This app turns iPhone into overhead document viewer on Zoom

Called 'Overviewer', the app takes advantage of Zoom's built-in screen sharing feature that works with the iPhone.

New Delhi: For teachers, there is now a free iOS app that can turn their iPhones or iPads into an overhead document camera viewer on Zoom or other video conferencing apps.

Called ‘Overviewer’, the app takes advantage of Zoom’s built-in screen sharing feature that works with the iPhone.

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Developed by Charlie Chapman for his wife who is a teacher, the app allows teachers and others to use their iPhone’s camera as a replacement for an overhead document viewer.

“Zoom has a wonderful feature where you can share your iPhone’s screen by plugging into your laptop with a lightning cable or even wirelessly over AirPlay but when you open the camera app there are two issues,” Chapman wrote in a blog post on Wednesday.

The camera app doesn’t actually rotate when you turn it sideways (just some of the labels) so you can only share your phone in portrait mode, which means huge black bars on each side of the zoom call and a tiny video stream of what you want to share.

The app properly rotates so that you can share the document in landscape on zoom.

The app is not yet available for Android users.

If you’re using a Mac, Zoom will ask for permission to record your screen and have to be restarted in order to share your phone’s screen.