Wednesday 16 December 2015

Magnification Apps on the iPad- Magnify (Magnify Glass)


In this video I demonstrate a magnifying app on the iPad. The app is called Magnify (Magnifying Glass). It is free to download.

Magnifying apps work with the devices camera and make things larger. They are targeted mainly at the visually impaired community.

The video is nearly 7 minutes long and includes a full set of subtitles.

In this video you will learn;
1. How to download the app.
2. What it looks like and how it works
3. It's strengths and weaknesses...

a full transcript of the video can be read below

Start of Video Transcript

Hello everyone and welcome to this video. In this video series I will be demonstrating free magnification apps on the iPad. This is my fifth video in the series. Technically videoing apps on iPad is quite a complicated thing to do so if there are a few awkward silences please bear with me. Another important piece of technical information for you is it this app was used on an iPad Air 2 running iOS version 8.3. Magnification apps are mainly targeted at people who are visually impaired. They make use of iPads camera by making things that you are looking up with the camera larger. In this video series I will be testing about nine free magnification apps. I will take you through the download process in the App Store, demonstrate the different functions and features and look at the piece of text to analyse the quality of the app. I will use the terms magnification and zoom interchangeably. The app will be tested by focusing on a piece of text from a newspaper which will decide how good it is. So let's open the App Store and we want to type in Magnifier. Not surprisingly there are lots of options for this. We want the app with the yellow greenish icon. Next to this you will probably see Blue button that says plus get. Touch this button to download it. My button says Plus open because I have already downloaded it. There are five reviews of this app rating it 2/5. You can see that there. So let's open the app. Again it's very simple to look at everything is viewed through a magnifying glass. There is an ad at the top of the screen directly under this is the slider bar that you can move to the right to increase the magnification of what you're looking at. And the maximum that it goes to is 10 and you can see that the scale on the screen tells you that just here. To the left of the slider is another icon which will allow you to choose between having the live view as a background or have a plain background so what we seeing now with the yellow greenish pattern  is a plain background but if I press that icon what cc is your background is the live view what the camera was looking at and my camera is actually focusing on my table because that's how I'm set up today. In the bottom left hand corner of the screen settings menu here but this just really gives you the option of buying the app. No at the moment we can see that we are using this app in the portrait mode but you can actually use the app in the landscape mode as well. Here you go what's happened is I've swivelled my iPad around so it's in landscape and you can seethat you has changed what you're seeing on the screen even though the iPad that you seen the screen hasn't flipped over itself. But when you move it like this then the magnifying glass on the screen doesn't reposition itself or change shape or size sorry. Neither does the magnification bar on the left here. So this doesn't change position either it stays as if it is still in portrait mode. So let's put it that you can see from looking at a newspaper article that the quality of the view is not great at any magnification level so even when I just have a normal magnification level of one The print on the newspaper article isn't coming out very well and then when I increased the medication levels it doesn't get any better. And just to say that that view is not because of any lighting issues in the room where I am or to do with the size print on the newspaper. It just seems to be that the app doesn't give you a very clear view of print. And that's it my review of magnifier magnifying glass app. Thanks for watching this video and look out for my other videos on free magnification apps on iPad. If you want to ask questions or join the discussion please do so below.

End of video transcript.

Magnification Apps on the iPad- Magnify (Singular Factory)


In this video I demonstrate a magnifying app on the iPad. The app is called Magnify created by Singular Factory and it is free to download.

Magnifying apps work with the devices camera and make things larger. They are targeted mainly at the visually impaired community.

The video is between 5 and 6 minutes long and includes a full set of subtitles.

In this video you will learn;
1. How to download the app.
2. What it looks like and how it works
3. It's strengths and weaknesses...

a full transcript of the video can be read below

Start of Video Transcript

Hello everyone and welcome to this video in this video series I will be demonstrating free magnification apps on the iPad. This is my fourth video in the series. Technically videoing apps on the iPad is quite a difficult thing to do and so if there are any awkward silences them please bear with me another important piece of technical information for you is that this app was used on an iPad Air to running iOS version 8.3 magnification apps are told it is mainly the people who are visually impaired. They make use of an iPad is Camera in order to make things that you are looking at the camera larger. In this video series I will be testing about nine free magnification apps. I will take you through the download process in the App Store demonstrate the different functions and features and look at a piece of text to analyse the quality of the app. I will use the terms magnification and zoom interchangeably. The app will be focusing on a piece of text from a newspaper which will help us decide how good it is. Select open the App Store and we want to type in Magnifier. No obviously there are lots of options for this and we want this one here it's the black background and white icon. You can quickly download it by pressing on the word get here mine says open because I have already downloaded it. There are no reviews for this app. So once you have downloaded it lets open it. You can see how simple it is it consists of a large magnifying glass which you view things in and a large sliding scale below it. What I think is quite strange is that you you move the slider left in order to increase magnification. I would've thought it would've been the other way round. That is an add at the bottom of the screen which is very small which is lovely. Now I have just moved the iPad around to use it in the landscape mode instead of the portrait mode. And you can see that you can still use it in the landscape mode but actually the icons or anything don't change. And what's interesting is that the view on the video that you're watching doesn't change. The shape of the iPad that you are watching doesn't change although obviously that you has rotated to landscape. So let's put it back into the portrait mode. Unfortunately as we can see from viewing our newspaper article The text is not very clear at any magnification level. And I have doublechecked this is is not because of the newspaper That I am using neither is it to do with the lighting conditions. It is just that the view that we are getting with this app is very poor. And that's a real disadvantage. The app did seem to run smoothly whenever I've tested it. And that's it thank you for watching this video. Look out for my other videos on free magnification apps on the iPad. If you want to ask any questions or join in with the discussion then please do so in the space below this video.

End of Video Transcript

Magnification Apps on the iPad- Magnificent Free


In this video I demonstrate a magnifying app on the iPad. The app is called Magnificent Free and it is free to download.

Magnifying apps work with the devices camera and make things larger.

The video is just over 6 minutes and includes a full set of subtitles.

In this video you will learn;
1. How to download the app.
2. What it looks like and how it works
3. It's strengths and weaknesses...

a full transcript of the video can be read below

Start of video transcript

Hello everyone and welcome to this video. In this video series I will be demonstrating free magnification apps on the iPad. This is my third video in the series. Technically videoing On iPad is quite a complicated thing to do and so if there are a few awkward silences please bear with me. Another important piece of technical information for you is that this app was tested and an iPad Air to running iOS version 8.3. Magnification apps on mainly targeted at people who are visually impaired. They make use of the iPads camera in order to make things that you are looking at with the camera larger. In this video series I will be testing 9 free magnification apps. I will take you through the download process in the App Store demonstrate the functions and features and look at a piece of text to analyse the quality of the app. I will use the terms magnification and zoom interchangeably on this video. The app will be focused on a piece of text from a newspaper to help us decide how good it is. So let's open the App Store and the app that we want to go to today is called magnificent shall I spell it free. And there it is there. How are you can quickly download it by pressing the plus get button. My button that says open because I've downloaded it already. There are no reviews of this app on the App Store. So let us go to the app and open it. See you can see that I've just opened that and it had an error and shut itself down. Let's try it again that's a really annoying feature The whole screen has just been taken over by an ad. As soon as we open this app up we see that it has got a slightly, different apart approach because it offers us a split screen in view the top half of the screen is what the camera is saying and the bottom half of the screen has a magnification lens in it. Right at the bottom of the screen is the annoying at which is running again it's about 10% of the screen. To change the levels of magnification, you can either double tap the top of the screen and it cycles you to larger and larger magnification or you can just pinch to zoom on the lens itself like so. This is a different approach to having bark to move up and down. You can switch between the split screen and the full screen mode is by swiping on the screen and so it's in portrait mode at the moment and so if I swipe up it goes to fullscreen and if I swipe it again it goes to split screen I swiped that down. So there we go it works in landscape mode as well it may not work on the video actually. It doesn't look as it wants to work in landscape mode oh, there we go. There is a piece of text and so I have still got it in landscape mode but the video is still showing it in portrait mode unfortunately. Now apart from that one glitch at the beginning where the app failed to start normally the app works perfectly fine for me. So that is the magnificent free thank you for watching the video if you have any comments or you want to join in with the discussion then please do so below the video.

End of video transcript


Monday 14 December 2015

Magnification Apps on the iPad- Magnifying Glass with Light




In this video I demonstrate a magnifying app on the iPad. The app is called Magnifying Glass with Light and it is free.

Magnifying apps work with the devices camera and make things larger.

The video is between 7 and 8 minutes and includes a full set of subtitles.

In this video you will learn;
1. How to download the app.
2. What it looks like and how it works
3. It's strengths and weaknesses...

a full transcript of the video can be read below

Start of video transcript

Hello everyone and welcome to this video.

In this video series, I will be demonstrating magnification apps on the iPad.
Technically videoing apps on an iPad is quite a complicated thing to do and so if there are a few awkward silences please bear with me!

It is a technical piece of information but this app was used on an iPad running iOS version 8.3.

Magnification apps are mainly targeted at people who are visually impaired, who are the focus of my videos.

In this video series I will testing 9 free magnification apps.

I will take you through the download process in the App Store, demonstrate the different functions and features and look at a piece of text to analyse the quality of the app.
I will use the terms magnification and zoom interchangeably.

Let’s open up the App Store and get the first magnification app.
And type in “Magnifying Glass With Light”

Quickly download it. I already have and so instead of “Open” you will see “Get”.

Unusually for the apps that I will be looking at today, this app has had 17 reviews on the App Store, scoring 4  out of 5.

When you open the app the camera starts and there is a clean clutter free look to the app. In the bottom of the app is an ad that takes up about 10% of the screen. It is important to  remember that on the overwhelming majority of free apps there will be ads on them- which is why they are free!

Just above the ad there is a bar with which you control the level of magnification. This bar is quite small and close to the ad which could be problematic in terms of accidentally touching it.

There is a small high contrast button to the right of the bar but this is only available if you pay £1.49 to get the Pro version.

Above the magnification bar on the right hand side is a large button that enables you to freeze the image- but again, only if you get the Pro version.

You can magnify the image up to 5 times with this app.

The app works with the front and rearing facing cameras and the magnification works on both Once you have set the level of magnification required you can touch a button at the top of the screen that locks the magnification at that level.

This app works in both portrait and landscape mode as you can see here.

The app did not seem to crash at any point during my test.

And that’s it. Thanks for watching this video and look out for my other videos on free magnification apps on the iPad.

If you want to ask any questions or join the discussion then please do so below. 
 End of video transcript.

Magnification Apps on the iPad- Big Magnify Free




In this video I demonstrate a magnifying app on the iPad. The app is called Big Magnify Free.

Magnifying apps work with the devices camera and make things larger.

The video is nearly 8 minutes long. It comes with a full set of subtitles.

In this video you will learn;
1. How to download the app.
2. What it looks like and how it works
3. It's strengths and weaknesses...

A full transcript of the video can be read below

Start of video transcript

Hello everyone and welcome to this video.
In this video series I will be demonstrating magnification apps on the iPad.

This is my second video in the series.
Technically videoing apps on an iPad is quite a complicated thing to do and so if there are a few awkward silences please bear with me!
It is a technical piece of information but this app was used on an iPad Air 2 running iOS version 8.3.

Magnification apps are mainly targeted at people who are visually impaired, who are the focus of my videos.

I will take you through the download process in the App Store, demonstrate the different functions and features and look at a piece of text to analyse the quality of the app.
I will use the terms magnification and zoom interchangeably.
Let’s open up the App Store.
And type in “Big Magnify Free”
Quickly download it. I already have and so instead of “Open” you will see “Get”.
There are no reviews of this app.

When we open this app, an ad is at the top of the screen taking up about 10% of the screen.

There are a few icons at the top of the screen. On the far left is a switch icon to toggle between the front and rear facing cameras and magnification works on both.

The next icon is of a camera but I have no idea what this does!

The next icon provides us with three filters- which offer show different versions of the same view but from a purely functional point of view, they are pretty useless.

The final icon at the top is a settings menu which just offers you the chance to buy the full app by a “remove ads” option.

However nowhere is the price of the full app displayed and I was too nervous without this information to type in my password.

At the bottom of the screen is a magnification icon that allows you to change the level of magnification from x1 to x8.

The next icon allows you to toggle between having fixed levels of magnification or to manually adjust your own level.

The lightbulb icon does not seem to work and the play and pause icon allows you to take a photo of the current view and share it across different social networks.
Every so often the whole screen would be taken up with an advert which is very annoying.

This app works in both portrait and landscape mode as you can see here.
And that’s it. Thanks for watching this video and look out for my other videos on free magnification apps on the iPad.
If you want to ask any questions or join the discussion then please do so below. 
 End of Video Transcript