Reading apps for low vision and blind readers on iPhone
Start with what iOS already gives you: VoiceOver, Spoken Content, Zoom and Larger Text. A reading app adds a library, voices and type controls. justRead was not built as a blind-first app and has no braille display support. What it offers is described below.
See what helps which reader
What helps which reader
Low vision
Text size, spacing and margins are adjustable, and they can be set for one book only.
Colours can be set freely, and a warning appears when a colour pair has too little contrast.
Line Focus dims the page except the line you are on.
Blind or very low vision
justRead has VoiceOver labels, hints and announcements across the app.
VoiceOver can adjust the playback position in the audiobook player.
Read Aloud speaks EPUBs, and PDFs that have a text layer, with Apple voices or neural voices.
Reading comfort
OpenDyslexic, or any other font you read better in, can be imported.
Themes can follow light and dark mode, or switch at sunset where you are.
A brightness slider sits on the page edge, and 20-20-20 eye breaks remind you to rest.
Listening, two ways
A voice reads the book
Read Aloud highlights the sentence being read and turns the page with the voice.
A recording plays
justRead plays audiobooks in m4b, m4a, mp3, aac and flac, and in the .audiobook and .zab package formats.
Speed you choose
Playback speed runs from 0.75x to 2.0x, and the speed you choose carries over from book to book.
Type and colour you can set yourself
justRead has a colour picker with a spectrum, RGB sliders and hex entry for text and background colours.
Presets can be saved and switched, so a high-contrast pair is one tap away. See the customization page and the dark mode reader.
Honest limits
justRead is an iPhone and iPad app, so it does not run on a computer.
A scanned document with no text cannot be read aloud, because there is no text to speak.
justRead has a 14-day free trial of the whole app, and a paywall appears after it.
Before you move your library
Test one sample book with VoiceOver on first.
Open one book, turn VoiceOver on, and check that the controls you need are announced clearly. Read more on the features page.