Hi Yusuf and all,I'm not sure where to start... well, I got my very first Apple product about a week ago. I can say it definitely takes more than a mere hour to get familiar with the new interface. However, after a day with my iPad I could check my emails, go online and even compose a short email. After few days I'm now using the iPad comfortably for many things and very happy with it. It's very intuitive. Having said that, I'm still not sure if iPhone will be for me because I'm not sure if I'll be able to text fast enough on a touch screen. Plus, mobile phones for me means one hand operation.
If you really want to make the best of your next visit to the Apple store you must read a little about VoiceOver hand gestures before you go. Yes it's about touching icons on the screen but there's a lot more than that to it. Reading only took me about half an hour and that made navigating around a lot more easy.
I'm not sure how to make this post more helpful, not sure where to start from as I said, but here's a couple of hints-
Touch the screen as close as possible to the item you need to activate then flick left/right to move to the next item until you find it.
Make use of the Rota so if you're on a web page for example then you can quickly jump to the next link or visited link by flicking upwards or downwards.
The mane point I suppose is to read the very short Voiceover manual before you get your hands on any of the Apple products. Intuitive as it is but reading is essential IMHO. Visit
http://www.apple.com/voiceover/info/guide/_1131.html#vo27992Not all commands at the above link are relevant to the iPhones/iPod/iPad I think but they got me started alright.
Hope that helps a bit, Amro----- Original Message ----- From: "Yusuf" <yusufaosman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Sunday, June 20, 2010 2:47 PM Subject: [access-uk] IPhones IPads and their accessability
I paid a visit to the Apple store on Upper Regents Street yesterday. Whilstthe 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 crushedtogether 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 wasdoing wrongly, whether I wasn't tapping fast enough, or if my finger movedslightly 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 mydouble taps did seem to be improving, but I still found the processcumbersome and terribly frustrating. Definitely no way near the speed I canachieve on my N95.I found the IPad even harder to navigate. Because its larger than the IPhonethere 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 appdifficult and frustrating. I thought the IPad had a different interface thanthe 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 anupgrade 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 beenin 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 andIPads 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 bothproducts 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 seriouslyI wonder where all this touch technology is going to leave me. Yusuf ** To leave the list, click on the immediately-following link:- ** [mailto:access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=unsubscribe] ** If this link doesn't work then send a message to: ** access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ** and in the Subject line type ** unsubscribe ** For other list commands such as vacation mode, click on the ** immediately-following link:- ** [mailto:access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=faq] ** or send a message, to ** access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the Subject:- faq__________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature database 5211 (20100620) __________The message was checked by ESET Smart Security. http://www.eset.com
__________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature database 5211 (20100620) __________ The message was checked by ESET Smart Security. http://www.eset.com ** To leave the list, click on the immediately-following link:- ** [mailto:access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=unsubscribe] ** If this link doesn't work then send a message to: ** access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ** and in the Subject line type ** unsubscribe ** For other list commands such as vacation mode, click on the ** immediately-following link:- ** [mailto:access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=faq] ** or send a message, to ** access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the Subject:- faq