Hi Steve,If you want some history on different GPS solutions used by blinks search on GPS on my blog: www.blindconfidential.blogspot.com as I've tested and reported on a ton of them. Sadly, the high priced AT company releases are really the only ones that perform well enough for hardcore pedestrian usage and most of them are the Sendero engine wrapped in a different interface.
For city/pedestrian GPS, my favorite combination is a Windows Mobile handset, Mobile Speak Smartphone, Mobile Geo and a Jawbone Blue tooth headset kind of thing.
As I prefer the iPhone with VO as an overall solution, I'm torn between carrying two phones or not. Sendero only works on Windows and, as far as I understand things, they are not likely to port to Apple or Symbian anytime soon.
So, for now, we're looking at a largely broken Navigon solution or something new from the cloud of hackers who consider blinks as part or all of their audience.
cdh On Aug 29, 2009, at 1:26 PM, Steve Hurd wrote:
I am glad I didn't by tom tom then. I am doing a series of articles for Guide Dogs Australia on gps solutions for their aurientation and mobility instructors, they bought a whole pile of Trecker Breazes, waisted their money in my view. Their it guy said Tom Tom will have speach to text commands and text to speach readouts, but I suspected it was going to be very minimal. I havn't got into Navigan too much yet, but hope to do so on a long trip in a couple of weeks. I hope their upgrades deliver on what you have suggested they will, and (smile) I wont tell a soul.Steve On 27/08/2009, at 7:14 AM, Chris Hofstader wrote:Hi,I've also been testing the Navigon application but doing so in Cambridge, MA and a little in New Jersey over the weekend. I have found that it works profoundly better in with its automobile profile than its pedestrian one.A lot of GPS applications that give turn by turn directions require that the unit tracking the satellites be moving at least 5 miles per hour (8 clicks) but Navigon seems to handle slower paces pretty well.What Navigon does very poorly is insisting on providing directions that avoid one way streets. Hence, my weekly walk to the local YwCA has truly bizarre directions and turn by turn instructions as it is constantly trying to get me to a street running one way rather than ignoring such for pedestrians. This problem causes Navigon to tell me that I am up to 500 meters away from a street that will actually get me to my destination. For pedestrians, in cities with one way streets it can be more harmful than good.I tried a trick that works in Mobile GEO and placed some custom POI on a route that takes me through Harvard Yard (a wide open area without normal street addresses) and told Navigon to include the three landmarks I dropped in my set of directions. This basically caused Navigon to completely lose its mind shouting at me to take all sorts of U-turns and take truly bizarre turns. As I had suggested above, Mobile GEO has a concept of open areas and this sort of thing works quite well.Of course, Mobile GEO is nearly ten times the price (I got it for free to write some articles about it) so, if the above abnormalities and weirdness are not a problem for you, plunk down the $70 bucks and use Navigon; personally, I think I am going to return it and try to get my money back.As for Tom Tom, there announcement said quite explicitly that it provides turn by turn *automobile* directions. Having talked with their engineers, they are completely attached to the 8 clicks per hour minimum rate which means that a person needs to run pretty fast to keep up with tT.Although I haven't tried the iPhone version, TT works terribly with the various flavors of Mobile Speak and Talx. It has a common UI layer for all platforms so it looks exactly the same whether you have an iPhone, Windows Mobile, Symbian, etc. This creates a huge problem for API driven screen readers as they will, for all intents and purposes, get little or no useful data from the system and, consequently, not be able to tell you anything useful.So far, Navigon seems the best mainstream solution even with the problems I discuss above. Also, I think Serotalk said that Navigon will have a lot of these problems fixed in an update scheduled for December. If it wasn't on that podcast, I probably heard it from a confidential source so don't tell anyone I let the cat out of the bag <laugh>.Happy Walking, cdh On Aug 27, 2009, at 8:40 PM, Steve Hurd wrote:Hi,I have used that one, not as good as mobile geo, but ok. Has anyone tried the tom tom iphone application?On 23/08/2009, at 6:25 PM, Greg Kearney wrote:I have been testing the Navigon GPS application for the iPhone which is accessible with VoiceOver and can provide turn by turn navigation while walking. It seems to work well here in Australia, there are U.S. Canada and European versions as well.It does not give street names but the names can be read off the screen if needed. I will be suggesting adding TTS to the application when running under VoiceOver. It's a good by at about $60 quite a bit cheaper than most other accessible GPS solutions.Gregory Kearney Manager - Accessible Media Association for the Blind of Western Australia 61 Kitchener Avenue, PO Box 101 Victoria Park 6979, WA Australia Telephone: +61 (08) 9311 8202 Telephone: +1 (307) 224-4022 (North America) Fax: +61 (08) 9361 8696 Toll free: 1800 658 388 (Australia only) Email: gkearney@xxxxxxxxx On 24/08/2009, at 9:47 AM, VaShaun Jones wrote:Thanks, I got that all set now for another question coming soon. On Aug 21, 2009, at 9:59 PM, Brett Campbell wrote:Yes. Go to settings, general, accessibility, select the VoiceOver on button, find the speaking rate, you will hear a number as a percentage, with the number in focus flick your finger up or down to change the speaking rate. Simply back out when you're finished.Brett On Aug 22, 2009, at 12:58 AM, VaShaun Jones wrote:Listers, Is there a way to speed up the voice on the I Phone? VaShaun Jones (President)Cobb County Empowerment Chapter of the National Federation of the Blind of Georgia Inc.Office Phone: 678.603.4881 Cell:678.662.7481 Web URL: ccecnfb.orgClick on the link below to go to our homepage. http://www.icanworkthisthing.comManage your subscription by using the web interface on the link below.//www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceover Users can subscribe to this list by sending email to macvoiceover-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxwith 'subscribe' in the Subject field OR by logging into the Webinterface at //www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceoverVaShaun Jones (President)Cobb County Empowerment Chapter of the National Federation of the Blind of Georgia Inc.Office Phone: 678.603.4881 Cell:678.662.7481 Web URL: ccecnfb.orgClick on the link below to go to our homepage. http://www.icanworkthisthing.comManage your subscription by using the web interface on the link below.//www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceover Users can subscribe to this list by sending email to macvoiceover-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxwith 'subscribe' in the Subject field OR by logging into the Webinterface at //www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceoverClick on the link below to go to our homepage. http://www.icanworkthisthing.comManage your subscription by using the web interface on the link below.//www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceover Users can subscribe to this list by sending email to macvoiceover-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxwith 'subscribe' in the Subject field OR by logging into the Webinterface at //www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceoverClick on the link below to go to our homepage. http://www.icanworkthisthing.comManage your subscription by using the web interface on the link below.//www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceover Users can subscribe to this list by sending email to macvoiceover-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxwith 'subscribe' in the Subject field OR by logging into the Webinterface at //www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceoverClick on the link below to go to our homepage. http://www.icanworkthisthing.comManage your subscription by using the web interface on the link below.//www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceover Users can subscribe to this list by sending email to macvoiceover-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxwith 'subscribe' in the Subject field OR by logging into the Webinterface at //www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceover
Click on the link below to go to our homepage. http://www.icanworkthisthing.com Manage your subscription by using the web interface on the link below. //www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceoverUsers can subscribe to this list by sending email to macvoiceover-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'subscribe' in the Subject field OR by logging into the Web interface at //www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceover
