[infoshare] Matilda Ziegler Magazine for the Blind » Blind iPad Review

From: "Luis Guerra" <free_speech@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <"Undisclosed-Recipient:;"@freelists.org>
Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2010 10:23:41 -0400
Hi, Just thought I'd pass this useful info along.
Blind iPad Review

Posted by Matilda on April 12, 2010; This entry is filed under
Technology Tips,
assistive technology.

Cheree Heppe is a Ziegler reader and she decided to send me her fantastic
review of the newest product from Apple, the iPad.  Thanks for sharing,
Cheree!
Enjoy.
I actually did it! I took the light rail to the Apple store and saw one of
those iPads in the flesh on the Saturday morning that it went public. For
me,
the pictures do nothing to allay my curiosity, since I am totally blind.
Portland, Oregon boasts both corporate and non-corporate Apple stores. The
Apple store I visited was a corporate one.
That whole up-scale inner city mall was jumping with people, so it was no
problem finding directions down to the Apple store.
When I got off the escalator, there was this incredible double line nearly
to the escalator. The line reminded me of a snake dance, except most of the
would-be customers were keeping their excitement under tight rein and were
standing still, maybe afraid to dance while being videoed by the TV station.
Someone saw me on TV because the Apple store crowd was being panned by the
TV station reporters. I wasn't dressed for TV photographing, just my hair
swept
back with a silver headband, long, wool, cranberry cloak and jeans and Kili,
my black and tan German shepherd dog guide in her white harness.
It was busier in that apple store than at a Vegas casino!
There were Apple staff outside the store directing traffic. One of these
guys escorted me inside and arranged for me to see the demo model with it's
case
on, but the demo model which came newly unpacked ran out of charge and the
Apple rep and I moved to the display tables to continue my examination of
one
of the plugged-in models.
I have been stopping by the Apple store, dipping my figurative big toe into
the stream for months now, wanting to migrate from the Windows based
platform
with its third party accessibility to the integrated Apple platform, but
hadn't felt Apple systems welcomed blind users sufficiently to be fully
accessible
until now.
The iPad feels about like a MacBook Air in thickness; it feels slimmer than
my NetBook. The glass is flat to the edge of the horizontal surface with a
circular, concave Home button embedded flush into the face of the glass very
near the bottom middle of one short side. The active portion of the screen
starts maybe a half-inch in from its edge.
The Apple rep explained how the icons are arranged on the screen. This is
standard and once you get the feel for the gaps and positions, it all stays
the
same. That's what he told me. There is a physical volume toggle switch near
one end of one long side. No fiddling with screen settings for volume, just
handily bump the toggle up for loud or down for soft. The earphone jack is
on one short side near a corner, flush with the metal side but easily
recognized
by touch and out of the way. The sound is good and the jack would hold
earphones solidly so they wouldn't fall out while being ported or moved.
There is
a physical switch near one end of the long side of the iPad to lock it into
whichever position, portrait or landscape, the screen is oriented.  There is
a recessed connector on the opposite short side of the iPad from the
earphone jack to charge it or interface it with a computer. This is
apparently called
a doc connector. The on/off switch is located on the edge of the iPad, but I
can't recall exactly where. The back and sides are metal and the sides are
curved inward from their widest point where they interface with the glass to
where they taper in a rounded way to the back side. The back side felt flat
with no features, but I didn't look really carefully and the case covered
the back of the device.
Even while not being facile with Voiceover or the tap and flick finger
navigation motions, I got the iPad to go on to a website, to go into E-mail
and
apps store, and to read a book.
The iPad can interface with a Windows based or Apple based computer.
The cover or case that it now comes with is the first cover before everyone
else makes something. It looks like the outside of a thin notebook without
the binder rings. It opens from the long end and the flap tucks behind the
iPad with the bottom edge tucking into a built-in slot in the back of the
case.
This allows the iPad to sit at a comfortable slant.
Apple plans to have a dock for a keyboard if the user remains stationary.
The Apple guy suggested getting a wireless keyboard and Bluetooth to pair
the
two if one plans to be mobile.
The iPad should not be thought of as a tool solely for low vision people. 
I'm
a no-vision user and can work the iPad well, for being a new user and having
no experience with configuring the Voiceover settings.
To use the iPad well, a blind user should have a strong spatial sense. I
mean that the touch method for the screen depends on knowing where the icons
reside
in space in relation to other icons on a flat glass plain.
I speculated that if a blind user wanted to use a certain app a lot, such as
the typing virtual keypad feature, a tracing could be made of the positions
of the icons and someone could cut out an overlay of light plastic, like a
glorified check writing guide or a stencil. That way, a blind user could
tactilely
locate the positions quicker. Imagine a sheath of light plastic overlay
cut-outs the shape of the screen for different standard uses, such as typing
or
web surfing, carried in a sleeve or pocket inside the front cover of the
iPad case. This idea is based on knowing virtually nothing about how the
icons
refresh or whether they change position, etc.
What a gadget! Accessible right out of the box. If Apple can insist on
accessibility across the entire platform as standard foundational basics for
any
app developer, blind consumers will have a lot of amazing possibilities with
this device and won't have to be shunted off to the separate-but-equal, but
not quite accessible, side of things.
Apple has caused a totally unexpected paradigm shift with this iPad, at
least in my thinking.


http://www.matildaziegler.com/2010/04/12/blind-ipad-review/comment-page-1/#comment-641
[infoshare] Matilda Ziegler Magazine for the Blind » Blind iPad Review

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