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Magnifier: Use The Camera For Visual Assistance | iOS 17 Guide

There’s an option hidden under the Accessibility menu that allows you to use your device camera to magnify text on a page.

First, you’ll have to ensure the feature is enabled. To do this, go to Settings and tap Accessibility > Accessibility Shortcut. Then choose Magnifier and make sure the button is toggled to the on position.

To use it, simply triple-click the iPhone’s Side button or Home button at any point to open up a camera screen which includes a slider to zoom in and out on text.

If you find you’re moving around too much, or you have a whole page to read, it’s worth tapping the shutter button to essentially take a photo, or freeze and stabilize the image, which you can then zoom in and out of as you read.

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Additional options include locking the focus, turning on the camera’s flash if it’s dark, and applying color filters which may make text easier to read.

Detection Mode

With the introduction of iOS 17, Magnifier got way more useful for those with visual impairments.

Launch Magnifier with a triple-click of the Power button.  Hit the Settings icon and press the + next to Detection Mode. You can now use several invaluable accessibility features: point and speak, text detection, people detection, door detection, and image descriptions. These features will be explained as you try them, but should all prove invaluable to anyone with limited vision.