Video calls
A teleprompter for Zoom and Google Meet, described honestly.
The floating window stays on top of your call app. Whether the script keeps following your voice depends on who is holding the microphone — and on a call, that is usually the call app.
What is tested, and what this page will not claim
Voice following has been tested while recording in Camera, Instagram and TikTok. Zoom and Google Meet are not on that list, so this page will not tell you they work. It will tell you what the app does, so you can judge the risk before a meeting that matters.
Two halves, unequally certain. The first is the floating window, which stays on top of whatever else is on screen — a call app included. The second is the microphone: voice following listens through it, and holding the microphone for a whole call is the entire job of a call app.
There is already an answer for that: it is what happens when a camera app starts recording. If another app takes the microphone, Wispim switches to Constant by itself so the read carries on instead of freezing, tells you in a banner, and switches back when the microphone returns. It is on by default and can be turned off in Settings. Plan for that switch rather than hoping it never comes.
Build the read around Constant mode
Constant runs at a fixed speed you set in words per minute, and it does not need the microphone at all — which is why it is the mode to plan a call around. Read the script aloud once at the speed you actually talk, set the words per minute to match, and the one variable this page cannot promise you is gone.
Constant also has a start delay: off, or 5, 10 or 20 seconds, labelled “time to get into position”. On a call that is the gap you need to leave the prompter, get back to the call app and unmute. It is drawn inside the floating window as well as full-screen, so you can watch it run down while you are already looking at the meeting. There is no 3-2-1 countdown in Voice or Sound — those wait for you to speak.
That is what makes a teleprompter for online meetings a different exercise from a recorded take: no second attempt, no trim, and nobody waiting while you reset.
Where to put the window, and how to control it
The window snaps to a corner the way Picture in Picture does. Put it in a top corner, nearest the front lens, so the gap between the text and the camera is small — notes on screen during a video call only help if you are still looking at the person you are talking to. Wide or Tall, whichever shape the call app’s own layout leaves free.
The window keeps its own text scale and side margins, separate from the full-screen prompter; the floating window page covers how to set them. What a call adds is distance — a phone propped beside a laptop sits further from your eyes than one in your hand — and an hour-long script wants the typography the page for teachers goes through.
The window does not accept touch — an iOS constraint, and the reason the other controls exist. Spoken commands pause, continue and jump between sentences in ten languages, with editable phrases — but they are heard through the same microphone as voice following, so on a call do not count on them either. The volume buttons move one sentence back or forward; they are marked Experimental in the app, and they do not work inside camera apps, which take the buttons for the shutter.
If the meeting is on a laptop
Wispim is an iPhone app, iOS 16 or later. There is no Mac, iPad, Apple Watch or Vision Pro version, and none is being promised — so if the call is on a laptop, the phone is just a second object on the desk. Stand it under the webcam and run the full-screen prompter on it. Nothing on the iPhone is competing for its microphone in that arrangement, so voice following behaves the way it does anywhere else. Nothing syncs between the two devices: there is no account, and the script stays on the phone.
A checklist for the ten minutes before you join
- Cut the script to the things you must not get wrong. The rest is a conversation.
- Read it aloud once, set Constant to that speed, and leave it there.
- Set a start delay long enough to switch apps and unmute — 10 seconds is calm, 5 is not.
- Raise the text scale until you can read the window without leaning in.
- Bring the agenda in as it already exists: import from PDF, Word and RTF is part of Pro. The free app gives you 6 prompter takes and unlimited scripts, with every feature — floating window and voice following included.
Questions
Does Wispim work with Zoom?
The floating window stays on top of other apps, and a call app is another app — but Zoom is not one of the apps we have tested, so we will not tell you it works. Camera, Instagram and TikTok are the three that have been tested. What we can describe is the mechanism: if the call app takes the microphone, Wispim switches to Constant on its own, tells you in a banner, and switches back when the microphone returns.
Will voice following keep up while I am on a call?
Only while nothing else is holding the microphone, and a call app normally holds it for the length of the call. Assume you will be reading in Constant mode, which runs at a fixed speed and does not need the microphone at all. If the call app does release it, the hand-off switches you back by itself.
Can I take the meeting on my laptop and read from my iPhone?
Yes, as two separate devices — Wispim is an iPhone app and there is no Mac, iPad or Apple Watch version to put on the laptop. It is the arrangement this page worries about least, because the call app is on the other machine and nothing is competing for the iPhone’s microphone. The section above says where to stand the phone.
Can the other people on the call see the teleprompter?
They see your camera, not your screen. The floating window sits on your phone’s display — so treat it the way you would treat anything else on that display: if you start sharing the phone’s screen, assume the window is shared with it.