How to use it

Find that one photo by a word.

For people using an iPhone with VoiceOver.
Take one, or choose one. That alone gives the photo a description, and lets you find it again later, in the camera roll, by a word.

Take it, hear it, keep it

  1. Take it

    Press the round button in the middle of the screen. The iPhone’s volume button also releases the shutter, so you need not go hunting for a button. VoiceOver reads each one out.

    Taking a photo brings up a confirmation screen. If it is fine, the middle button has become save, so press it again. To take another, retake.

  2. Hear it

    After a few seconds, a short, factual account of what is in the frame is read aloud. “A white mug, and light from the window” — that sort of thing.

  3. It stays

    A copy with that description written into its caption is saved automatically to the “MimiSeka” album in your camera roll. There is nothing to press.

    The description is written into the photograph itself. So long after MimiSeka is closed, select that photo in the Photos app and the words are still there.

Only when you want to keep it inside the app as a memory do you press save to memories at the top. Without that, the saving to your camera roll has already happened.

Photos already in your camera roll

Press choose from photos on the home screen and you can pick from your camera roll. From there it is the same as taking one: a description is written, read aloud, and a captioned copy joins the “MimiSeka” album.

The original photo is not altered. A captioned copy is added alongside it. The original stays exactly as it was, so there is nothing to lose by trying.

A photo from years ago is fine. One someone else took of you, or one that was sent to you — words can be added to any of them, later.

Finding that one photo by a word

The description that was written in becomes the “Caption” in the iPhone’s own Photos app. Select the photo and VoiceOver reads it out, so you know which one it is without opening it.

And typing “veranda” or “teacup” into the Photos search brings that photo up. Even when the day escapes you, one remembered word is enough to find your way back.

To send one to someone, use the buttons inside MimiSeka. If you open the Photos app and send the picture on its own, the words written into it can come off along the way, depending on how it travels.

Send from LINE does not send the picture itself. It makes that one photo a photograph you listen to — a small web page of its own — and sends the link from LINE.

The person receiving it does not need MimiSeka installed. Opening the link brings that page up in a browser, and the story can be listened to as it is. The photo can be saved too, with its caption intact. The page is built to be read by a screen reader, so it reaches someone who cannot see, just as it is.

Post to X with alt text attaches the description as alternative text. It is handed to X separately from the picture, so this one arrives reliably as well.

What gets written into a photograph is always the description. Even after a story or a diary is written, the caption on the photo stays the plain factual description. The words for finding and the words for reading are kept apart.

If a description does not match the photo, it can be rewritten. The AI does misread things, so there is a way in to correct it.

Taking it is not the end.
Only with words does it become
——a photograph you can meet again.

With the ears and the fingertips, all the way through — on accessibility →

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