iPhone 3GS with VoiceOver Easiest Smartphone for Blind People?
According to David Pogue in the New York Times, the accessibility features like VoiceOver introduced with the iPhone 3GS make it one of the easiest smartphones for the blind and visually impaired:
First, you tap something to hear it. You can tap icons, words, even the tiny status icons at the top of the screen. As you go, the voice tells you what you’re tapping. “Messages.” “Calendar.” “Mail — 14 new items.” “45 percent battery power.”
Once enabled in the settings, Pogue details how new gestures like double-tap to launch, two-finger upward flick to read, three finger flick to scroll or go to next/previous screen, and three finger triple tap to turn the screen off and save power.
You can also use “the rotor”, a two finger circle, to change the way other gestures work — proofreading text character by character rather than word by word, for example.
Supported languages included Bahasa Indonesian, Chinese (Cantonese), Chinese (China), Chinese (Taiwan), Dutch, English (US), English (UK), English (Australian), Finnish, French (Canada), French (France), German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish (Mexico), Spanish (Spain), Swedish, Thai, Turkish.
For more on VoiceOver, see Apple’s overview.
July 16th, 2009 at 7:49 am
that’s kinda cool
July 16th, 2009 at 8:44 am
This is a joke, right?
July 16th, 2009 at 8:47 am
No it isn’t a joke I just turned this feature on. It’s very good and very intuitive.
July 16th, 2009 at 11:13 am
Ok, I’m not trying to be insensitive here… but are there a lot of blind people out there wanting to take photos and video? And even if there were… how would they know what they are actually filming? Maybe I am missing something.
July 16th, 2009 at 11:16 am
Somehow I don’t see it being the easiest phone for blind people. I mean it’s a touchscreen. I’d think actual hardware buttons would be easier.
But then again I’ve never used VoiceOver so I wouldn’t really know.
July 16th, 2009 at 11:49 am
VoiceOver has been available for how long?
July 16th, 2009 at 11:50 am
Plus the Iphone is all touch…how could it possibly good for blind people?
July 16th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
As someone with a disability and as an advocate I’m eager to know if the iPhone is a good phone for the blind. I could maybe see it being OK for the visually impaired but not sure about the the blind. As for the video question, just because they can’t see it doesn’t mean they don’t want to remember it. Maybe they would use the Voice Memo app for that. I don’t know but I’m going to a 3 day disability conference in August so I’ll ask some of my blind friends. Either way it’s nice to see companies including accessibility features in their products. Go Apple!
July 16th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
It’s not and app. You have you use voice over for yourself to see how it works. Voice over is on all 3GS iPhone under the setting menu. So turn it and and give it a try I’m sure that you would be impressed. As for the blind people question about taking pictures, is there another phone that would be easier for boing people to take pictures on?
July 17th, 2009 at 12:42 am
warning! i tried this and it was indeed kinda of cool for about 1 minute then got really annoying THEN i could not figure out how to scroll and get to the menu for reversing this feature, took me 20 minutes of google and playing around with my phone to finally turn it back off. gesh
July 21st, 2009 at 8:39 am
Hi
As a blind person I can safely say the I phone is, actually, usable. I’m a totally blind individual. Why are you annoyed? Its not rocket science – you tap an icon, it tells you what it is, double tap and it clicks it. Only thing I don’t like is the on screen keyboard, takes gettin used to. I tried it in the store, but I think I’l still go with a nokia e71. And by the way, I do take pictures. Just because I’m blind doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be able to make that decision…jeesh! Anyway how does the e71/n95/I phone compare in size and looks? What looks the best, that’s part of my buying decision. Leaning towards e71/I phone though as n95 feels too flimzy (slider is plastic etc).
September 15th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
I am an actual blind person. This article got a friend of mine excited that I could use the 3 G I phone. Its total BS. touch screens do not work for the blind. Using this voice feature I could not make a call, read a text, or change settings. that is hardly accessible. I like seeing companies show an interest in accessibility, However I’m annoyed that bold claims are made falsely clearly without testing with a population of actual blind people.
September 19th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
hey im seriously not trying to be insensitive, but i am actually rly interest, how do blind people read online articles like this?
September 23rd, 2009 at 8:03 pm
To answer the previous commenter, blind people use screen readers to read a page like this out loud. Those with some vision would read enlarged text.
As for the iPhone, I too am glad to see an interest in accessibility but a flat screen with no tactile landmarks at all wouldn’t be very usable. Better to have buttons that can be felt. Nice attempt though.
January 8th, 2010 at 10:52 am
hey there i am a blind person to i am very interested to know if that program is availible on the iphone 8gb as i was informed its onlhy on the 16gb and the 32gb mmmmmm if it is cam some one help me!!!! i know a blind person who uses one and they love the iphone i use a e71 currently but i want to getsomething that would be more app friendly