New App Overviewer has Launched to Enable Teachers to use iPhones as Overhead Document Viewers on Zoom

A new app called Overviewer has launched to enable teachers to use their phone’s camera as a substitute for an overhead document viewer. The app was developed by Charlie Chapman.

Overviewers are simply webcams pointing straight down that allow teachers to show students a printed document, book, hand drawing, or other pieces of writing or image.

Overviewer works as a replacement by taking advantage of Zoom’s built-in screen sharing feature that works with the iPhone when it is connected to a computer with a Lightning cable, or wirelessly through AirPlay (at the moment, it doesn’t seem like Zoom offers this feature for Android users). It shows a feed from your phone’s camera on the screen, with nothing else getting in the way. The feature also offers the ability to turn your phone’s flashlight on if your lighting situation isn’t ideal, as well as the option to change which camera is being displayed.

Chapman in a heartwarming blog post about how he developed the app for his wife, who works as a kindergarten teacher explains how he saw his wife using iOS’ built-in camera app to do the same thing, and how she was frustrated by the lack of landscape support and all the buttons overlaid on-screen:

“So being the dorky husband that I am, I quickly built an app that does nothing other than show what the phone camera sees with zero chrome and properly rotates the whole app so that you can share it in landscape on zoom. This did the trick and she actually used it!

“It’s pretty tailor-made for exactly my wife’s use case but I would think that would be a pretty common one for teachers to be in right now in our current virtual teaching world.

For teachers or some others who have other use for the app, it is available for free on the App Store. It’s worth noting that if you’re using a Mac, Zoom will ask for permission to record your screen and have to be restarted to share your phone’s screen.

Below is a video of how the app works.