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Comment by duck | Hacker News Reader

The fact that you can change font sizes easily means the iPad effectively replaces reading glasses.

Really? I mean it might help someone not need reading glasses for the tasks they do on the iPad... but they still have to have them to read the dinner menu, instructions on the box of food, and so on. If you can't replace it fully how good is it? The iPhone replaced regular cell phones because of the fact you no longer need two devices.

Or... I read too much into that.

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Just a thought - I've worked with a legally blind woman for a few years. She uses a variety of magnifying gadgets and devices during meetings to read handouts or lunch menus. I think that the present gen tablets are coming very close to being able to replace these expensive magnifying gadgets - and incorporate other technology.

A macro capable camera & some sort of lighting and suddently you replace one of these: http://www.independentliving.com/products.asp?dept=264&d...

I use my iphone to replace reading glasses all the time.

Snap a photo, two finger zoom of the photo and you are done

Presumably there is an app for this. If not, there will be in 10...9...8...

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/09/eye-glasses-turns-iph...

So you don't own reading glasses anymore?

Replacement isn't necessarily boolean. If you fetch glasses out of your pocket less frequently, that's still replacement, just not total replacement.

Or maybe an app that will immediately redisplay what the camera views in a larger format on the screen. Probably be a bit clunky, but might not be too bad. Might even help more for people who need high magnification for reading but whose distance vision is still good.

This was basically my YC submission this cycle. I'm still working on it!

Googling iphone magnifier brings this up:

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/09/eye-glasses-turns-iph...

I bought my dad a Desire HD for it's big screen (the pixel resolution is the same as the standard Desire) and installed a magnifier app:

http://www.appbrain.com/app/ideal-magnifier/com.ideal.magnif...

It not only magnifies, it lights up with the camera flash, it can reverse the black/white or add color filter if you find that easier, take a snapshot and let you zoom around it etc.

PressReader will fetch the daily edition of almost any newspaper in the world, and then read it to you. That's got to go some way toward replacing reading glasses

I still find it more comfortable to sit with my mobile devices and reading glasses than with extreme font sizes. Even my desktop computer now I prefer reading glasses.. and even more so as the device shrinks.

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