OneStep Reader vs HelpTech+
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
OneStep Reader
This app uses your device's camera to instantly convert printed text into spoken words or Braille. It offers synchronized highlighting and supports various document formats, making reading accessible for individuals with visual impairments or reading differences.
- Text-to-speech conversion
- Text-to-Braille output
- Synchronized text highlighting
- Photo import and capture
- Support for PDF, JPEG, and ePub
- Batch page processing
- Cloud storage integration
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OneStep Reader gives you instant access to print anytime and anywhere. OneStep Reader 3.0 is a rapid and efficient text recognition app. Its text-to-speech, text-to-Braille, and text highlighting tools make it valuable for blind, low-vision, dyslexic, and others with reading differences. Use it to import or take a photo of anything containing text. Take a photo and the app reads text out loud or displays it on a connected refreshable Braille display. Read with more ease thanks to the simultaneous highlighting of the sentence and word that is being read on the picture or in the plain text document. The app helps you get a good photo with special alignment tools, including spoken and vibration guidance. Snap multiple pages, such as a book, for later reading. Winner of the 2014, 2015, and 2016 AppleVis Golden Apple Award for Best Assistive Technology App. • Reads image-based PDF and JPEG files, and now tagged PDF and ePub files too! • Exports OneStep reader files as HTML or TXT files. • Navigates by line, sentence, word, or character. • Crop, rotate and edit the pictures you take before performing text recognition. • View documents in PDF presentation mode with double highlighting while reading. • View reading order and language-tagged PDF documents. • Add and remove bookmarks in PDF documents. • Switch between PDF view and reflowable text view. • Read documents in the increasingly popular ePub format. The app also has synchronized text highlighting to help you read along with the spoken text, a benefit for people with dyslexia and other reading difficulties. Need nutritional information from your breakfast cereal? OneStep reader can read labels. Out shopping and need a price? OneStep Reader can read price tags. Want to know what came in the mail? OneStep Reader captures it all. OneStep Reader captures print from your computer or tablet screen. Photograph the screen and know exactly what that error message says. Little details abound. We got rid of the fifty-page limit for batch recognition. Everything gets turned on its side with landscape support. Add subfolders to the local folder structure. Use Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, or Google Drive to store and retrieve your documents. You can now make calls, send emails, and open hyperlinks directly from documents; call or email your new contact directly from the text of her business card! Fully localized versions (user interface, recognition and speech) are available in: English, German, Italian, French, Spanish, Norwegian (Bokmål), Swedish, Portuguese, Dutch, Turkish, Danish, Polish, Russian, Japanese, and Czech. Other languages available for speech and recognition only: Afrikaans, Albanian, Bulgarian, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Croatian, Estonian, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Romanian, Serbian (Cyrillic), Serbian (Latin), Slovak, Ukrainian. Supported devices: iPhone X, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone 8, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone SE, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c, iPadPro, iPad Pro 12.9-inch, iPad Pro 9.7-inch, iPad Air 2, iPad Air, iPod touch 6th Generation, iPod 5th Generation. Visit our website at: www.OneStepreader.com
HelpTech+
Enhance your Braille display experience with advanced features. Follow Braille output on your iPhone screen, dictate text using your voice, and have texts read aloud. Manage files and send text directly to your Braille device.
- Braille monitor for sighted users
- Dictation function for text input
- Voice output for reading texts aloud
- File manager for Activator and iPhone
- Send text from iPhone clipboard
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The perfect complement to the Activator: HelpTech+. HelpTech+ adds many new features to the Activator, Help Tech's latest braille display innovation, making it a next-generation Braille experience once and for all. Braille monitor The integrated Braille monitor allows a sighted person to follow the information output on the Braille display directly on the iPhone screen. Including the indication of the reading position, marked text and the cursor position. Dictation function With the speech input you can easily dictate texts instead of typing them yourself. The recognized text is then either saved in a new file on the Activator or inserted into an existing file at the desired position. Voice output The speech output function allows you to have texts on the Activator read aloud through the iPhone's speakers. File manager With "HelpTech+" you can copy files back and forth between the Activator and your iPhone. Send texts Send texts from the iPhone clipboard directly to the Activator. The connection with the iPhone expands the internal functions of the Activator by SmartServices. The first feature is a news feed service, optimized for the use with Braille displays, which you can put together according to your personal interests. Furthermore we are continuously developing "HelpTech+". Additional new functions will be provided regularly. As a result, we will continue to offer you a first-class experience in the future.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: HelpTech+ at Free against OneStep Reader's $99.99. HelpTech+ also leads on rating (5.0 vs 3.6). OneStep Reader's advantage is ratings volume (216 vs 2) and iOS requirement (13.0 vs 17.0). On update cadence, ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
HelpTech+ is free to download; OneStep Reader costs $99.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
HelpTech+ holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 3.6. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: OneStep Reader has 216 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on October 15, 2026 and September 30, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | OneStep Reader | HelpTech+ |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $99.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 3.6 (216 ratings) | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 52.7% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 216 — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months | Every 3 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 177 MB | 10 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Sensotec nv | Help Tech GmbH |
Customer experience
OneStep Reader
HelpTech+
Bugs and requests
OneStep Reader
Reported bugs
17 issues- App crashes when opening or processing PDF files
- App fails to launch on newer iPhone models (iPhone 11 Pro Max, iPhone 12 Pro Max, iPhone XR)
- App crashes when scanning multiple documents
- Crashes on iOS 12 and later versions
- Volume button photo capture fails intermittently
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- Automatic photo feature does not work reliably
- Field of view report functionality unreliable
- Text recognition produces garbled output with random symbols and numbers
- App does not properly close or exit, continuing to vibrate phone
- Imported files not displaying in file list without app restart
- Speech rate settings reset to default after closing app
- Saved files become modified when opened, affecting search order
- PDF files converted to unreadable format after extended use
- App throws errors when attempting to take pictures
- Incompatibility with iOS updates
- Domain deactivation causing loss of support access
- File import process is broken and confusing
Requested features
15 requests- Free trial version before purchase
- Video tutorial or podcast demonstrations
- Real-time document scanning without manual alignment
- Automatic photo capture like banking apps
- Multiple voice options and customization
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- Better paragraph-level navigation for VoiceOver users
- Landscape mode support for iPad
- iCloud integration
- Direct PDF download without cloud service
- Improved field of view reports
- Better braille support and display
- Paragraph-level reading instead of word-by-word
- Smart invert compatibility
- Progress indicators during OCR processing
- Better handling of columns and complex layouts
HelpTech+
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
OneStep Reader
No in-app purchases
HelpTech+
No in-app purchases









