Apple iPad

Apple’s new iPad has had me doing some thinking about its potential impact fro the visually impaired, particularly for blind photographers. Reading an article today (thanks, Dad) about a new e-book reader software, Blio, soon to be put out by a company run by Ray Kurzweil, prompted me to consider a new issue, accessible photography books (and magazines). I rarely read books about photography. The font is universally too small, the books too heavy and there are no audio editions. The iPad has the possibility of changing this.

Blio is supposedly designed to enrich the e-reading experience with audio, video and web content. On a device like the iPad, with its large, high-resolution color screen, we could see the release of more photography-related media. With text-to-speech, we could even see the advent of accessible photography books and magazines.I can imagine looking at full-screen images while listening to the accompanying text. Not only would this a be a great format for re-releasing books by the masters, but this would also be a great format for every photographer with a story to tell. Scott Bourne has already expounded about the iPad’s potential as a digital portolio. On his Photofocus blog post, What the Apple Tablet Will Mean to Photographers, Bournes writes that “(t)he portable portfolio will get an amazing jump-start because of the new tablet, and all the competition that follows it.” The next step is for photographers to publish e-books, through sites like Blurb, for the iPad and the tablet platform in general.

Tim O’Brien is a regular columnist on Blind Photographers. Legally blind, Tim writes about accessibility, photography and, occasionally, both together. You can find out more about Tim on his blog or by following him on twitter.

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Apple's iPad

As I followed today’s announcement of the new Apple iPad, I began to imagine how, if at all, it could make photography easier. I already have its tiny older sibling, the iPod Touch, which I am using to compose this post. The iPad looks to be mostly a jumbo version of the Touch. The Touch has not been a big aid photographically, but the iPad really could take that step.

The photography blogger. Scott Bourne, has already expounded about the iPad’s potential as a digital portolio. Via What the Apple Tablet Will Mean to Photographers « Photofocus, “(t)he portable portfolio will get an amazing jump-start because of the new tablet, and all the competition that follows it.” As a visually impaired photographer, I see a different possibility. One of my biggest difficulties using a camera is its tiny LCD screen. I can not use it for instant feedback. I can not review images as I make them. Waiting until I can upload the photos to my computer (and its large monitor) is both tedious and burdensome. At a minimum, the iPad would make a great device for quick, if not quite immediate, feedback. Withe the large, high-resolution screen, the iPad would make for a great way to quickly review photos in detail, particularly with others. There are related dedicated devices, the so-called portable media storage devices, available now, such as the Epson P-3000, but the screen sizes are a puny four inches. The iPad has more than twice the screen size at a comparable cost.

The main obstacle is getting photos from the camera to the iPad. Apple has not added any external memory card reader, though there are iPod accessories, like thei Belkin Media Reader, that offer this functionality. According to Apple’s iPad web site, there is an official Camera Connection Kit which “gives you two ways to import photos and videos from a digital camera”, meaning a USB port and an SD care reader. Even better would be a wireless connection. The iPad, like the Touch, has both Bluetooth and wi-fi built in. Until camera manufacturers build in wireless capabilities, devices like the Eye-fi wi-fi card could make this wireless connection. We would just need an eye-fi app for the iPad. An early version of such an app is PhotoUpLink for iPhone, which allows “(f)ree, easy WiFi photo sharing between iPhones and iPod Touch” and is “(a)vailable at the iTunes App Store“.

Eventually, if Nikon and canon and the rest build in Bluetooth, the iPad could also begin to augment the viewfinder. With a remote camera control app, the iPad could assist in framing and composing images directly. Apparently, remote camera control apps already exist. DSLR Remote offers some of these features, though it appears to require that the camera be tethered to (i.e. plugged into) a computer loaded with DSLR Remote software.

With the right app and connection, the iPad offers to expand the world if photography even more to partially sighted. I, for one, will keep my fingers crossed. If anyone needs a beta tester for any related apps, you know where to find me!

P.S. Check out this video demonstrating PhotoUpLink’s iPhone image sharing:

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