A floating teleprompter on iPhone and iPad: read your script over any app

Float the prompter in three taps

1. Open the script in Telepromptme and set your speed, text size and margins as usual.
2. Touch and hold the play button in the dock. A short press starts the normal prompter; holding it opens a menu.
3. Choose Play Floating. The script shrinks into a small window and starts scrolling.
4. Swipe home or switch apps. The window stays on top, still scrolling, over whatever you open next.

The window behaves like any picture-in-picture video on iPhone and iPad: drag it to the corner you want, pinch to make it larger or smaller, and tap it to get back to the full prompter. Because it is a system window, it works over every app, including the ones that would never let a teleprompter inside them.

Put the window in the corner nearest the front camera. On an iPhone held upright that is the top, so your eyes stay close to the lens while you read.

What it is for

• Video calls. Keep your talking points over FaceTime, Zoom or Teams on the phone, in the part of the screen you are already looking at.
• Livestreams. Read your intro, your sponsor lines or your outro over TikTok Live, Instagram Live or YouTube while the stream keeps running.
• Other camera apps. If you must record in a specific app, float the script over it instead of memorising the take.
• Presenting from the iPad. Run your slides in Keynote and keep the speaker notes scrolling in the corner.

Settings worth changing first

A floating window is small, so set the prompter up for it before you float. Go one or two text sizes bigger than you would use full screen, and widen the line spacing if you can. Timer mode is a good fit for a live intro that has to land in a set time; Speed mode is better for a call where you are glancing rather than reading continuously.

If you need to pause or change speed without touching the window, an Apple Watch or a second device can act as the remote, which keeps your hands out of shot.

The same idea on a Mac

The Mac does not use picture-in-picture for this. Instead the prompter window itself can be made see-through and kept in front of every other window, which is the setup for reading a script on Zoom, Teams or Google Meet. For a second display or a teleprompter rig there is also a duplicate prompter window.