[mac4theblind] What new in IOS 5 and accessibilty
- From: "Bubba" <bubbathegeek@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <mac4theblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2011 04:03:18 -0400
FYI, read below.
Bubba
bubbathegeek@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: [a-iOS] what's new in iOS 5 for the iPhone: from an accessibility
standpoint
Hello all.
This article was posted this morning in a few places and I thought I'd also
post it here.
Enjoy,
what's new in iOS 5 for the iPhone: from an accessibility standpoint
By Scott Davert
There are many enhancements to iOS 5 that are not directly related to
accessibility. Features such as the ability to now update your phone over
cellular networks and Wifi, Apple's new iCloud service, a feature called
reminders, iMessage which lets iPhone users communicate with one another via
iOS's own messenger program compatible with all supported iOS devices, a
revamped notifications system, support for Face Time over 3g, and many more.
For more information from Apple regarding these features, see the
appropriate link at the end of this article. Several articles on the web
already cover these features in great detail, so this write-up will not
focus on the general features. It will focus more on what's new for those
individuals who are blind, deaf, and deaf-blind. for more information on the
basics of accessibility and how to use it with Apple's mobile operating
system, please see the appropriate link at the end of this article.
Under settings/general, you will still find the accessibility menu. it
contains a lot more features which are now better organized. For example,
there are 3 different headings now: Vision, Hearing, and physical/motor.
We'll start with the enhancements to vision, and then discuss the other 2
headings in turn.
Vision:
One of the liberating things about operating within the Apple environment
with their desktop and laptop solutions for those who are blind has been the
ability to walk up to any Apple machine running Mac OSX 10.5 or later, and
press command f5 to launch Voiceover. That same universal access has now
come to Apple's mobile operating environment.
With any device running iOS 5 or later, whether that's an iPhone, iPod, or
iPad, one can simply press the home button 3 times quickly to launch
Voiceover. Not only is this good for trying products in a store, but it's
also great to know that one can now take an Apple product out of the box,
and be up and running with it independently in seconds. Unfortunatley, for
those who require braille support and have no hearing or vision to pair
their braille display of choice, this does not help. While it is true that
one can connect a braille display to a Mac computer through USB and it will
begin running in seconds, this will not work for Bluetooth.
An issue that Verizon customers using braille displays encountered in iOS 4
was that each time you wanted to use a Braille display, you had to go in to
settings/general/accessibility/voiceover and manually repair the 2 devices.
It was not necessary to reenter the pairing code, but the display would not
pair with the phone automatically like it did with all other Bluetooth
devices. An individual who did not have enough hearing or vision to
reconnect the 2 devices had to rely on someone else to repair them, or go
without access to their iPhone.
This has been fixed in iOS 5. It was tested with the Refreshabraille 18,
Focus 40 Blue, and BrailleNote Apex braille devices. Now the only pairing
issue, which is with both the Verizon and AT&T versions of the phone is that
you must repair the display once the phone is set in to "airplane" mode and
then turned back off. Bluetooth is disabled in airplane mode already.
Voiceover in iOS 5 is much clearer. This is because the text-to-speech
engine was upgraded to a higher sampling rate. This text-to-speech engine
will install after iOS 5 has installed and once a WiFI connection is
available. iPhone 3GS users have reported some sluggishness with the new
voice, but iPhone 4 users shouldn't have an issue. The old "compact voice"
is still available, and can be toggled off and on within the Voiceover
settings.
With the language rotor, Arabic, South African English, and many other
languages have been added. The web rotor is now just called the Rotor.
Several new options have been added. one of these is the ability to use
vertical navigation instead of moving left to right across web pages. This
is a feature that many users of Windows based screen readers will probably
enjoy, since it puts WebPages in a more familiar navigational system. In
addition, the ability to independently adjust the volume of Voiceover is now
included in the rotor. This comes in handy when you don't want Voiceover
coming on much more loudly than your music and interrupting the jamming of
your favorite tune. Also, a rotor setting has been introduced which will
allow the user to have all items shown, and a rotor setting specifically to
jump to searchable edit text boxes has been added as well. A feature has
also been added to Voiceover called "item" chooser. "item Chooser" is useful
when you wish to jump from item to item in bulleted lists, for example.
While we're on the subject of navigation, several new options have been
added to the "quick nav" function of Voiceover. One can now jump between
links, form fields, headings, and many other settings on web pages with one
key navigation when "Quick nav" is turned on. TO see a complete list of the
"quick nav" commands available, please use the appropriate link at the
bottom of this article.
Finally, the ability to add custom labels to buttons has been added to
Voiceover. For those apps or web pages which contained unlabeled buttons
that Voiceover cannot identify, if you are able to identify these buttons,
you can then name them whatever you would like in Voiceover for future
interpretation of these unlabeled elements.
One of many minor fixes in Voiceover is that the calendar now works well
with Voiceover. Before, when moving from day to day, Voiceover would report
that there were no events for that day, even if this were not true. If you
double tapped on that day, you could find out otherwise, but not just by
scrolling through the different dates. This is now fixed in iOS 5, and
Voiceover reports the proper number of items for each specific date.
While I wrote at the beginning of this write-up that I would not be covering
the mainstream improvements, one of significant note is that when you
receive notifications such as text messages, previous versions of iOS would
read them outloud when the screen was locked.
That could pose some privacy issues or embarrassing moments if some
conversations were overheard if speech is on but one can now turn the
reading of notifications off when the screen is locked.
Hearing:
There are a few new features for those who are hearing impaired. IOS 5 has
the ability to add custom vibrations to each of your contacts so that you
can tell who's texting you without ever having to look at or listen to your
phone. This feature was designed with the deaf and hard of hearing
population in mind, but can be useful for the rest of the iPhone populous as
well. While you could always customize whether an alert in "silent mode" by
setting it to a specific number of vibrations, now you can choose from
specific patterns to identify certain contacts. No more needing to worry
about who that text message you received was from while in a meeting.
Another feature for hearing impaired customers is an LED flash for alerts.
Some users prefer this to vibrations for whatever reason, so it's just
another option for showing that you have alerts.
Have a mono ear piece? Can you only hear out of one ear? Ever wanted to have
one ear bud in while listening to the environment around you?
That's now possible with the "mono audio" setting. All sounds will be
directed in to one audio channel, which eliminates the stereo effect.
Also, one can adjust the balance of the 2 audio channels in the iPhone if
they wish to do so.
One feature, however, is absent in the Verizon version of the phone but is
in the AT&T version. This is a mode called "hearing aid mode".
Hearing Aid Mode is supposed to enhance the usability for those hearing
impaired customers who utilize special coils in their hearing devices to
pick up the sound of the phone. This gives the hearing aid user the option
to isolate the sounds coming from the phone from those in the environment
around them. however, as the iPhone is more than a phone, it produces a lot
of interference with this mode of operation.
Hearing Aid Mode was developed to alleviate this issue. As I have yet to
test an AT&T iPhone, I am not sure how effective this feature is, only that
it exists for AT&T customers, and does not for Verizon customers. Clearly,
this is something Verizon should be forced to address given the recent
changes in laws set forth in The Twenty First Century Communications and
Video Accessibility Act.
Physical/Motor:
A new feature called AssistiveTouch allows those users with limited
dexterity to set up different gestures that will tell the operating system
to perform specific tasks. This could range from answering a call to
scrolling around the screen. Also, it's possible to determine what gestures
activates icons on the Home Screen. While this is a great feature, those
using Voiceover will not be able to take advantage of it, since Voiceover
intercepts all gestures.
One other feature within AssistiveTouch is the ability to control the
tracking speed of scrolling. This is a feature that could both potentially
help those with physical impairments and those who have low vision.
Another added capability is to tell the phone where calls should be routed
to. For example, if you always use the speaker phone instead of the
earpiece, you can specify where the call will go to automatically.
While this is something that is under the Physical/motor category, it could
also come in handy for those wishing to use hearing aids that do not want to
use the earpiece.
Conclusion:
As one can tell from the length of the list of accessibility features, Apple
has gone to great lengths to promote universal access of its products. They
have not only updated the operating system with Voiceover and other features
in mind, but have also added new features to these portions of their
product. I would like to commend them on their continued dedication to this
access. The best part about iOS 5 is that it is a free upgrade to all
customers. It is compatible with the following devices: iPhone 4, iPhone
3gs, iPad 2, iPad, and the iPod touch 3rd and 4th generation. Obviously,
the iPhone 4S will come loaded with iOS 5, so no upgrade will be required.
Other Resources:
Apple's "New features in iOS 5" page:
http://www.apple.com/ios/features.html
Accessible iOS FAQ:
http://aios.applevis.com/
List of "quick nav", Gestures, and other keyboard shortcuts:
http://axslab.com/articles/ios-voiceover-gestures-and-keyboard-commands.php
updating iOS Software:
http://support.apple.com/
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