Apple’s new trick makes your work easier

The last major system update to iOS 15.4 brought numerous new functions and features to the iPhone, and the Notes app also has a new trick that can make your work a lot easier – scanning texts is now even easier.

Already knew? iOS 15 hides powerful text recognition (OCR) for the iPhone. With this, the Apple cell phone or the camera recognizes words and letters and converts them into text that can be used directly and further processed – this is called “Live Text”. Works with any iPhone that has at least the Apple A12 Bionic Chip, i.e. iPhone Xs, XR or newer.

Scan text with iPhone: Now even better in the Notes app

Apple’s in-house notes app has also integrated “Live Text”, but access to it has not been very innovative so far. So you have to type in the text field to then select the live text icon in the somewhat small context menu. This is changing with the update to iOS 15.4. The last major iPhone update not only brought mask support for Face ID, but also one new, more accessible shortcut for Live Text within the Notes app.

Apple explains in the video how it works now:

Where is it located? Simply tap the camera icon above the on-screen keyboard. Below the already known option to scan documents, there is now the possibility to scan texts – a useful place, we think. If we select the function, we simply hold the camera on the text to be scanned, select paste and it will be inserted into the open note. Now we can use the text directly or, if necessary, correct errors in the OCR software. Apple demonstrates this clearly in a specially created film (see above).

By the way, we have more tips for iPhone users at hand:

Another reason to update

Please do not forget: The new shortcut in the camera icon is only available from iOS 15.4. Anyone who has not yet installed the update or the following may now have another reason to do so soon. To do this, we open the settings on the iPhone, target the General item and then select Software update. On the following page we get the update option, can load the update and then install it.