Kalika Lyceum — MynaBooks

Accessibility

The short version

MynaBooks is built for someone who cannot see the screen — but it does not work by turning on VoiceOver. It speaks for itself instead. That is a deliberate choice, not a missing feature, and it is worth explaining why.

Who this is for

Most people who use screen readers learned them earlier in life, or use them alongside other assistive technology they are already fluent in. MynaBooks is built for someone different: often an older adult losing their sight later in life, who is not a VoiceOver user and is not going to become one. Learning a screen reader from scratch, late, is a real barrier — one this app is designed to avoid entirely rather than lower.

How it actually works

Hold anywhere on the screen and talk. There is nothing to find, nothing to aim at, and nothing to learn beyond a handful of things you would say to another person — "play," "next chapter," "pause," "how much time is left." MynaBooks answers out loud, in short sentences, without needing to be told first that a screen reader is running.

The screen itself is not designed for the listener at all. It is a running transcript — what was said, what the app heard, what it played — for a sighted caregiver, often a family member, to glance at or read later.

What this means for VoiceOver specifically

MynaBooks does not integrate with VoiceOver, and is not designed to be used alongside it. Two voices describing the same thing is worse than either alone, so the app goes silent while VoiceOver is speaking rather than talking over it. VoiceOver also claims the hold-anywhere gesture for its own navigation, so on a phone with VoiceOver already turned on for some other reason, a labelled button takes over as the way to talk instead — reached the way VoiceOver normally reaches anything, by swiping to it and double-tapping. It works, but it is a fallback for that situation, not how the app is meant to be used day to day.

What is supported in the ordinary iOS sense

• Larger Text. Every piece of on-screen text follows the system text size setting.
• Dark Interface. The whole app follows the system's light or dark appearance.

VoiceOver and Voice Control are not listed here on purpose, for the reason above — not because nothing was considered, but because claiming support for them would describe an experience the app does not actually give.