(also posted here)
This time last year I was bemoaning the general state of accessibility and new technology and grieving for the accessible camera that might never be (accessibility vaporware) But now, you get a fully accessible camera and you get a great smartphone to go with it, the iPhone 3GS. Reading the flood of blog posts since it introduction it seemed that most missed the revolutionary thing Apple has done: produce a mainstream, cool device that is accessible right out of the box. And they made a touchscreen device accessible to boot. The viphone email list has been positively buzzing since the iPhone went on sale, on june 19th. It is interesting to see how liberating this is. No longer is it necessary to use expensive after market solutions to make a device like a nokia smartphone accessible. I own a nokia E71 + Talks and Wayfinder Access, a combination which set me back 1200 euro and kind of works but not quite. Now that the iPhone is accessible many things I could only dream of having at my disposal suddenly are. To have a camera, albeit a toy camera, that is fully accessible, that I can control, is an unexpected gift. Now if there are photo apps like ezimba, or camerabag and the flickr uploader that are voiceover compliant, I could control my entire workflow again, from capture to post processing to upload. I already wrote to Peter Meijer, who has developed vOICe, which I use as a sonified viewfinder on the Nokia to ask him whether he could port to iPhone. He does have an Android version available, but even with the eyesfree initiative gathering traction, Android is far from an accessible operating system. But I could imagine having an app that adds a sonified overlay to the camera and so acts as a viewfinder if you drag your finger on the screen. I can imagine all kinds of possibilities.
One of the things I considered was how I would be able to use the iPhone as a note taker if it could pair with the Apple Blue Tooth keyboard. This is not possible at the moment without jailbreaking and hacking the iPhone to load a bluetooth keyboard driver. But it should be possible now that a new group of users is starting to use the iPhone. It is remarkable what Apple’s move has unleashed. One thing is that the blind/visually impaired device market may possibly implode. Pricing in that market is aimed at subsidizing government bodies, not at individual users. But who needs the KNFB reader when someone can code an accessible ocr app that reads the text it scans with the camera? I’d pay $0.99 for that, instead of $1200. Heck, I’d pay $75 for that! A number of viphone regulars have already indicated that they’d take up coding for the iPhone, and I’ve been tempted too. It would be great if a community of blind iPhone users were to develop their own apps. In that sense, the current iPhone is an immensely empowering device and Apple cannot be praised enough for its efforts. But now I must wait for my iPhone to arrive. I’m on a waiting list.
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Thanks for blind eye view on this exciting new product! As an owner of the iTouch (the Iphone without the phone and camera), I read anything and everything I can about this amazing product, but see little out there pertaining to visually impaired applications that could make them more accessible than they already are.
I just downloaded a major update for the Touch, and tough I haven’t had time to test drive them all, just the new horizontal keyboard makes typing even more easier since it enlarges the letters so that I can actually type an e-mail without putting on my magnifying prism glasses!
From the few people from the Apple support team that I have talked to, I get the idea that they are not even aware of how enabling these 2 products are for the VIP.
I was encouraged to leave feedback (good and bad) at a web address given to me, and have done so regarding the lack of contrast in their grey on white lettering on most of their screens such as setting, e-mailing, etc. This is one of the worst possible combinations for me to read, and it would be great if there was a choice of font colour and even font size.
As far as I know, there is nobody on their team who is visually impaired, and this market has not been seriously addressed, which I feel is an oversight (pun intended) on their part since I feel there is a whole margket share out there just ripe for the picking if they can get a few more ducks in a row.
I wonder if this new voice activation capability is actually meant to be an accessability feature for the VIP, or just a novelty for teenagers hungry for the next new thing to make a cool item even cooler? My cell phone has this feature, and I know it was not put in for my benefit, since nothing else about the phone was, and the one phone made for users such as us, resembles a Fisher Price toy, as so many adaptive products do, making them rank very low on the coolness scale.
Any thoughts on these issues?
I’m getting an iPhone 3GS in a few days’ time, so by then I should really know. I think that his is a game changing product regarding Blind and VI users of technology.
more information here:
http://www.icanworkthisthing.com/docs/iphone/index.shtml
and here
http://groups.google.com/group/viphone
(it’s an email list, with huge traffic, as people are sharing their experiences and tips on using the iphone)
finally, writing to accessibility@apple.com will get you through to the accessibility support team.
and adding: it’s not “voice activation”, it’s a full implementation of a voice interface and it makes the iphone FULLY accessible right out of the box, including the built in apps and a number of 3rd party apps. So, in my opinion, Apple have really broken open the VI market with this device.