Call me crazy. I carry my own meteorologist around in my pocket. I check the temperature, outdoor conditions and the forecast several times a day. I guess I am crazy. But the iPhone’s Weather App is a great personal meteorologist. Well designed,, it lays out lots of information in a simple, easy to read...
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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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Following my earlier review of free Twitter apps on the iPhone, Accessing Twitter from the iPhone, a reader suggested I check out his favorite Twitter app, Tweetie. Tweetie is a feature-rich Twitter app that has added a couple of valuable accessibility features in its latest release, making Tweetie worth the $2.99 price tag. If...
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Facebook, despite its ubiquity, has naver been very accessible. The pages are densely cluttered with an overload of information. Since the company is not doing much about it, there is now a Facebook Accessibility project going on at the volunteer developer group, Project Possibility. But I digress. Facebook has developed a free app, Facebook...
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WritePad is a handwriting recognition engine for the iPhone from Phatware. WritePad is the free basic app that powers Phatware’s more functional suite of apps, WritePad Affairs, WritePad Events and WritePad Notes. WritePad Supports iPhone and iPod Touch 2.0 or later WritePad is a new custom editor for iPhone that utilizes handwriting recognition input...
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Apple previewed the upcoming summer release of the next iteration of its iPhone platform today. A small portion of these features have been documented on the web at the iPhone OS 3.0 Preview.How will iPhone OS 3.0 affect iPhone accessibility? To be honest, it is way too soon to say. Apple’s show today highlighted...
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The iPhone Mail app offers an adjustable minimum font size. It is not obvious how to access this setting. Apple buried this feature in the Settings app and can not be accessed from the Mail app itself. From the home screen, tap on the Settings app. Then tap on the Mail, Contacts & Calendars...
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It has been pointed out to me that an effort to convince the iPhone developer community to embrace accessible design may have more fruitful approaches. Specifically, I have been told that it would be more effective to lobby Apple as well as individual app developers. If you find this post useful or interesting, please...
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An Open Letter to Steve Jobs and the iPhone Development Team Over the last few months, I have dedicated much of my time and blog to thoughts and reviews of the accessibility of the iPhone platform for the visually impaired. Since I am partially sighted with some functional vision, I have been focused on...
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Spotted today on Slashdot, Amazon Releases iPhone Kindle Software. “The Amazon Kindle 2 just started shipping last week, but Amazon surprised everyone late on March 3rd by placing the Amazon Kindle software for the iPhone in the Apple App Store. With the Whispersync technology you can now keep your Kindle and iPhone ebooks in...
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Earlier today, I reviewed several ways to access Twitter on the iPhone, Accessing Twitter from the iPhone. I compared the TwitterFon and Twitteriffic apps with Twitter’s mobile web site. How accessible is Twitter on the iPhone? Besides receiving tweets as expensive text messages, there are multiple iPhone apps that access your Twitter stream as...
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Twitter calls itself a a microbloogging service. What the heck is a microblog? Basically, it is a mix of blogging, text messaging and emailing. The New York Times’ David Pogue offere his take on Twitter in Twitter? It’s What You Make It. Pogue is right. Twitter is in the eye of the beholder, so...
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On every digital device, some piece of the screen is almost always lost to toolbars. Windows has its Task Bar. Each individual software has its title bar up top, usually following by the main menu bar. The iPhone’s browser has the same issues. As you can see on the right, a portion of the...
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A few days ago, I had begun to despair that my attempt to bring about more iPhone accessibility would be a long, lonely waste of time. Apple has been unresponsive to my campaign. Few contacted developers responded to my suggestions. I turned to a few iPhone developer forums. At rirst, I had little luck...
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