ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY BLOG | INVENTIONS FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

AppWriter is an iPad app for people who struggle with reading or writing. The app includes text-to-speech, word prediction, OCR capabilities and the Dyslexie font. You can save your documents on email, dropbox or Google Docs.

Text-To-Speech - The app includes high quality text-to-speech voices that can be use to read back text in the app. AppWriter also highlights the words being read to help users follow along. On the first generation iPad the text-to-speech had to reload line by line which made it hard to follow. This should not be a problem on the newer iPads because they have better processors and more RAM.

OCR - AppWriter includes optical character recognition (OCR) which allows you to take a picture with the iPad's camera and then have the app convert it to digital text and read it back to you with text-to-speech. This feature will work best with the new iPad's higher resolution camera. With OCR you can take pictures of worksheets, textbooks. In my test the OCR was not as accurate or fast as Prizmo.

Word Prediction - AppWriter also comes with word prediction. AppWriter predicts words based on the context of your writing. AppWriter can also read the suggested words to you before you select them.

Dyslexie - AppWriter includes a special font called Dyslexie. This font makes it easier for dyslexics to recognize and read letter and words. To learn more about the Dyslexie font click here.

AppWriter is available for $19.99 on the App Store. Click here to view in the App Store. Click read more below to learn more.