[real-eyes] Fw: Mainstream GPS Products, Part 1
- From: "Terrie Arnold" <tanderson3@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <real-eyes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2007 17:07:45 -0500
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From: "BlindNews Mailing List" <blindnews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2007 5:00 PM
Subject: Mainstream GPS Products, Part 1
> Blind Confidential (Blog)
> Friday, April 06, 2007
>
> Mainstream GPS Products, Part 1
>
> By Chris Hofstader
>
> Ever since I acquired my T-Mobile DASH Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone and
> installed Code Factory's Mobile Speak Smartphone (MSS) it has, for many
> purposes, taken on the role of my favorite piece of accessible technology.
> If you search this blog for previous mentions of MSS or Code Factory's
> other products, like MSP for PDA units, you will find that I really enjoy
> a lot of their product features and, of course, the philosophy of running
> on off-the-shelf hardware. If you look back at these earlier Blind
> Confidential posts, you can read specifically why I find the products so
> enamoring but, in a nutshell, size (my PDA is under 6 ounces, my T-Mobile
> Smartphone is under 4 ounces), price (PDA under $300, Smartphone, $250
> plus the cost of the screen reader) and flexibility (lots of off-the-shelf
> software and peripherals available for these devices that work
> out-of-the-box with the Mobile Speak line of products).
>
> I wanted to use a GPS program on my Smartphone so I could better navigate
> around my area while walking with my guide dog and because I think such
> gadgetry is cool. My philosophy, learned from years of working on JAWS,
> favors finding off-the-shelf software and hardware and, perhaps, writing
> scripts for the screen reader to better enable it to work with commercial
> software. To this end, I started doing a survey of off-the-shelf GPS
> programs for WM5 Smartphones.
>
> Inspired by a post on the MSP mailing list, I started by ordering a copy
> of Copilot Live from ALK Technologies.
>
> LINK:
> http://www.alk.com/copilot/smartphone.asp
>
> Some other MSP users report having success with this software on their PDA
> devices so I thought it worthwhile to try out the Smartphone edition. The
> software, which does not have a downloadable demo, costs $149 plus
> shipping and comes, with maps of all of North America, on a pair of CDs.
> To start with, the installation process is an accessibility nightmare.
> With help from my wife Susan, we managed to get the software and the maps
> onto the device.
>
> I started testing Copilot Live inside my house and without a GPS unit
> attached to my Smartphone. To my amazement, absolutely everything that
> contained text read perfectly out-of-the-box. I changed the settings to
> request directions for a pedestrian and Copilot Live generated maps for me
> that avoided all major highways, ignored one-way streets and did a
> terrific job of creating walking directions. Copilot Live has an
> "itinerary" view which provides an editable list of streets one will
> travel as an alternative to the visual maps which, of course, reads
> perfectly with MSS.
>
> I then took my Smartphone outside along with a Blue Tooth GPS receiver I
> bought off of ebay for about $70. Copilot Live recognized and paired with
> my device as soon as it found and fixed on satellites. I could read the
> GPS coordinates the number of satellites it had found and other
> interesting bits of information that the software could find in its map
> information when attached to a GPS unit. I used the Copilot Live "this
> place" command and it found my home address which, as I was standing in my
> front yard showed very good accuracy.
>
> Next, I had Copilot create a route for me to a known place a few blocks
> from my house. I put the dog in his harness and selected the "start
> walking" option from the Copilot menu. At this point, frustration starts
> setting in. I followed the itinerary but received no voice prompts from
> the software. I walked back home and called ALK technical support and
> they informed me that, in pedestrian mode, they do not give voice prompts.
> I went back outside and selected the "start driving" option from the menu
> and started walking the same route only to find that I still didn't get
> voice prompts. I walked back home and called Kevin, now becoming my
> friend at ALK technical support; he checked with his boss and then told me
> that the software doesn't give voice prompts when the GPS unit is moving
> less than 5 miles per hour. I then gave up and put the software back into
> its box to send it back for a refund.
>
> If a blind user wants to use a GPS program to generate directions and
> doesn't care about prompts while walking, Copilot Live serves as a nice
> and very accessible, cost effective solution. For blind people who mostly
> ride in a car and want to ensure that a cab driver isn't ripping them off
> or to help their driver with directions, Copilot Live is a nice solution.
> If, however, you are like me and want voice prompts while walking, you can
> pass on this one entirely.
>
> I next went to take a look at Destinator/Smartphone.
>
> LINK:
> http://www.destinatortechnologies.com/index_gb.html
>
> Destinator is the software at the heart of Freedom Scientific's StreetTalk
> GPS solution for the PAC Mate so I assumed they would have some
> understanding of accessibility. I read all about their Smartphone product
> on their web site but couldn't find a downloadable demo. So, I called
> their technical support people to ask about the major problem I had with
> Copilot. The friendly young woman who answered the phone said, "No, we
> don't work very well under five miles per hour. Our pedestrian mode isn't
> very good." I chose not to order the software in order to avoid needing
> to return it.
>
> I next went to the Wayfinder web site and downloaded the 10 day demo for
> their Smartphone version.
>
> LINK:
> http://www.wayfinder.com/
>
> At CSUN, Wayfinder announced that they would soon release Wayfinder/Access
> for Symbian phones and that it would work with Mobile Speak from Code
> Factory. Although I own a Symbian phone, I don't use it as I prefer the
> Windows Mobile platform. Also, Wayfinder/Access is estimated to cost
> something like $550 when released and the standard Wayfinder/Navigator for
> all of the platforms they support costs only ?149, so I thought I should
> at least try the Smartphone version.
>
> As a slight aside, I find that Windows Mobile Smartphone software products
> tend to work well with MSS out-of-the-box more often than PDA programs
> work with MSP or PAC Mate or desktop programs work with Window-Eyes or
> JAWS. One major characteristic of WM/Smartphone programs is that every
> user, sighted, blind or otherwise, must operate the software using the
> keys on the phone. Thus, virtually everything can be accessed from the
> keyboard by default. Also, because WM/Smartphone devices tend to have a
> limited amount of memory, authors of such software tend to avoid custom
> controls and such to keep their footprint to a minimum.
>
> Thus, with the general knowledge that WM/Smartphone programs tend to be
> accessible, I downloaded the WM/Smartphone version of Wayfinder to give it
> a spin. The installation went smoothly but, when I started running the
> software on my T-Mobile DASH, few things read properly. I showed the
> screen to my wife who said, "This software isn't accessible for sighted
> people, it's blue on blue with a blue highlight." After an email exchange
> with the people at Wayfinder, I learned that their Smartphone software is
> for Windows Mobile 2003 and, although they have WM5 software for the PDA,
> they haven't done it for Smartphone yet. This little fact isn't mentioned
> on their web site anywhere. So, I'll put the Wayfinder investigation on
> hold until they catch up to the OS on my phone.
>
> I moved onto Mapopolis/Navigator which has a downloadable demo and
> downloadable maps.
>
> LINK:
> http://www.mapopolis.com/home.jsp?v=c&pg=dl&s=1175238813873548&p=&q=7
>
> The Mapopolis web site isn't entirely intuitive but, with a bit of poking
> around, I got everything downloaded. The installation of the software and
> maps went smoothly and I went on to explore the interface. Mapopolis uses
> some combination of standard and custom controls. According to its FAQ,
> if one is using a WM5 device that employs Microsoft's Blue Tooth driver,
> you cannot auto-detect your GPS unit. The dialogue where one enters the
> information to help the software talk to a GPS unit does not talk properly
> with MSS and, after a bunch of frustrating tries, I learned that, even
> with help from a sighted person, that the combination of my phone, my
> no-name GPS device and this software would never cooperate. I gave up
> trying when I read on their web page that they could not provide accuracy
> greater than 50 meters when trying to say where one is standing.
>
> The next product in my investigation is called Route 66.
>
> LINK:
> http://www.66.com/route66/products.php?cid=US
>
> It has no downloadable demo and correspondence with their technical
> support people said they also do not work well at pedestrian speeds. I
> moved on.
>
> The last product I've tested so far is called GPS Utilities from
> Efficasoft.
>
> LINK:
> http://www.smartphone.net/software_detail.asp?id=2495
>
> This one has the major advantage of costing only $17.95; its major
> downside is that it is completely useless for a blind user. GPS Utilities
> displays maps as scrolling bitmaps and has no speech output. The
> interface reads nicely so one can plan a route with a screen reader but
> cannot follow it. Needless to say, in spite of a very polite note from
> their technical support team, this product cannot be recommended for use
> by blind people.
>
> There are about 20 more WM/Smartphone GPS products I've yet to try so look
> forward to a part two to this story in the coming weeks. For now, I would
> have to say that none of those programs I tested are ready for prime time
> use by us blinks. Copilot Live comes the closest but the search will
> continue. I do not know whether or not Trecker, from Humanware, works on
> either a Smartphone or on a PDA with MSP but it does work very well on
> mainstream hardware. Of course, Trecker is vastly more expensive than any
> of the mainstream products I've tried so far which is, of course, the
> result of it being a blind guy ghetto product.
>
> -- End
>
>
> http://blindconfidential.blogspot.com/2007/04/mainstream-gps-products-part-1.html
>
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