artificial intelligence.” | Yes | Yes | This app offers identification in real time and does not require the user to take a picture. | ||
| Be My Eyes | Be My Eyes | Free | “Be the eyes for a blind person in need of help remotely through a live video connection if you are sighted or be assisted by the network of sighted users if you are blind.” | Yes | Yes | ||||
| CamFind | CamFind Inc. | Free | Item Identification; Color Identification | “CamFind, the world’s first successful mobile visual search engine, allows you to search for anything from your mobile phone just by taking a picture.” | Yes | No | |||
| Color Identifier | GreenGar Studios | $4.99 | There is a free version of the app – Color ID Free | Color Identification | “Color Identifier uses the camera on your iPhone or iPod touch to speak the names of colors in real-time. It’s a new Augmented Reality app for discovering the names of the colors around you!” | Yes | No | ||
| ColorVisor | visorApps | $4.99 | Color Identification | “The ColorVisor detects colors in your environment by using the cameras that are built into your device. Additionally, the app supports scanning colors in photos and images.” | Yes | No | |||
| Digit-Eyes | Digital Miracles, L.L.C. | $9.99 | There is a free version of the app – Digit-Eyes Lite | Barcode Reader | “Make your own QR code labels on the Digit-Eyes website and print them on inexpensive address labels. These barcoded labels may contain text that VoiceOver reads aloud or they can be used to record audio on your iPhone or iPad that is played back whenever the bar code is scanned. “ | Yes | No | ||
| EyeNote | Bureau of Engraving and Printing | Free | Money Identification | “EyeNote is a mobile device application to denominate Federal Reserve Notes (U.S. paper currency) as an aid for the blind or visually impaired to increase accessibility. Users can have the denomination of a note scanned and communicated back to the user. “ | Yes | No | |||
| Light Detector | EveryWare Technologies | $1.99 | Light Identificiation | “Have you ever listened to light? With Light Detector, now you can! Light Detector transforms any natural or artificial light source it encounters into sound. Light Detector is easy to use! Just run the application and point your iPhone camera in any direction. You will hear a higher or lower sound depending on the intensity of the light.” | Yes | No | |||
| LookTel Money Reader | IPPLEX | $9.99 | Money Identification | “LookTel Money Reader instantly recognizes currency and speaks the denomination, enabling people experiencing visual impairments or blindness to quickly and easily identify and count bills. Point the camera of your iOS device at a bill and the application will tell you the denomination in real-time. Twenty one currencies are supported: the US Dollar, Australian Dollar, Bahraini Dinar, Brazilian Real, Belarusian Ruble, British Pound, Canadian Dollar, Euro, Hungarian Forint, Israeli Shekel, Indian Rupee, Japanese Yen, Kuwaiti Dinar, Mexican Peso, New Zealand Dollar, Polish Zloty, Russian Ruble, Saudi Arabian Riyal, Singapore Dollar, and United Arab Emirates Dirham.” | Yes | No | |||
| LookTel Recognizer | IPPLEX | $9.99 | Barcode Reader | “LookTel Recognizer allows those persons having visual impairments or blindness to identify cans, packages, ID or credit cards, DVDs, and similar items. Customers can store images of objects in a library or database, and then point the iPhone’s camera at an object and the phone will recognize and describe the item instantly. A barcode scanner is included to provide additional labeling help. “ | Yes | No | |||
| Talking Goggles | Sparkling Apps BV | $0.99 | Item Identification | “Talking Goggles can recognize images and speaks out what it finds. Recognizes almost any image within seconds. Logos, landmarks, books, products, artwork, text and more.. Shows the description of the image and speaks it out to you.” | Yes | No | |||
| TapTapSee | CamFind Inc. | Free | Item Identification; Color Identification | “TapTapSee is designed to help the blind and visually impaired identify objects they encounter in their daily lives. Simply double tap the screen to take a photo of anything, at any angle, and hear the app speak the identification back to you (Note: Spoken identification requires VoiceOver to be turned on).” | Yes | No |
Magnification
| Over 40 HD Magnifier | TLA Investments LLC | $1.99 | “Now you can use your iPad to read the fine print see what you’ve been missing!” | No | Yes | ||||
| Over 40 Magnifying Glass with Flashlight | TLA Investments LLC | $1.99 | “Flashlight and Magnifier in One App.” | Yes | No | ||||
| VisionAssist | Slinkyware | $3.99 | VisionAssist provides, “…magnification and enable you to improve the contrast to help you read or see what you want to read.” | Yes | Yes |
Occular Character Recognition (OCR) Apps
knfbReaderSencotec nv$99.99 “The KNFB Reader converts printed text into high quality speech to provide accurate, fast, and efficient access to both single and multiple page documents with the tap of a button on the iPhone.”YesYes PrizmoCreaceed SPRL$9.99 “Prizmo is a universal photo-based scanner app that lets you scan and recognize text documents, business cards, and images, and then export them as PDF/Text, vCard, or JPEG/PNG. Prizmo relies on state-of-the-art technologies, like a highly accurate OCR, real-time page detection, and beautiful image cleanup. Using iCloud, you can even shoot the picture on your iPhone, and finish editing on your iPad or Mac. All of this in an elegant and intuitive user experience.”YesYes TextGrabber + TranslatorABBYY$4.99Translation is available as a separate in-app purchaseOccular Character Recognition (OCR) “TextGrabber + Translator easily and quickly scans, translates and saves your chosen text from virtually any printed material. Simply take a picture of the text and immediately edit, hear it spoken aloud via VoiceOver, translate it into 90 languages, send your text by SMS or e-mail, or share it quickly on Facebook, Twitter or Evernote.”YesYes
Vermont DBVI Training 