Category: Cell Phone Talk
Well, I tried android, finally.
My wife has an older 2.3 gingerbread phone, and I just tried out the talkback screen reader.
The only way I know how to say this is that it was absolutely terrible.
I'm no apple fan boy, and I don't have any particular brand loyalty toward Apple, but holy frickin god.
I don't see how a blind person could ever use a droid phone in a work environment, or when productivity was needed.
Ok you can make calls, and you can text (sometimes), but all else on droid is just inconceivably terrible. The text to speech voice sounds like a child's toy with a broken sound chip or something. Also, thank god the phone had a keyboard with arrows, cause the touch screen was so sluggish as to be practically useless when the talkback program was running.
I was pretty open minded about android, going into it. I didn't believe that it could possibly suck as bad as people say it does, but alas, my faith was misplaced.
I hope apple keeps up its smart phone accessibility, because if we blind folks are ever forced to rely solely on droid, we are... how to say this delicately... totally and completely fucked.
That is all.
Come on now, you tried out an "older 2.3 gingerbread phone" and feel qualified to make sweeping generalizations about the accessibility of the Android operating system?
Test out a phone running Jellybean and then feel free to tell us we're screwed. Come on, you should know posts like these aren't fair because you're using old software and hardware. I'm still not at all convinced that Android and IOS are "equal" in terms of accessibility as some Android fanboys like to claim, but posts like yours just add to the confusion and misinformation about the operating system in general because they're so out-of-date.
Try iOS 1.0 or 2.0, no wait, they don't have Voiceover support at all.
Be fair, if you compare OSX 10.7 and Windows 3.11, you'll find it awful (unless you are Tiffanitza of course, she'd love it, lol).
I am testing out Jellybean myself right now, still think Voiceover on iOS6 kicks its ass for the most part, but the difference really is a lot less than any Apple fanboy would try to convince us (and I am not putting you in that category). So please don't make this mistake again, it just does not make you look particularly informed, it makes you look like you are finding any excuse to poop on Android, and it is absolutely awful science.
I am sure this was an honest mistake and just an oversight on your part, and I am in no way claiming you are not genuine and a smart person, so please try and find a Jellybean phone, try it out, and then give us your honest assessment, it'd be interesting to see. I'll post mine in a few days.
Well, I'd love to try jellybean, but I just had a lot of trouble with gingerbread. I just don't think android's for me at the moment.
okay, to be fare, you tried a older device, I doubt your wife updated the talkback that is in the play store. So this is not fare, its like me comparing an old mac OS to win7. :) guess what, I am posting this with my new mac, dam, if I said it sucked compared to windows I would be a dumb ass. So please go find a jelly bean or ICS along with a updated talkback just got released to the play store and come back. Please do not post boards like this, it degrades your creditability. :) Those who know me, now you can say "starkly" told ya so about mac. lol
Lol so let me get this straight? You tried an older version of Android on a possibly low-end phone, didn't modify anything to meet your needs, and then made a judgement call based on your findings?
While I completely agree with your sentiment that Android isn't the platform for you, there are several of us who are blind and rely solely on our Droids to meet our needs.
What stood out to me the most in your comments was your dislike for the voice that comes out of the box. Had you done a bit of research, you would have been aware that, with Android 2.3, there are either 4 or 5 different TTS engines you can try, and each of these has several voices. If you don't like one, you try another, until you find the one you're most comfortable with.
Lol so let me get this straight? You tried an older version of Android on a possibly low-end phone, didn't modify anything to meet your needs, and then made a judgement call based on your findings?
While I completely agree with your sentiment that Android isn't the platform for you, there are several of us who are blind and rely solely on our Droids to meet our needs.
What stood out to me the most in your comments was your dislike for the voice that comes out of the box. Had you done a bit of research, you would have been aware that, with Android 2.3, there are either 4 or 5 different TTS engines you can try, and each of these has several voices. If you don't like one, you try another, until you find the one you're most comfortable with.
Sorry about the double post; I forgot how slow the server can run after the daily backups! Pressing enter twice definitely didn't work in my favor!
The sad truth is Android is fragmented, and that is not so much a fault of the operating system as it is the hardware. Not all hardware can be updated to the latest operating system.
This is realistic only because not everyone can buy the latest device. Android Gingerbread came out the same time the iPhone 3GS came out.
So that is a fair comparison, and iPhone 3GS did work. And, it still does, in fact. There are a few features of iOS 6 missing, but not any for accessibility.
I too would recommend a Nexus or Galaxy device to try Android on, but this is the main problem with android: lots of devices on the markket, at the phone store (where most people who aren't children dependent on us parents to pay for everything), end up going to buy their devices. Again, this is a manufacturer problem, and Google can't be truly blamed for the situation, but situation it is.
Comparing the same fruit, and I also have had many occasions to kick Apple around int the past, let's compare iPhone 3GS with Android Gingerbread: that is a time-relative comparison, since they came out the same time frame.
It's sad that hardware on the market still sells as new and can't carry the latest firmware, unless you know how to root / jailbreak your device. Guess what, Halo III-playin' school-skippin' kiddies, relatively few people know how to root their Android device. This is really a manufacturer / hardware problem at its core though.
Leo u r gonna make starfly cry. Don't ya know by now android is better than heaven?
Well, I'm glad everybody had lots of, uh, constructive... feedback for me. Good to know that I'm an idiot. I was beginning to suspect it, but now that it's been pointed out to me in such clear terms... well, anyway.
The fact is this:
Yes I did try android on an older device running gingerbread. Sorry, but I wasn't gonna go out and buy a fancy droid device just to test it out and confirm that it doesn't work well with speech.
When I first got my iphone 3gs, back a few years ago, I was able to play with it and use it effectively after about a day. There was none of this crap of fixing this, adapting that, changing settings. It simply, and effectively, worked. The voice didn't sund like a speak and spell either.
I want my phone to be applicable to business situations, and I need a solid dependable device, not something that appeals to my open source loving philosophy, but doesn't happen to work.
I have a job, and am in college. I need a phone that can use gps, take notes, and work in an effective and timely fassion.
For all of you who use android, can you produce fully formed documents with a word processor on your android phones?
Do you even have a working gps solution? And no, just getting a vague idea of where you're at doesn't count. I'm talking something on the level of navigon style turn by turn and/or ariadne type map exploration here.
It's all well and good that people like android. I, myself, would be interested in experimenting with it, and playing with it as a hobby. My only ascertion is that there's no way, based on what I've seen of it, that I'd ever trust an android phone, with the current state of the situation, to give me the quality and ease of use that I've come to expect from an iphone.
If it works for you, that's great. More power to you: but, it's not for me. Not right now, anyway.
Make me cry! your funny, I will use android no matter what you say or do, GPS, gingerbred has turn by turn walking directions. Go see blind cool tech on that subject. Word processing! we can take notes, so far no word processer publicly published yet in the play store. I said publicly because braille press has made a word processor for there android note taking device. Navagon is accessible with ICS and above on the android platform :), someone for got to tell you that that app is cross platform. So to be fare, you make one valid point, no word processer yet one is coming in the form of microsoft office. Sky drive is accessible under ICS and above, google docks has a text editor built in so I can not see why not there will be a word processor coming soon. Lastly, go check out "that android show", all 3 of the host work and use there android device for their work or home uses. So nice try on pushing your gingerbred arguement but remember a few of us have been using android sense frozen yogurt days. Some even to the days of cupcake wich was before my time of adopting the android platform. Keep word has been using android as their main device, not something to just screw around with because it looks or sounds cool. So before you go dragging my name through the mud, I do not own a pretty IDevice to go running back to just because something did not work for me right away. Just to make this very clear! there is one apple product I do own and love, "now pick your pants off the floor now" its my mac. Keep on saying what you want about me, I am "very!!! happy" with my samsung galaxy S3. I adventure some of the other android users love there device as well. Well take care, I am done with this topic for good. Its pointless "a lot of you love IOS", "some of us love android", its what ever works for you at the end of the day. :).
Well I've never had the intent of making Starfly cry or convincing anyone to use one device or another, it's just the pragmatic look at things exactly as they are. My only disappointment is that at one time (before there was a blind accessibility for it), many of us in the software industry used to say "At least the Android people will never create their own religion around it like the apple Fanfools have." And Apple boutique people have been doing that since the 90s.
So, while it doesn't make me cry, I have been enormously disappointed that an open source, pragmatism-based infrastructure like Android / Chrome has developed a religion, a fan base, and a cult. And we used to blame the whole religion / fandom / cult phenomenon on Apple as a company but now some of us have to face the fact that a certain fruit company no longer is the only cult on the block. We're the same ones who rather hold our noses going into an Apple store because of the cutesy fandom there, and thought that Android would maybe become something like Blackberry or Symbian, an OS that's an OS, no religion and no cult phenomenon.
I used to say that whatever you say about Android, at least it is cult-free. So now I am profoundly disappointed, since discussion on devices and how they function devolveds into ideology. Reminds me of automobile discussions of the 1980s that would start out discussing the merits or lack thereof, and quickly devolve into the ideology of American vs. Japanese as an ideology. To my mind, ideology has no place when it comes to a direct, microscopic and pragmatic look at devices and how well tasks get accomplished on each.
Perhaps rather than say people who work or don't work, one should be more task-specific, e.g. what work is this device supposed to be for. A chevy pickup is a whole different animal than a Toyota Corola. I'd like to see both sides ditch the religion when it comes to a pragmatic discussion. That is one thing you will be able to say of Windows 8 devices coming on the market: there will be no ideology trying to cover for its flaws, the way other platforms have, and some companies have had since the 90s.
Also another point to say this isn't just Starfly: He's not the only one who has started in competing on the ideology front. I see it among the Android users - though not as common yet as some of the iFool fanchildren but still growing. What hits particular hard about that is many of us had viewed Android people as a more logical bunch less given to ideology and defensiveness. How that caught on I don't know, but it did early on as an idea. Yet Apple is now no longer the only software company who has a religion or cult following.
The funny thing about ideology is, it doesn't belong in technology, road-building, science or anything else where we actually do things. The reason for that is that ideology's only purpose is to defend itself. It's parasitic: it starts with the conclusion it wants and tries to defend that, all the while being insecure to teenage proportions that it might lose what it has. Watch an iFool respond when their relative or friend gets a Android device. Watch and Androol when someone gets an iPhone. Both have political church-style talking points, and present few real answers to real consumers trying to get the job done.
A few years ago, I never thought I'd ever in a million years own an Apple product. after all, as perception has it, you're no good technologically if you have to be backed up by ideological fervor and occultism. Well, now unfortunately Android will have the same problem. But users on here who think it's just Starfly just haven't been to other places on the net and observed the growing, if disappointing, stoop to ideology and defense instead of a proper pragmatism and analysis which is befitting to selecting technology.
Here if you want me to be fare, call a spaid a spaid tell it how I see it. Now please keep your jaw off the floor as I point this out. 1. do I find it fare that gingerbred users will ownly see braille support from code factery and not google? No, I find this practice annoying, not fare to those who do not have the cash to upgrade to a device that will see jelly bean. That is the only android OS that is receiving braille support free out of the box. Do I find it fare that the jelly bean gesters just aded to talkback can not be found in ICS? NO, ICS was a beautiful OS. So there is my acessment.
I am an android user and this is how i see things.
Android is usable but not as good as the i devices.
This is because apple created the accessibility together with the ios. They didn't come afterwards to fix it like google.
Although i am an android user myself i hesitade to recommend it to other users.
Android is not as strate forward as ios
It needs a lot of changing settings and installing software to make it work the way we like. If somebody just needs something that is going to work from the beginning and they don't want to mess around then apple products are better.
Also as i said in another topick there isn't a place for the beginner android user to go to learn about android accessibility and devices. There are podcasts and websites all over the net and somebody has to do a lot of research to find them.
The Android access website started well but it seams so out of date now.
It took me a year to decide which device to buy because of the luck of information.
On the other hand it is much easier for somebody to get started with apple products.
Not everyone likes to hunt around to learn about something new.
Don't get me wrong i like android.
With each new version things are getting better but it needs a lot of patiens to get used to and it's not something for everyone yet.
For the not technical user android is so confusing. There are so many different devices, different android versions and for each phone the update prossess to new versions of android is so different.
Perhaps i was lucky because i tried android after symbian so i liked it. But for an ifone user is so difficult to adupt to android.
I agree. If accessibility had been built right into the Android operating system and done well I might evenhave goe that route myself. Bt while there are options and while they do indeed work, let's try and be fair here, in my experience at least they don't work as well as VoiceOver. I experimented with Android for a while even after getting my IPhone 4 and, apart fromthe fact that I didn't find it as intuitive as VO,every screen reader I demoed had an unfortunate little quirk that made it keep saying there were new voicemails and texts waiting about every five seconds or so, fifteen sometimes if I was lucky. But when you checked there were none. The same thing happened to a friend of mine who was actually using one of those phones full time. So while I don't consider myself an Apple fanboy I have so far been more impressed with their accessibility and usability overall.