March was a very busy month for all of us at Texthelp – mainly due to the exciting release of our brand new iPad app, iReadWrite. The App is suitable for all ages and makes working on the iPad more accessible for those with low literacy and learning difficulties such as dyslexia. It’s the first time we’ve developed a stand-alone product for the iPad, so we’re all very keen to find out what people think of it! Since it’s launch in early March, we’ve developed Australian and South African versions, available to purchase in the respective App stores.
This great video shows you how all the features of iReadWrite work.
To find out more about the app, visit the App store today!
One of our first iReadWrite customers has sent us a review of the product. Find out what he thinks of it below:
“A decent first foray into the iPad app marketplace from long standing assistive software suppliers Texthelp. The new iReadWrite iOS app tries to replicate many of the most useful features of its established big brother, Read&Write, available on both Windows and Mac platforms, and for the most part achieves that.
“iReadWrite’s primary functions are to read text back to you, using one of two available high quality voices, and check your spelling and grammar. Features I particularly liked are the fact the app does not need a Wi-Fi or cellular connection to work, the intuitive interface, the facility to listen as you type (this makes it really easy to hear your mistakes), the powerful word prediction feature, an excellent dictionary, and a reasonable choice of fonts, including Open Dyslexic.
“Once you have typed up some text, there are some decent export features, to email, Messenger, Facebook and Twitter – one feature I would love to see in an update, is export to Audio, which could then sync with iTunes, this is one of the most popular features of Read&Write, especially amongst students, and it would be a perfect fit for the iOS platform. Another omission I would like to see in an update, is Cloud save integration, to the likes of Dropbox, Google Drive and Skydrive.
“The two supplied voices are excellent, and whilst I know that these high quality voices are not cheap to produce and include with software, it would be nice to have more choice – again, the choice to purchase additional voices from an “in-app purchase” in a future update, would be a nice addition.
“The price point for an app is a tricky area. Users are used to paying anything from 69p to £4.99 for most apps these days. This is a high end app which will increase many users productivity, and compared to the price of Read & Write for Windows and Mac, it’s a steal at the current £19.99 price point. As it stands, iReadWrite is a very good app, however there is room for improvement, and its early days – I will be watching with interest for future updates and how this app is received in the community.”
Andy Lees, DSA Assessor, Herriot Watt University
If you have purchased iReadWrite, we’d love to hear what you think of it! Simply email us your comments and suggestions to r.houston@texthelp.com!
Texthelp Talks Back 
We just received another review of iReadWrite from Claire Wallis who is a DSA Assessor at York St John University.
“The new iReadWrite app is an exciting new branch for Texthelp and I was very happy to be able to start using it recently. I am dyslexic so have found many uses for it myself but also I work as a DSA Needs Assessor and will be able to demonstrate and recommend this to many of my future students. I, like many students and working people, take my iPad with me when working away from my desk. I like that iReadWrite now enables me to check my spelling and grammar before I send an email. I can also listen back to what I have written to make sure it makes sense. I can export what I have written to email, messenger, Facebook and Twitter. In the future I would like to see an update enabling users to save to Dropbox or similar. I think that students would find it helpful to be able to export to an audio file, compatible with iTunes, so they could listen to their research on the go. I also think it would be helpful if a bibliography could be included from imported text, especially if students are copying and pasting from multiple documents. All in all I think this is a very good beginning for a Texthelp app and I look forward to it’s progression (and hopefully it’s transition to android). Most students, regardless of their learning needs, would find this app a helpful study aid. If I could have any feature from my PC version of Read&Write Gold on my iPad it would be the ability to use screen masker when I am browsing the internet or reading Kindle books.”