Ross WintleJan 11, 2023

I’m a frickin genius.

Context: my kid is mildly allergic to citric acid and citric fruit. Brings out eczema. And citric acid is in SO many things. And it’s painful checking ingredients lists for it.

This morning I wondered: can my phone OCR the ingredients list and check it?

My first thought was to make a little web app. But there doesn’t seem to be a OCR in web browsers yet.

But I KNOW my phone can get text from images.

Then…

Apple Shortcuts!!!

CHECK THIS OUT!!!

Show threadRoss Wintle

Video of iOS Shortcut that checks ingredients for citric acid - see the post above for what this is about.

https://vimeo.com/788324740

Vimeo
Jan 11, 2023 at 3:38pmWeb
Show threadVince Knight (He/Him)Jan 11, 2023
@ross Privacy settings don't seem set right on that video?
Show threadRoss WintleJan 11, 2023
@vinceknight Ah thanks. Now?
Show threadVince Knight (He/Him)Jan 11, 2023
@ross yup! That's cool as hell!
Show threadAlien🍉Jan 11, 2023
@ross this is so cool!!
Show threadelisa Jan 11, 2023
@ross this is RAD!
Show threadEdbroJan 12, 2023
@ross just curious, how accurate is the ocr? Haven’t used at all but see the value on applications like this.
Show threadRoss WintleJan 12, 2023
@edbro Seems good if you can get a clear photo. Small bottles are hard as they have a curve! And reflections on shiny packaging don’t help but it seems good!
Show threadTorbenbopJan 13, 2023
@edbro @ross it is not perfect, you could miss a word due to misspelling. But you could make another shortcut to scan and then read the entire result back to you. That Way you might understand a misspelled word anyway.
Show threadFrederik Braun �Jan 12, 2023
@ross I love the idea! I just tried the same for my own allergy and it seemed relatively unreliable for me. Maybe the iPhone SE (2022) camera is just crap? Maybe text recognition isn't mature enough?
Show threadRoss WintleJan 12, 2023
@freddy Hmm. Don’t know. My results were pretty good if I could get a clean picture!
Show threadBen HutchingsJan 12, 2023
@ross wow! 👏👏👏
Show threadfireglowJan 13, 2023
@ross that's pretty cool!