Talking Typer vs Claro ScanPen Premium
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Talking Typer
This accessible typing program helps students improve their keyboarding skills through lessons and a fun game. It is designed for blind and visually impaired students but is beneficial for all learners, offering progress tracking and customizable lessons.
- 35 built-in typing lessons
- Customizable lessons for teachers/parents
- Progress tracking for speed and accuracy
- Hurry Scurry typing game
- Self-voicing and VoiceOver accessible
- Supports refreshable braille displays
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Talking Typer finally makes its way to iOS. Help students make typing progress with this fun-to-use self-voicing app! Talking Typer An accessible typing and computer keyboard tutorial app with a keyboard game to help increase speed and accuracy in a fun environment! Learn to type or improve your skills with drills, practice lessons, keyboard explorer, and an entertaining game. It is designed for blind and visually impaired students, but can be used by sighted students too. This makes it a great tool for the whole class. 35 Built-in Lessons Talking TyperTM for iOS devices comes with 35 built-in lessons at levels 1-10. Teachers and parents can create new lessons, edit lessons, and assign lessons to individual students or groups. Speed, accuracy, and typing level can also be set for individual students or groups. The app saves the results of each drill allowing students, teachers, and parents to monitor improvement. Hurry Scurry Game The app also includes the exciting game Hurry Scurry, where students earn points by typing letters before the ball drops. It’s fun for all ages and skill levels! Self-Voicing and Apple® VoiceOver Accessible The app is both self-voicing and accessible with Apple’s VoiceOver. The onboard keyboard of your device can be used with Talking Typer, but an external keyboard is recommended. The app can also be used with a refreshable braille display, like APH’s Refreshabraille 18TM Bluetooth®-enabled device, making it accessible for students who are deafblind as well. Recommended ages: All.
Claro ScanPen Premium
This app allows users to photograph printed text and have it read aloud instantly. It's ideal for students, professionals, or anyone needing auditory access to printed materials, with no internet connection required. It supports multiple languages and integrates with accessibility features.
- Photo capture of printed text
- Selectable text highlighting
- Instant spoken output
- Offline functionality
- Multiple language support
- OCR technology
- iOS VoiceOver integration
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Need to listen to printed text spoken aloud - at school, in a test exam, at work or at home? Use Claro ScanPen to photo your printed text document, letter, test paper - then select the text with your finger (or stylus), and hear it spoken straight back to you. Instantly! No internet connection required. Claro ScanPen Premium is free to use for either 10 scans, or for 14 days when you sign up to the annual auto-renewing subscription (which you're free to cancel at any time). When you have an active subscription you can download as many premium voices as you need for no extra cost. Our premium voices are currently Nuance Vocalizer and Acapela. If you want to purchase ScanPen outright and buy any extra voices, search the App Store for our standard version called "Claro ScanPen". Claro ScanPen advances reading aloud support. It gives access to printed text materials and documents for all, in a wide range of languages. Using your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, simply: • Take a photo of the text or select a photo of the text document from your camera roll. • Highlight with your finger or stylus which section of text you want to hear spoken to you. • Listen as Claro ScanPen instantly reads the text back to you using a human quality voice in a language of your choice. With your finger (or stylus) you can highlight all of the text, word by word or line by line. Tap anywhere to stop the speech. Claro ScanPen can also be used with the built in iOS VoiceOver accessibility feature, allowing low vision and blind users to access text. Claro ScanPen has no access to the internet or any reference material, so is perfect to use as a computer reader under exam and test conditions, helping students who cannot read text very well (e.g. students with dyslexia) to listen to the exam test paper questions and information. It can also be used for quickly converting class handout materials, printed presentations, instructions, books - in fact anything containing printed texts. Claro ScanPen uses the latest premium Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology to convert your picture into text and uses iOS system voices to read the text back to you. The OCR in Claro ScanPen fully supports the recognition of text in the following languages: • English • Danish • Dutch • French • German • Italian • Norwegian • Portuguese • Spanish • Swedish Simply select the voice that matches the language of your text to hear it read back correctly. Claro ScanPen is a great addition to the popular Claro Reading and Writing support apps ClaroSpeak and ClaroPDF. Claro ScanPen does not require internet access to function and does not store any photographs taken within the ScanPen App. Explore using the Apple iOS Guided Access feature to lock the iPad, iPod Touch or iPhone into a single app, for more secure and controlled usage. Tap iOS Settings > General > Accessibility > Guided Access to set up Guided Access. ***Minimum camera spec: 2MP*** If you require any product support please email us at support@clarosoftware.com. SUBSCRIPTION TERMS • Purchase an annual subscription for $9.99 to use ScanPen with unlimited number of scans and ability to download and use our full range of premium TTS voices. • Payment will be charged to your iTunes Account at confirmation of purchase. • The subscription automatically renews unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24-hours before the end of the current period. • The app offers a free 14 day free trial. At the end of the trial period, the full price of the subscription will be charged. Cancellations must occur 24 hours before the end of the subscription period to avoid being charged. See http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4098 for more information. • Our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use can be found at https://www.clarosoftware.com/legal
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Claro ScanPen Premium at 4.6 against Talking Typer's 4.0. Claro ScanPen Premium also leads on update cadence (every 2 months vs every 11 months) and ratings volume (33 vs 11). Talking Typer's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 10) and review sentiment (50% vs 33%). On price, ads, device support and iOS requirement 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
Both are free to download. Claro ScanPen Premium sells 10 in-app purchases, starting at $10.99 per year. Talking Typer asks for nothing beyond the download.
Claro ScanPen Premium holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 4.0. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 11 and 33 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 50% of Talking Typer's written reviews are positive against 33% of Claro ScanPen Premium's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Talking Typer ships an update every 11 months, Claro ScanPen Premium every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and November 2, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Talking Typer | Claro ScanPen Premium |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.0 (11 ratings) | 4.6 (33 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 50.0% of reviews — better | 33.3% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 11 | 33 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 11 months | Every 2 months — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free — better | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 12.0 — better | 13.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 18 MB | 135 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | American Printing House for the Blind (APH) | Claro Software Limited |
Customer experience
Talking Typer
Claro ScanPen Premium
In-app purchases
Talking Typer
No in-app purchases
Claro ScanPen Premium
- Subscribe for 1 Year14 Days trial$10.991 Year
- Scott$3.99
- Valeria$3.99
- Emilio$3.99
Show 6 moreShow fewer
- Elise$3.99
- Valentin$3.99
- Elias$3.99
- Emilie$3.99
- Filip$3.99
- Freja$3.99
Questions
Is Talking Typer free?
Is Claro ScanPen Premium free?
Which has better reviews, Talking Typer or Claro ScanPen Premium?
Do Talking Typer or Claro ScanPen Premium have ads?
Which is updated more often, Talking Typer or Claro ScanPen Premium?
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