Show Me — questions people ask

Written for the website and for anyone setting Show Me up on someone else's phone. Plain answers, no sales language. Every answer here has to stay true of the build. When the app changes, this changes.

What it is

What does Show Me actually do? A blue button sits on the edge of the screen, on top of whatever app is open. Press it and Show Me reads the screen and says out loud what it is and what to do next. Press it and speak, and it answers the question instead.

Is it like the voice that reads everything out? No. TalkBack and VoiceOver read a screen out item by item, for someone who cannot see it at all, and they change how the whole phone is used. Show Me is for someone who can see the screen perfectly well and does not understand it. Nothing else about the phone changes, unless you ask it to turn on Samsung's Easy mode.

Can it do things, or only explain? A few things, and it keeps them separate:

• Open an app you name. "Open WhatsApp" opens it straight away, because you asked for it by name.
• Press one button on the screen. After explaining, it may offer to press one thing. It only presses it if you say yes.
• Write and send a text in Messages or WhatsApp to someone in your contacts, after reading it back and getting your yes.
• Call someone in your contacts, after you say yes.

It cannot type into other apps for you, fill in forms, or do several steps in a row by itself.

Does it work in every app? In most apps. It cannot read pages inside a web browser, because browsers hide their contents from apps like this unless the phone is switched into a mode that would ruin Show Me's single-button design. Some apps also label their buttons badly or not at all, and then it may explain less, or not be able to press the right thing.

What phones does it work on? Android phones, Android 8 and newer. It is built and tested on Samsung. The "make my phone simpler" feature is Samsung's own Easy mode, so that part is Samsung only. It does not work on iPhone, and cannot: Apple does not let an app press buttons in other apps.

Safety

Can it send a message or call someone without me? No. It reads a message back to you and only presses send if you say yes. It asks before it calls anyone. If you say a phone number out loud, it types the number into the dialler and you press call yourself.

Will it press things that cost money? It refuses buttons it can tell are for paying, buying, installing, deleting, sending money or giving permissions, and tells you to press those yourself. It may not recognise every one, so listen to what it offers. It is also told not to read verification codes out loud.

Could someone else say yes for me? Possibly. After it asks a question it listens for a short moment, and it cannot tell whose voice it hears. Answer it yourself, and check who a message is going to before you say yes.

What if someone picks up my locked phone? Show Me does nothing at all on a locked phone except tell you to unlock it. It cannot be used to call, text or read anything from the lock screen.

Can it be wrong? Yes. It uses speech recognition and an AI, and both make mistakes. That is why it asks before it presses a button, sends a message or makes a call. The one thing it does without asking is open an app you named. Listen to what it says before you say yes.

Should I rely on it in an emergency? No. Call 911 yourself. It is a helper, not a safety device, and it cannot tell you whether a message, a caller or a website is a scam.

Privacy

Does it watch my screen all the time? No. It reads the screen only when the button is pressed, once per press. It is not running in the background looking at what you do.

Does it listen all the time? No. The microphone is on after you press the button, and for a short moment right after Show Me asks you something like "Should I send it?", so you can answer without pressing again. Not at any other time.

Where do the words on my screen go? To Show Me's own small relay, which passes them on to Google's Gemini service, which sends back the explanation it speaks to you. The relay runs on Cloudflare, which carries the traffic like any internet company. Nowhere else. Google keeps them for a short time to check for abuse, and does not use them to improve its products.

Do you keep any of it? No. There is no account and no login. The relay passes each request along and does not save it: all it counts is how many requests came in today, added together for everyone. What is stored on the phone is your settings (button position, subtitles, voice), the three answers you gave at the start, family words you taught it (like which contact "my son" is), and a few counts, like how many times it has answered. Only your plan and today's question count are sent with each request; the rest never leaves the phone. No screen contents, no questions, no answers are saved.

Can it see my passwords or my photos? No to both, and not as a promise but as how it is built. Password boxes are skipped entirely and never read. It reads the words a screen is made of, not the picture on it, so photos and video are invisible to it.

What about my contacts? They are searched on the phone and never sent anywhere. Contacts permission is optional; without it everything works except finding people to text or call.

How do I delete my data? Uninstall the app. That deletes everything Show Me stored on the phone. There is no account to close and nothing about you held by us. Google keeps requests for a short time for abuse checks, under its own terms, and our relay keeps only a daily total for everyone, deleted after two days.

Setting it up for someone else

Can I install it on my mother's phone? Yes, with her knowledge and permission. It is for helping someone, never for watching them. Show her the button and how to turn it off.

Will I have to keep fixing it? It is meant to survive on its own. If Android switches it off, the setup screen says so and walks you through turning it back on.

It asked for "full control of your device". Is that safe? That warning is Android's, and every screen reader gets it, because reading the screen and pressing buttons is exactly what the app does when asked. What it does with that permission is described above and in the privacy policy.

I turned on the simpler home screen and want it back. Ask Show Me to put your home screen back, or press the button for it on its setup screen. If Show Me has already been uninstalled, it is in the phone's own settings: Settings, then Display, then Easy mode. An app that has been removed cannot change anything back, so undo it before uninstalling.

Money

What does it cost? It is free while it is being tested. Nothing can be bought in the app yet. The plans screen shows what it is meant to cost later: $4.99 a month for up to 15 helps a day, or $9.99 a month with no daily limit.

Will I be charged by surprise? No. During the test nothing is charged at all, and no payment details are asked for. If paid plans start, nothing will be charged without agreeing to it first.

Is there anything to cancel? Not during the test. If paid plans start, they will be Google Play subscriptions: cancelled in Google Play, and deleting the app will not cancel one. This answer will say exactly how on the day that happens.

Who made it

Who is behind this? It is built by one person, a student, with a family member as the account holder. It exists because a grandmother needed it, and it is tested on real people rather than on a spec.

How do I get help? Email lukas@lukaswebdesign.com. You will get a real answer from a real person, which is one advantage of being small.