Category: Cell Phone Talk
Hi are there any android users on here? If so, please contact me through here or PM. I have a few questions. Thanks much in advance.
I'm using Android, so I might be able to help. What questions do you have?
I want to know about using the internet with talkback. Anyone know of a good browser?
That's one place where Android is lacking, at least for us anyway. I'm guessing you don't have Mobile Accessibility, so the only browser you'll be able to use is called Ideal Web Reader. You should be able to find it on the market. It's based on gestures, like swiping your screen from left to right takes you to the next bit of content. This link might help you out;
http://apps4android.org/web-reader-tutorial/
Thanks I appreciate it. I also have a few games on mine. One called paper toss and bowling. They are fun. It's hard to find games that work for us people. But maybe one day I'll be able to buy the mobile accessibility.
I haven't tried any games yet. I hadn't even thought of it, but now that you mention it, I might.
I'm looking for a good android phone from sprint. Any ideas?
How well does the android screenreader from codefactory work? I've not heard much about it.
I tried it out the other night, and I really like it' It makes things quite streamlined. I will probably end up getting an Android once my phone kicks the bucket, assuming my replacement phone doesn't get sent to me :P
I love my android sampson intercept. I saw a shift once and didn't like it because any time you moved the phone it would tilt the rotation of the screen. I think the mobile accessability works great if I could pay the $99 for it. Hope this helps.
yes i have the htc evo shif and it is great
I've just had a bad experience with codefactory, and I'm not so sure I'm willing to go through it again. I think I'd rather get the IPhone since I have a mac and Ipod touch, but that's just me though. I was just curious.
Now that someone mentioned games,
I like the mem game from the eyes free project, really nice.
What was your experience like with Codefactory? I'm not very familiar with them
For users of T-Mobile, I have just recently got my daughter an HTC MyTouch 4G.
It is largely a touchscreen but does have the 5-way navigation control, and it does have onboard accessibility. I have not tried it as she is sighted, and quite naturally a sighted teenager a. does not so easily give up the phone, and b. is not particularly thrilled to have speech turned on on their own device: may not actually eeeeww at the prospect but may come close.
If it has Accessibility onboard, though, that means the manufacturer, HTC in this case, has not removed the APIs necessary for it.
She has the standard Android market. There are a few manufacturer apps onboard which could be seen as bloatware, at least the teenager would rather uninstall them, but you cannot.
Also, this device has a very good camera, one reason I did get it for the daughter who is an aspiring professional photographer. That means if you get it, and there is an OCR app in the Market, your chances of being able to read your mail with it are quite good. I don't know if there is such an app yet though.
Thanks leo! I was wondering about this phone!.
I also use an android phone with mobile accessibility, and it is very good, I would recommend that anybody getting one definitely needs to get one with physical controls and they would find that having a physical keyboard a plus. There are some things to be aware of, depending on the phone, they might find that the stock dialer is preferable to the phone dialer included in mobile accessibility but Mobile accessibility's web browser is better than ideal group's web browser. If the web browser can be accessed as the default web browser. Games are not well documented and as such, you will have to try and reject until you find accessible games you like. If you get one with a physical keyboard, turn off automaticly rotate the screen as that could drive you crazy. voic is an app to consider and a few accompanying apps might help. Google voic for android and read about it. There is a way to take a snapshot of an object and via email get an ocr representation of it. It is still a work in progress and at this time the IPhone is more accessible, but Android devices are quite usable. If you can, try one out before you buy.
Yay I have mobile accessibility now. I also downloaded a messenger ap and it seems to read everything even the alerts when messages come in, accept I can't figure out how to go from window to window. But at least it reads the web from within the mobile accessibility itself. I have some aps on my phone, but a lot of them are unaccessible.
Parden fore my ignorance but I too am looking to getting a android my touch 4g phone but I wonder can I use the touch screen to select options while on a call? How would you change the dialers fore android. Lastly and I will get out of your hair but is the netflix app accessible?
I haven't tried the netflics. But you should get one with a trackball or trackpad that way it's easier to navigate the screen.
I am the my touch 4g has one.
I am getting a Motorola FlipOut, which has a qwerty keyboard. I'll let you know how that goes!
eep the flipout I hear is absolutely horrible. To be honest, as far as android phones that are good for accessibility at & T android phones, which the flipout was a part of are the worst. The best company here in the states anyways with really good android phones is sprint. TMobile is not far behind though. My friend has a g2, and it's not a bad phone. I prefer my iPhone any day of the week, but some of those android phones show some promise.
For the person who asked me about my experience with codefactory, it wasn't necessarily that I had a bad experience with the company, but I did have a horrible experience with mobile speak 4. For one, the program was sluggish and in my opinion, complicated. Granted, I had a phone that came with a qwerty keyboard and a touch screen. The phone was the HTC touch pro2, and it broke 3 times within a year and a half, so needless to say, I no longer have an accessible phone, but that's OK. Now, I think my bad experience was due to having a bad phone, but I still thought mobile speak 4 was waaaaaaay overhiped. To be honest, I learned more about how to use my Ipod touch in a week than what I learned in 2 months with my "accessible phone." I was shocked at how easy a touch screen could work. Yeah! No more codefactory for me EVER.
BTW, they've come out with a TV accessibility deal called TV speak. I posted about it on another board topic. Personally, I think they're hurting and really struggling to stay in competition in the mobile accessibility market. Hopefully this program for the droids helps them.
I think it will and as fore mobile accessibility, I will post a small review on here this following month.
I got my phone yesterday, and my husband and I installed Mobile Accessibility on it. I'm having a blast! Not a big fan of IPhone, so was thrilled that there's a usable alternative. I'm not finding the Flipout bad at all!
Can those who are using mobile accessibility tell us about your adventures with the product? I am soon to jump to android so this would help.
I just started using it, and I am enjoying it. You can't set it up without sighted assistance, which I think is its main drawback, but I do really like it. I'd recommend a phone with a qwerty keyboard and/or navigation keys like a trackpad or trackball; it will make things so much simpler
thank you! I look forward too using it on a G2.
I am not familiar with that phone.
But yeah, I like Mobile Accessibility very much
Especially if it means not having an IPhone. I really don't like the fact that IPhone is really the only moderately affordable accessible phone. I got my FlipOut for very little money and just have to pay the $99 for M.A.
Yeah I love my mobile accessability too now that I have it. One little thing i can't figure out though. is how to type the underscore or the at sign. Oh well, that'll come with practice. I would never exchange it for the world. I like that it reads this game I have called Random trivia. It's a blast! And when I text people, I can even send ringtones as attachments. Woo hoo!
@The Royal Princess, if you have a hardware keyboard the @ sign is usually to the left of the shift key. If you have a dedicated number row it is also in the normal spot. Might I recommend an app called keyboard tutor. It will let you learn about your phone and where everything is. I have been using MA For a month and a half now and though I have found many things, especially with my phone I like equally outside MA, I love ma for the web app by itself. Now if they would only fix the annoying fact that the web browser can't be set as the global browser. Yes, you do need sighted assistance to set it up, that's why I would recommend to get talkback or spiel as well so that when you have to buy MA, and are required to uninstall the demo and reinstall the paid version, you can do so without sighted assistance. The iPhone is still King of accessibility but I for one won't ever look back as long as an accessible android device exists. I love a physical keyboard and would rather use my bluetooth for something else than a keyboard.
@Starfly, The g2 is a good phone as is the Cliq2, My phone of choice. The best thing to do is play with it and download a app called keyboard tutor. Also, if you use ma's phone dialer, if you have to use automated systems, you will need to press the menu key and use the hardware keyboard. Check out the ma mailing list through code factory, there are several users of the g2 that will be more than happy to assist you and tell you how to get around limitations. Ask them how they interact with automated phone trees, do they have to hold down the shift key and can they use the pound and star keys in a call as well. Otherwise, those who have one are quite satisfied with it.
well it looks like I am going with the my touch g4, does ny one here have that phone? Do any f you know people who have ithat are blind as well I need to know if Mobile Accessibility will work with the track pad. If not its back to the drawing board fore me. Where I am the G2 is not available now.
M.A. should work with the track pad, if the phone has Android version 2.1 or newer
yea!! it does the my touch 4g is running android 2.2 so next week on Thursday I will bee getting it and downloading mobile accessibility and eyes free shell.
Good stuff! :) I am trying to find some cool aps for the Android. Found some good ones, like an email client and some fitnes aps
The Flipout is a good phone; its only drawback is that you're stuck with Android 2.1, which is what it ships with. Motorola isn't releasing any future updates for it.
Well, I don't know what's so special about android 2.2 or 2.3, especially if the only benefit of 2.2 is that you can text using your voice (which makes it look like a 5-year-old wrote it)
Thank you crazy musician or kate fore the suggestion of apps you have find. Can you post in the board on the apps you use on a dayly bases fore android? If I am driving people crazy over this topic my bad! I just am new, want to know as much as I can fore android. Oh, when I can I will post a article about the update fore talk back! those who are like me and just want a touch screen are in luck because of the refresh of talkback.
Hey starfly.
I have only had my phone for a week, but the two aps I use regularly are:
K9 mail: an email client that can use all mail providers. Depending on your phone, Mobile Accessibility may only be able to work with gmail, but I rarely use my gmail account. K9 is great when I am away from my computer and need to get an email off to someone.
CardioTrainer: a fitness ap. It speaks for itself. It's not entirely accessible and takes some playing around with to get the settings to what you want, but I do love it. I can use it when I am on the elliptical or exercise bike in my home gym, or if I'm curious and see how fast I can get to work, how long it takes, or how many calories I've burned.
I've heard great things about a ringtone program called ringpro, but I haven't used it myself, so take that for what it's worth.
great!! keep posting more app suggestions
I will once I download some ;)
i use tuneing radio that is a good app!!! i like that alot you can stream local stations as well as menny more
here is a nother good app it is called HeyTell that works with the android as well as the iphone you send voice clips
ringo pro is good, and allows you to set sms tones for your contacts as well, If you have a desire to to assign ringtones to your contacts and the stock contact app that ships with your phone doesn't do this, ringo pro is the way to go. It could be better labeled, but if you play with it you will soon get the hang of it. Android Frio, AKA Android 2.2 adds voice recognition and the ability to move apps to your sd card. Gingerbread, AKA 2.3 adds better battery management and supports video chat with your ffc if your phone has one.
Thanks fore all the great advice. I am patiently waiting or not, just excited to see a lot of apps that are accessible to us. coming from the world of windows mobile 6.5 its a different beast then I am used too like most apps are not accessible from the ddiing platform even with moblespeak.
If you would like to hear reviews on Android apps, consider visiting:
http://www.blindtechsupport.net
I just got an Epic 4G a few days ago. I'm using Mobile Accessibility and TalkBack. I really like it.
I love that we can walk up to our friends computer if we are aloud to mind you, copy files to our SD card like music and unplug the device and off we go. I know, trivial but still its handy when your in a rush and need to leave soon.
Before I got my Epic I was using Mobile Speak on a really old Nokia phone which didn't offer me any access to apps or anything invented in this century. I think it's way cool that I now can have a fancy phone like all my friends. Even though you can't do everything with them, I think it's cool that Google and Android are making progress.
Lets see, we can do OCR with bills, text so so, listen to the radeo, surf the web and now download files and a whole lot more. We even can take notes, up load them to drop box and walla we have our notes every where we go. Lets not talk about games we can play, its far few in between but it is neet. I challenge someone to tell me their Iphone can do more then my android, we can compaire notes. I can not wait to see if the KNFB reader, comes to the android platform because they would have full access to our camra. for those who are blind and like taking pictures, we have a app called camra magic that is a great app for that purpose.
You don't really wanta challenge, there Starfly.
I respect Android users, same as I respect those building on ROS (robotic operating system): it's great for hacks and does some amazing things, and will probably wind its way into all sorts of places.
But when I'm out on patrol I'm still going to use a more locked device, iOS, because I'm personally responsible for a lot of people's data at that point.
Plus, I can look at Excel spreadsheets, PDFs, eBooks, even some charts, the lat/lon/min data, all sorts of practical and useful things on my iOS device.
You don't really want to start that sort of a challenge. I fully respect Android users, and there are of course things for which I profusely kick Apple around. But so long as I'm responsible for other people's well-being I'm using a device I can fully use, not one I can say is being worked on. I can open any filetype anyone sends from Exchange or anyplace else.
Still shocked Apple works with Exchange but many of you wouldn't be old enough to know why.
I mean no disrespect: My daughter has an Android phone. She's a teen, and it is great for her. Learned how to manage the security of things on there, and can do her email and a few other things of course play games and their favorite thing, text and text and send pics.
I still think a variant of both Android and ROS will end up in a lot of places, once they've been properly secured to actually manage people's data properly. But I don't think you want to do a iOS to Android comparison. That's like doing a throw-down between Symbian and Blackberry.
We are soon to get accessible office apps so even there the gap is closed as far as opening file such as word, excel and etc. All honesty, there is an app developer who got kick from the apple app store because he posted apps that were malware but looked very inisent. His last app got him booted because he added tethering to the app and apple bitched about it. So ya, its hard to get past apple's wall garden but its doable. Same with android, it might be easier to add malware to the market I bet google uses there kill swich when the find out its moulware and kills the app from the market. yes we do have antivirous programs now for our phone. There is a blogger who uses her android to update her blog on a daly bases, "access anna".
Doable? Name me one app in the Apple App Store.
Yes, the guy got kicked. That is part of the approval and disapproval process.
The difference really is that an Android is a computer. A Apple is what Steve Jobs called a Computing Appliance.
The difference between a computer and a computing appliance is that appliances must be ready to go at all times. You don't ask your stove to see if it's ready, or have to change the temperature on your refrigerator every few hours.
There are tasks for which a computing appliance will never ever do: hell, I'm a developer, so naturally I need all the modularity and openness of a real computing environment.
But for my mobile device, on the go, I'd rather have an appliance who can accept add-on modules (apps), like plugging in new accessories into the car or a rotisery into an oven.
They are practically speaking different worlds, and they solve completely different problems.
Yes, I'm sure there's an office for Android, and maybe now it will be made accessible. At its core it may be either Libra or Open Office. But to use it, you'll need to do the number of steps you do on a computer, rather thn just open the document the way you do on a computing appliance. The struggle to open links is not a struggle for a computing appliance. It's the same struggle a robot has when trying to learn to open a refrigerator by itself.
And it's the same reason robots are not yet in mainstream people's houses yet: they're still computers and in need of the specialized tinkering a computer requires. Japan is working on robotic appliances, and to a limited extent the U.S. has one, the Rhumba robotic vacuum cleaner. Not nearly there yet.
Just like Android, all the ROS-inspired hardware and the Microsoft ConnectKit cameras result in robots who are computers. Some wonderful experiments in robotic bipedalism and autonomous task management (tons of small robots working together as individuals on a team) are being done. And they'd be loads of fun to play with, I'd be diggin on that. But they're not the appliances the iOS devices are.
My daughter's MyTouch 4G phone freezes when she texts, and apparently that works for her and her friends, at least for now. They just go to settings and force-quit the application mid-text, then go back in and restart it / carry on like before, unimpeded as they are by most things when it comes to texting.
An SMS application is really not that difficult to get right. Even my wife's Nokia Series 40 phone doesn't do this. Of course there are myriads of justifications for it, I've read all the forums on her phone. They all sound like the way some people talk about this Accessibility business with Android, proving Android as a computer rather than a computing appliance.
If Android became a computing appliance and useful in the way an iPhone or a Blackberry was, it would stop with the ridiculous things like sms freezing, but it would also no longer be Android as we know it: a hacker's dream and a tinkerer's paradise. Its big brother Chrome OS wouldn't be as interesting either, most likely. That is an OS you can put on nearly anything Intel, and it too is open, raggedy and experimental. Truth be told, there is a place for both the computer and the computing appliance. They both serve different purposes. As long as you have to keep adding shells, removing stock apps and re-adding things just to make it work, it's a computer not a computing appliance.
That was an awesome explanation. You put into words almost my exact thoughts on the droid situation as it exists today.
how do i check for new apps on the market?
To answer your question how to check for new apps, you go to market place on your phone, not sure what home screen your using and lcick on apps to up data your apps press menu key my apps and look for updates
what do you know about android TExting app freezing leo sense you do not use one. The low in phones free because of its porssing power and you get what you pay fore. Ask those who have a mid range phone and a high in anhdroid, I do not see that at all.
What do I know of a freezing SMS app? What the teen has said, and her friends have said.
Is myTouch 4G a low-end phone? Kiddos got a thing or two to learn about money if they think it is. Lol
Seems like a good phone actually, runs reasonably well, nice camera, better than the Nikon camera she had before, not as good as the professional one she has now of course, but good enough for some of her photography projects.
I'd say a phone like that is a pretty impressive phone.
what my touch does she have, if its the LG one yes its a low in budget phone. There is the LG my touch line and HTC my touch line which is not a low in phone. The LG phone has a 1 gig hurts processor and 512 MB of ram and a @ gig of rom. The HTC my touch line has 768 MB of ram and a 4 gig enternal rom. Its can bee expanded to 32 GB of storage space with a 32 Micro SD card. So yes, the LG my touch line does freeze because its the budget phones. If you got her the HTC my touch slider, which is only beeing sold now, I have just the my touch 4G no slider, then it should not be freezing, my wife has this phone now. I just wanted to clearify the to product lines, if you ask a rep who is willing to actually explain the to my touch product lines, you would see LG is a budget phone and HTC has the high in phone model of the my touch. As for texting, for a blind person, its not necessary to find a third party ap to test with, however, I choose to use moble accessibility for calling texting and GPS.