Hi, This is an app a friend from Germany just told me about. Below is the App Store link and this is followed by an article from his local chapter of the association for the blind and visually impaired in Germany. The word "Südbaden" is not translated as it refers to a geographical area in southern Germany. The article was of course originally in German, but I asked Microsoft Copilot to translate it into English. I did read it and it's a good and accurate translation.
What stood out to me is the ability to do things like reading text offline and some of the unique features, I am not a musician, but the app being able to read and play music sounds pretty neat. Also the integration of real-time data from local maps and the ability to pre-fill a ride share request sounds interesting. App Store link: Visionauta App - App Store<https://apps.apple.com/us/app/visionauta/id6780104967> Article: Please read the following press release about a new app. We have tested the app. The statement in the announcement claiming that the app is completely free is somewhat exaggerated. The app is free in all its functions, but with limited time and capacity quotas. In the free version, for example, the live situation description is only available for 10 minutes per day, and image recognition works for only 10 image captures per day. A paid monthly subscription with a one-time seven‑day free trial expands these limited quotas. After the seven‑day trial period, the subscription costs EUR 14.99 per month, with the option to cancel monthly. Apart from that, we consider the AI‑supported results to be very satisfactory. Below is the announcement: Press Release – Visionauta: Real‑Time AI Assistant for Blind People – Developed by a Blind Engineer (formerly Google) Dear team of the Association of the Blind and Visually Impaired Südbaden My name is Jonathan Santos. I am a blind software developer, previously employed at Google and Samsung, and I developed Visionauta — a free accessibility app that gives blind and visually impaired people more independence in everyday life through artificial intelligence. I am writing to you because the Association of the Blind and Visually Impaired Südbaden works daily with blind and visually impaired people and knows their questions about assistive tools. Visionauta is now fully available in German: real‑time conversation with an AI that sees through the camera, reading printed text even without internet, recognition of euro banknotes, and reading and playing printed sheet music. The app is free — so your members can try it without any barriers. Below you will find the full press release. I would be very happy to receive feedback. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE São Paulo, August 19, 2026 VISIONAUTA INTRODUCES REAL‑TIME CONVERSATION WITH ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND LAUNCHES IN ELEVEN LANGUAGES — INCLUDING GERMAN, ARABIC, RUSSIAN, CHINESE, JAPANESE, AND ITALIAN The free app created by a blind software developer who worked at Google and Samsung is getting an assistant that can see: it speaks continuously via voice, describes surroundings, tells the user where they are, searches for information online, reads and plays sheet music, and helps blind people take well‑aligned photos. Available for iPhone and Android. Visionauta, the accessibility app that uses artificial intelligence to give blind and visually impaired people more independence, announces its biggest update yet — and now speaks eleven languages: Portuguese, English, Spanish, French, Korean, German, Japanese, Italian, Arabic, Russian, and Simplified Chinese. The translation applies to the entire app as well as to the responses of the artificial intelligence, which converses with the user in their language. The app is free and available for iPhone in the App Store and for Android on Google Play. REAL‑TIME CONVERSATION: AN ASSISTANT THAT SEES AND SPEAKS The central function of Visionauta is real‑time conversation. The user speaks naturally — without pressing a button, without waiting for a tone — with an artificial intelligence that sees through the phone’s camera and responds immediately via voice. Like a sighted friend standing next to you and describing the world. During this conversation, Visionauta can: • Describe environments and scenes — what is in the room, who is nearby, how the table is set, what clothes are on the bed, whether the light is on. • Say where the person is and what is around them — current address, streets, landmarks, pharmacies, bakeries, and the nearest bus stop, based on real‑time map data. • Search for information online — news, opening hours, prices, current details, without leaving the conversation. • Read and play sheet music — simply point the camera at printed music. Visionauta recognizes the notes, reads the piece aloud, and plays it directly on the device; MusicXML and MIDI files are generated. A novel feature for blind musicians who previously relied on outside help or rare and expensive Braille editions. • Help blind people take photos — the photo assistant guides alignment, announces when the framing is correct, counts down, and triggers the camera so family photos, documents, or social media images turn out well. • Call a car via voice — simply state the destination, and the app opens Uber, 99, Bolt, or Lyft with the ride already filled in; only confirmation is needed. • Answer any question about what is in front of the camera — what product it is, how long it is shelf‑stable, what color a piece of clothing is, what a sign says. VISIONAUTA MAGIC: THE AI THAT DESCRIBES IMAGES AND PERFORMS TASKS ON THE PHONE Visionauta Magic is exclusive to Android and available to Visionauta Plus subscribers. It works with the device’s screen reader, such as TalkBack, and solves two long‑standing problems in the community: First, it describes unlabeled images that appear in any app. When the screen reader’s focus lands on an image, icon, or card without a description, Visionauta analyzes exactly that element and announces what is shown. Second, it performs tasks on the phone. The user might say “Open WhatsApp and send Ana a message,” and Visionauta creates a plan, reads it aloud, and acts only after the user’s approval — narrating each step and allowing interruption at any time via an emergency stop button or a two‑finger double‑tap. Nothing happens without confirmation. EVERYDAY FUNCTIONS In addition to conversation, Visionauta retains the tools that have made it popular in the blind and visually impaired community — many of which work without internet: • Offline text recognition — point the camera at documents, packaging, letters, or signs and hear the content read aloud. • Banknote recognition — Brazilian real, US dollar, euro, Mexican peso, yen, Canadian and Australian dollar, without connection. • Object search — say “Help me find my phone,” and the app scans the surroundings and signals the find via vibration and speech. • Electronic magnifier for visually impaired users — with zoom and modes for high contrast, inverted colors, white on black, black on white, and yellow on blue. • Flashlight with vibration reminder. • Natural voices: usable system‑wide, as voices for TalkBack on Android and VoiceOver on iPhone, and available offline after download. The iPhone version is fully integrated with VoiceOver and iOS accessibility features. “The real‑time conversation has changed what Visionauta is. It is no longer an app where you take a photo and wait for an answer: it is an ongoing conversation with someone who sees for you and is always there — whether to describe the street, find the nearest pharmacy, or read the sheet music you’re about to play.” — Jonathan Santos “Translating the app into Arabic, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, German, and Italian was not a market decision but a matter of justice. Assistive technology always came first in English, and those who didn’t speak English waited for years. Not this time.” — Jonathan Santos “I thank Professors Ismar Frango and Nizam Omar of the Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, who encouraged me to turn an academic project into a real tool for the community.” — Jonathan Santos ABOUT THE DEVELOPER Jonathan Santos is a software developer specializing in artificial intelligence and has worked at Google and Samsung. He is a researcher and doctoral candidate in computer engineering at the Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie and a visiting lecturer at the medical faculty of Santa Casa de São Paulo, where he teaches generative artificial intelligence in medicine. He is blind and dedicated to developing accessible technologies that enable independence for blind and visually impaired people. Visionauta was created during his master’s studies in computer engineering, in courses on computational thinking and artificial intelligence. -- The following information is important for all members of the V iPhone list. 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