My new iPhone: the first forty-eight hours
May. 9th, 2019 01:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kestrellMy new iPhone arrived on Tuesday morning and I have to admit, I am truly impressed by the level of accessibility offered in both iOS and Apple as a company. The least accessible part of the whole process of purchasing, receiving, and getting the iPhone running and registered was finding the link to purchase the phone I wanted from the Apple Website.
Full disclosure: I had sighted help with that part and with a couple otherparts of the process, such as getting Siri started and registering the phone. However, Apple provides a service which is particularly useful for users with disabilities: as soon as Apple is alerted that your phone has been delivered--and the user will also get an alert for this--an email gets sent to the user's mailbox with a link to schedule time with a live Apple tech support person who can assist the user through the starting and registering process, including turning on the phone's accessibility features and transferring information from a previous phone to the new phone.
Once the phone is charged and on and Siri has been turned on, the user can tell Siri to turn on Voiceover, the iOS screen reader and, with the use of both Siri and Voiceover, it's relatively easy to learn a number of the most basic tasks from the first day.
Apple's Vision Accessibility Webpage
https://www.apple.com/accessibility/iphone/vision/
offers a clearly written user guide in HTML and other formats, including a downloadable braille version, which walks the user through the set up and registration process before moving on to the basics, using apps, and more complex tasks
https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/welcome/ios .
The Apple Vision Accessibility Web page also includes links to other learning resources for blind users, but the standout is the
Hadley School for the Blind instructional videos
https://www.hadley.edu/InstructionalVideos/
which also cover many other Apple products, including the iPad, the Apple Watch, and Apple TV.
The Hadley School instructional videos (which are also provided in downloadable MP3 format and in transcription format) includes separate videos for low vision versus blind users, and each has a number of accessibility features specific to that user's needs.
With Siri and Voiceover turned on, and the information covered in Hadley's "Beginning Voiceover gestures" video
https://hadley.edu/PlayVideo.asp?vid=32
the user should be able to make and answer calls and texts, read notifications, check time and weather, and have Siri turn Voiceover on and off.
These videos are clear and concise, and divided up into time durations which are informative without being overwhelming, and include descriptions of the screen and orienting oneself to move around efficiently and relatively quickly.
After spending two and a half years as an Android user, I can say that Android does not provide this kind of conformity or detailed description. When I began looking for my first smart phone, I really didn't want to be locked into an OS or subscription service, since my entire move away from assistive technology was to have more choices. Android is still kind of a Wild West of phones and apps, and so there is not enough consistency to be able to find something as basic as a description of what your individual smart phone's screen (really, the word I should be using here is desktop) is going to look like, let alone offer instructions for using whatever apps you have chosen from the multitude of possibilities.
Bottom line: the thing I disliked most about the iPhone--the interface's standardization and conformity--proves itself to be its best feature when it comes to being able to develop and describe accessibility. This is why accessible appsare being developed for the iPhone that are just not even there for Android.
In addition, Siri is far more robust than OK Google. I haven't been able to get OK Google to read me new messages for months now--it kept telling me that there were no new messages. Siri announces new notifications and lets me access them every time.
Another issue: documentation. I could never find the level of documentation for Android apps that is right at your fingertips--quite literally--with iOS. Apple provides user guides online, including in downloadable braille format. Perhaps Android and Google provide detailed, as opposed to very brief, documentation somewhere but, if so, I could never find it.
One thing that Apple users often fail to communicate is how accessible the basic iOS is: users always want to talk about their music apps and GPS apps and apps that walk the guide dog.
Note: my iPhone is an SE, a version which has been discontinued, but I wanted it because it is somewhat more narrow than the standard iPhone--I have kid-sized hands with arthritis--and a physical home button that is easy to find, plus it's one of the most basic iPhones, so it's a little less expensive. One cool thing about having a physical home button and the smaller phone is that I can hold it and press down the home button in order to use Siri and/or dictate texts.
Full disclosure: I had sighted help with that part and with a couple otherparts of the process, such as getting Siri started and registering the phone. However, Apple provides a service which is particularly useful for users with disabilities: as soon as Apple is alerted that your phone has been delivered--and the user will also get an alert for this--an email gets sent to the user's mailbox with a link to schedule time with a live Apple tech support person who can assist the user through the starting and registering process, including turning on the phone's accessibility features and transferring information from a previous phone to the new phone.
Once the phone is charged and on and Siri has been turned on, the user can tell Siri to turn on Voiceover, the iOS screen reader and, with the use of both Siri and Voiceover, it's relatively easy to learn a number of the most basic tasks from the first day.
Apple's Vision Accessibility Webpage
https://www.apple.com/accessibility/iphone/vision/
offers a clearly written user guide in HTML and other formats, including a downloadable braille version, which walks the user through the set up and registration process before moving on to the basics, using apps, and more complex tasks
https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/welcome/ios .
The Apple Vision Accessibility Web page also includes links to other learning resources for blind users, but the standout is the
Hadley School for the Blind instructional videos
https://www.hadley.edu/InstructionalVideos/
which also cover many other Apple products, including the iPad, the Apple Watch, and Apple TV.
The Hadley School instructional videos (which are also provided in downloadable MP3 format and in transcription format) includes separate videos for low vision versus blind users, and each has a number of accessibility features specific to that user's needs.
With Siri and Voiceover turned on, and the information covered in Hadley's "Beginning Voiceover gestures" video
https://hadley.edu/PlayVideo.asp?vid=32
the user should be able to make and answer calls and texts, read notifications, check time and weather, and have Siri turn Voiceover on and off.
These videos are clear and concise, and divided up into time durations which are informative without being overwhelming, and include descriptions of the screen and orienting oneself to move around efficiently and relatively quickly.
After spending two and a half years as an Android user, I can say that Android does not provide this kind of conformity or detailed description. When I began looking for my first smart phone, I really didn't want to be locked into an OS or subscription service, since my entire move away from assistive technology was to have more choices. Android is still kind of a Wild West of phones and apps, and so there is not enough consistency to be able to find something as basic as a description of what your individual smart phone's screen (really, the word I should be using here is desktop) is going to look like, let alone offer instructions for using whatever apps you have chosen from the multitude of possibilities.
Bottom line: the thing I disliked most about the iPhone--the interface's standardization and conformity--proves itself to be its best feature when it comes to being able to develop and describe accessibility. This is why accessible appsare being developed for the iPhone that are just not even there for Android.
In addition, Siri is far more robust than OK Google. I haven't been able to get OK Google to read me new messages for months now--it kept telling me that there were no new messages. Siri announces new notifications and lets me access them every time.
Another issue: documentation. I could never find the level of documentation for Android apps that is right at your fingertips--quite literally--with iOS. Apple provides user guides online, including in downloadable braille format. Perhaps Android and Google provide detailed, as opposed to very brief, documentation somewhere but, if so, I could never find it.
One thing that Apple users often fail to communicate is how accessible the basic iOS is: users always want to talk about their music apps and GPS apps and apps that walk the guide dog.
Note: my iPhone is an SE, a version which has been discontinued, but I wanted it because it is somewhat more narrow than the standard iPhone--I have kid-sized hands with arthritis--and a physical home button that is easy to find, plus it's one of the most basic iPhones, so it's a little less expensive. One cool thing about having a physical home button and the smaller phone is that I can hold it and press down the home button in order to use Siri and/or dictate texts.
Whoo hooo!
Date: 2019-05-09 10:58 pm (UTC)Do you have a Popsocket yet? It's a life changing accessory, a button that accordions flat on to the back of the phone and then expands to create a smooth stud with a dollar-coin shaped cap. This slides between your fingers so you don't have to grip your phone at all.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-10 12:12 am (UTC)(I will never forget my shock when I signed up for NLS in 2001 and discovered that they *only* provided documentation in large print. What were those of us who couldn't read large print supposed to do?)
Re: Whoo hooo!
Date: 2019-05-10 11:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-10 11:10 am (UTC)Every. Time.
In the 1990s, I heard this question a lot, and my blind friends and I would joke about how we were supposed to have pet sighted people with us 24/7, so disabled services providers didn't actually have to talk to disabled people.
Really, the Web and online services happened just in time.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-13 02:49 pm (UTC)Re: Whoo hooo!
Date: 2019-05-13 03:02 pm (UTC)The Tap Strap looks like a great idea, although initial users claim you can't just tap against your body, but must have contact a hard surface.
I've just downloaded Flicktype, a word-at-a-time keyboard optimized for eyes-free users.
Re: Whoo hooo!
Date: 2019-05-13 04:00 pm (UTC)Re: Whoo hooo!
Date: 2019-05-13 09:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-23 09:28 pm (UTC)Ack! What the heck was that librarian thinking?
My pet sighted person right after I became partially sighted was my mother, who skipped over passages when reading aloud forms to me. I soon learned I needed to do stuff myself.
The problem was finding the technology to do so. I went into tears early on because I couldn't read the microwave instructions on a frozen dinner, I couldn't find anyone to read the instructions to me, and my scanner/OCR (which was a gift from my father) was too primitive to handle such matters. Today I'd snap a picture with my phone and use Voice Dream's OCR app to read the instructions.
I am so very glad I became visually impaired just as all this technology was coming into existence. I can't imagine what it was like to be blind in the twentieth century. (Well, actually I can, because my best friend from college was blind. Life was icky for her.)