How to use your iPhone as a teleprompter

The short answer

Put your script on a screen as close to the lens as you can get it, scroll it slightly slower than your natural pace, and rehearse one pass before you record. Memorising is not the alternative — retakes are, and they cost far more time than the setup does.

The two-device setup, which is the one that works

1. Recording device on a tripod or stand, framed how you want the final shot.
2. Second device running the prompter, propped directly beneath the recording lens — as close to it as physically possible.
3. Text size up, line length down. Larger text read from slightly further away keeps your eyes still. Long lines make them sweep.
4. One practice pass at your chosen speed. Adjust once, then record.
5. Look at the lens on your key lines. Openings, the ask, the closing. The middle can drift a little; the edges are what people notice.

One device works too — run the prompter on the same phone you are recording with, using the front camera. Eye travel is more visible, but for a quick social clip it is often fine.

Writing a script that reads well aloud

• Short sentences. Anything you have to hold your breath through will sound like reading.
• Write the way you talk. Contractions, plain words. A sentence that looks slightly too casual on the page usually sounds right.
• Break paragraphs at breath points, not at grammatical ones.
• Say the first line out loud before you finalise it. Openings are where scripted delivery is most obvious.

Teleprompter & Prompter Video, for iPhone and iPad

Teleprompter & Prompter Video turns an iPhone or iPad into a scrolling prompter for video, presentations, speeches, interviews, lessons, podcasts, and social clips. It is $2.99 on the App Store.

It gives you professional scrolling with adjustable speed and text size, a clean distraction-free reading view, fast script setup and editing, and both portrait and landscape support — so it fits whichever way you are framing the shot.

Or read the Teleprompter product details first.

What a prompter does not do

• It scrolls text. It does not record your video, edit it, or control your camera — you record with whatever camera app you already use.
• It cannot fix a script that was written to be read rather than spoken. That part is the writing.
• It is not a beam-splitter rig. If you need the text exactly on the lens axis for long pieces to camera, that is hardware, not software.

Related

The Myworkingmemory products page lists every app, including the writing and notes tools you might draft a script in.