[access-uk] IPhones IPads and their accessability
- From: "Yusuf" <yusufaosman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 20 Jun 2010 12:47:15 +0100
I paid a visit to the Apple store on Upper Regents Street yesterday. Whilst
the staff were knowledgeable and helpful I found the environment impossible.
The store is huge and extremely noisy. There are tables with demonstration
models of various Apple products. You stand at the table in order to play
with the various toys. Not a particularly helpful environment for someone
who is blind to really get to grips with a completely new interface, but I
was determined to spend as much time as I could on examining an IPhone and
an IPad.
I first looked at the IPhone. I found that the icons seemed to be crushed
together often leaving parts of the screen where there seemed to be nothing
at all. Also I found double tapping very difficult. I'm not sure what I was
doing wrongly, whether I wasn't tapping fast enough, or if my finger moved
slightly between taps which meant they weren't counting as double taps, even
though Voice Over was repeating the name of the item I was trying to select.
After what felt like an hour, although was probably more like 15 minutes my
double taps did seem to be improving, but I still found the process
cumbersome and terribly frustrating. Definitely no way near the speed I can
achieve on my N95.
I found the IPad even harder to navigate. Because its larger than the IPhone
there are even more parts of the screen with nothing. Double tapping was
still a problem and I found typing with the keyboard in the notes app
difficult and frustrating. I thought the IPad had a different interface than
the IPhone, but either this particular model didn't or its a function that
you can change in the accessibility settings. By this stage however I'd
spent over half an hour and had had enough.
My whole interest in the IPhone was based on the fact that I'm due an
upgrade on my phone, but given my experiences yesterday I'd need quite a bit
more time playing with an IPhone before I'd be comfortable even considering
an upgrade. I've been trying to think back over my experiences of computers,
phones and PDAs. The first computer I saw was a BBC and that would have been
in the mid to late 1980s and although there have been huge changes in
computers, speed, power, operating systems, the interface from a blindness
perspective has changed very little. We're still using a keyboard which is
pretty similar to what we would have used 20 years ago. Even with my
Trekker, I've got a tactile overlay over the touch screen. The IPhones and
IPads are a completely different prospect using a tactileless interface and
I do have serious doubts about whether I'll be able to make that transition.
I shall be writing to the accessibility people at Apple to see if there's
any way I can arrange a time and date to spend a few hours playing with an
IPhone in a quiet environment, that's the only way I'm ever going to find
out if its worth considering. I suppose I could upgrade and then return it
within the time period, but right now I'm not even going to consider that.
Of course this is one person's perspective on a short play with both
products and I know that there are a number of blind people who are happily
using IPhones, I'm not sure if I'll be one of them though and more seriously
I wonder where all this touch technology is going to leave me.
Yusuf
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