I wanted to write about how blind people can use an iPhone, using my own experiences.
Although iPhones, iPods and iPads have touch screen technology, they are totally accessible to blind people. The screen reader is called VoiceOver and comes pre-installed on the iPod Touch third and fourth generation versions, iPhone 3GS, 4 and 4S and all three of the iPads. There is also screen magnification software called Zoom that comes pre-installed on the same devices.
The way VoiceOver works is you can move your finger around the screen and it will read out the icon you have under your finger. When you find the item you want, double tap anywhere on the screen to activate. You can also do a short flick with your finger and it will move between the icons in the order they are set out.
Typing is totally accessible on the iPhone as well. To work it you move your finger around the keyboard and it reads out the letter or number you're on, then lift your finger off the screen to type it. The VoiceOver gestures are exactly the same on the iPod touch, iPhone and the iPads.
An app I find helpful, if you don't have an iPhone 4S, is Vlingo. It is free from the app store. It's the same as Siri on iPhone 4S, apart from it won't speak back to you or set alarms and reminders, but it is good for speeding up typing for web searching, emailing or texting. You could say something like "text mum, message, what are you doing tomorrow" and it will bleep and put mum into the inbox and put what are you doing tomorrow in the message box. So all you have to do is press send.
Note that Vlingo won't get everything right the first few times you use it as it gets used to your voice and accent over time. You can manually type to edit messages before you send them, and Vlingo works fine with VoiceOver.
Unfortunately I don't have enough sight to be able to test out zoom, but there is an article about it on Apple's website for more information on the other accessibility features: http://www.apple.com/accessibility/iphone/vision.html
If you need any help with VoiceOver or any apps on the iPhone, iPod or iPad, leave a comment and I will be happy to help.
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