Uncursive
Photograph a page — or a whole stack — and Uncursive turns it into editable text on your iPhone. Nothing leaves your phone unless you choose Apple's cloud reader. Five free pages to try on your own handwriting, then one purchase for every page you'll ever scan.
Requires iOS 27 or later on an iPhone 15 Pro or newer, an iPad with an M-series chip, or iPad mini (A17 Pro).
Will it read your writing? That's the only question, so the trial is five real pages — full quality, full export, nothing held back. Scan the messiest pages you have. Then decide.
With an on-device reader, your pages never leave your iPhone. Once the reader is downloaded it converts without a connection — on a plane, in an archive basement, anywhere. No account, no analytics, no tracking. The App Store privacy label is Data Not Collected.
Five free pages, then one purchase. No subscription, no daily limit, no expiry, and nothing you've converted is ever locked again. The purchase can be shared with your family group through Apple's Family Sharing.
A PDF of your pages and a Word-compatible text document, side by side in the Files app and in your normal backup. The PDF carries the text invisibly, so it's searchable and selectable wherever you open it.
Where the reader can't make out a word, it says so in the text, with its best guess inside the brackets. Words it is sure about can still be wrong — which is why the photo sits right above the text, and you fix a word there. Always check the text against the page before you rely on it.
…informing our [unclear: people?] we landed safely because the wires are so crowded they can't send them.
Uncursive never picks for you; the first conversion asks, and you can change the choice any time in Settings.
This device reads your pages. The more accurate of the two on-device readers, and the slower one. Downloads once from Apple, about 3 GB, then runs entirely on your device.
This device reads your pages. Faster and smaller than On-Device (Best), and less accurate. About 1.5 GB, downloaded once.
Apple's private servers read your pages, and Apple built them to read a page and not keep it. No download, but your pages leave your device, it needs a connection, and Apple limits how many pages you can convert each day.
Some on-device readers need more free memory than a device has at a given moment; Uncursive tells you which readers your device can run right now.
Free to download.
Unlimited pages, no expiry.
The price is shown in the App Store for your country.
That's what the five free pages are for. They're full quality with full export, on your own pages, before you pay anything.
Most chatbots upload your pages to someone's servers, one photo at a time, and guess when they can't read a word. Uncursive keeps your pages on your phone, reads a whole stack, marks what it can't read, and hands you real files.
That's the reader moving onto your phone so your pages never have to move off it. It downloads once, from Apple — Wi-Fi recommended — and converts offline afterwards. The app shows you the exact size and asks before any download starts.
Any iPhone or iPad that supports Apple Intelligence: iPhone 15 Pro or newer, iPad mini (A17 Pro), or an iPad with an M-series chip, on iOS 27 or later. On other devices the app installs but can't read pages, and says so.
Set a stack converting and keep scanning; you can fix the first page while the rest are still being read. The Fast reader is quicker than Best.
English handwriting. Other languages may work, but they aren't promised.