Posts Tagged ‘ apple ’

Is the iPad the ultimate accessible electronic accessory? Of course not, but it has some serious potential. Right away, iPad 1.0 already wins the accessible tech toy race hands down. With a few small changes, next year’s iPad 2.0 could begin to render many low vision aids obsolete. Out of the gate, the iPad...
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Blind Photographers has written already about iPhone photography ins Shooting the iPhone 3GS. What will the iPad bring to the table? Nothing yet, as the tablet, like its older sibling, the iPod Touch, lacks a camera.  However, hope is not lost. PCWorld reports that they are  Sleuthing for an iPad Camera. “General consensus is...
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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...
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Despite Apple’s leading efforts in accessibility technology, I have always found iTunes extremely hard to use. Apple’s major focus has been on VoiceOver and screen reader software compatibility. There are many visually impaired computer users out there (and right here) who have not made the switch to a non-visual interface, preferring to rely on...
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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...
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Apparently, Apple has been listening. I have blogged much over the past six months on the iPhone’s missing accessibility features; more zoom, more color contrast and more voice. Today, Apply announced the next iteration of the iPhone, the 3G S, and it has taken a giant step in the right direction. Apple introduces these...
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A while back I posted a tip about adding IDs to the iPhone wallpaper. This tip involved adding your contact info manually using an image editing software on your desktop. Too tricky for most, including me. Fortunately, it turns out that ther is an easier way to do this. There are to similar apps,...
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As spotted on MacWord’s iPhone Central, Ars Technica is reporting that iPhone OS 3.0 to feature voice control and feedback. Various voice-related features, under the codename “Jibbler,” have been discovered in the version of SpringBoard set to ship with the next update to Apple’s mobile operating system. …. Not much information is known at...
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Google’s iPhone app brings most of Google’s many applications under one roof. It refers most features to that application’s mobile web site. Google Talk is one of these applications. Since my wife and I are one of those couples that instant message each from one room to the other, I wanted to test this...
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To keep track of all the blogs I like to follow, I use Google Reader. It has a nice clean interface and works in any browser from anywhere. So, I naturally wanted to check this out for the iPhone. Like most of Google’s online applications, access to Google Reader is through its mobile web...
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Apple has worked hard to make progress towards giving blind people access to the iPod system. The big move for Apple is the 4th generation iPod nano, which offers spoken menus and large font with high contrast screen and backlight. Unfortunately for me, this came out just before my last iPod upgrade. Apple paired...
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One of the most frustrating apps on the iPhone, from a readability point of view, is the App Store itself. Like it iTunes counterpart, the store uses unnecessarily tiny font.There is no workaround. You can’t zoom. You can’t go landscape. There is no font setting. You can’t even go to the mobile web site...
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Notes from a small field posted a neat idea for iPhone accessibility a couple of years back. He proposes an accessibility mode, where the iPhone (or any touch screen device) engages a very simple interface for the disabled. A while ago, I posted about a similar concept for the desktop computer, but that has...
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Fred’s Head blog just posted about Sight-Free Dialing with the iPhone. This caught my attention and brought me to the iHear Dialer app from KayZee Solutions. This is a great new accessibility app for the iPhone. iHear Dialer allows you to dial phone numbers without looking at the keypad. As you move your hand...
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Speeding up a recording used to make it sound like Alvin & the Chipmunks. Growing up, I had a cassette player for the blind that had a variable speed playback control. Being a kid, I used it mainly for entertainment value. Fun...
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