Category: accessible Devices
I am unapologetically an Apple fanboy, however I'd like to explore Android a little more, now that some accessibility has been added, and am thinking of buying an Nexus 7. Any tips on using Jellybean with Talkback? Thanks in advance.
Yes first off, when you get the tablit, activate talkback with the 2 finger double tap and hold gester, second off, go download the beta 5 talkback because its been updated and a lot more stable. Lastly if you want give firefox a shot, its quite accessible. I am waiting for my jelly bean upgrade to my galaxy sIII, so I can report back more about jelly bean here later.
The Nexis is a great piece of hardware to test this stuff out on, in my opinion. Good to know about the gesture to make it wake up Talkback.
What's the time lag once you ddouble tap and hold before it will wake up? Is it like the T-Mobile phones I saw where they had to download the interfaces first, or will it simply start up?
I'm quite interested in the Nexus7 tab too. I think Androy has come a long way in terms of accessibility, but still, have quite a long way to go.
No, this is not because i'm an Apple fan or anything, i've both apple IPHone and Androy Galaxy Nexus. Comparing them both, i would say, unless you have some sight to work on, Androy can be a little hard for people with no vision at all. The Talkbock feature is not necesarry respondsive compare to Voiceover.
what are you talking about, by interfaces leo? Hmm... must have been a bit seens you have seen the latest android phones from HTC and samsung both come with talkback now. Just making that clear so people now who want to try either phones. The galaxy phones are the most accessible that t-moble has at this time. Old sammy has not taking out talkback like it was done earlier. Just food for thought :).
Galaxy Nexus indeed is the most accessible droy phone at the market, however, it is not as good as it can be. Perhaps i have good expectation on Androy specially with the upgreat of ICS and JB, but i found it quite disappointing. It is workable of course, perhaps better than your conventional 3rd party software like Talks or Mobile Speech, but it is too little to desire, specially if you come from a IOS background.
As i said earlier, i'm pretty interested in a Nexus7 tab, if nothing, just to try it out. I doubt the respondsive issue that Talkback have will be solve though. Not till the next OS perhaps.
It has nothing to do with the OS, keep that in mind, talkback is the one who is responsible for some of the sluggishness. Also the current beta has fixed this issue, go download it and give it a try. Keep in mind android accessibility is separate from the OS unlike IOS. Also spiel is beeing worked on, its scriptible and does have a away you can turn it off and on with out sighted help. So if you do not like talkback give it a try under ICS, the dev is working on jelly bean. It to will have braille support soon, go check out spiel's blog.
Talkback being Google accessibility development. I think the point you make above starfly to me is the biggest problem I have which is the OS and access development are two separate concepts for google. I understand there are third party solutions, and I'm glad this is the case, but what I don't understand is why google constantly adds the access to their products as an after thought. I had an opportunity recently to work with a galaxy S III and I came away overwhelmed with the areas of access that simpley still are not seemlessly intigrated in to the OS. I found explore by touch maddening at times, and I still think TB is sluggish and not nearly as responsive as it could be if it were better intigrated in to the OS. Personally, I still won't recommend this platform to my customers who are totally blind.
did you download the beta from the eyes-free project that is the current one, the talkback on the samsung galaxy sIII has crashing issues and has been documented on the eyes-free blog. You all are going to get tired of me asking the question of what talkback did you use but it does make a differents. I might piss some off but the attitute I get around here is everything must go smoothly with the screenreader on a device or just for get about using it. Heck if its not done apples way for get about it too. Kay done ranting, have fun ripping my post apart. It will still not change my view on here at all.
We've come so far when it comes to accesebility that its not wrong to have high expectations when talking about screen readers Maybe that attitude was ok 10 years ago
Here is the link to get the latest talkback that is beeing worked on currently, its not published in the play store: http://code.google.com/p/eyes-free/downloads/list
First off, I don't expect the level of access with Android as I have with Apple. For the record, I was an early adopter of Voiceover on the Mac, and everyone said I was stupid. The AT companies were scrambling to say how terrible VO was, and that we shouldn't use it. It had a very long way to go, and every year, with every OS update, it has matured more and more. I can't, with a good conscience, bash Android accessibility. Like early Voiceover, it's kinda buggy, and has a long way to go, but come on, people. Give it a chance. They're trying, and they had to start somewhere. Would I recommend this device to a VI person? Not hardly, but it's still fun to have, and explore.!
Also, thanks Starfly for your help. I couldn't get access to start right away for some reason. It kept canceling itself, but I have sighted family who helped set it up.
One of the largest differences with android is the fact you just can't really get up and go using it.
Sure, you can do many of the essentials but to really make the most of it, you need to download this, download that, configure this, configure that, install this, install that, blah, blah, blah, blah... I have a galaxy S III and its been quite an experience. Over all, I would not give someone who is not technically inclined an android device, because there just is not the support documentation, support or knowledge base to get up and running with out using the google group, or internet searches galore.
most documentation i've seen is not up to date at all, if it should even exist.
Last but not least, the galaxy s III does not natively support syncing with the mac I have running mountain lion.
No plug and play. Thus, I've had to resort to google play music and bluetooth syncing.
While I'll probably exchange this for an iPhone 5 later this month, I want to see jellybean on the device first.
If people are interested, I'll write a factual, feature complete (to the best of my knowledge), informative article on my experiences, the phone, and my perspectives/comparisons between it and iOS.
Both have strengths and weaknesses, but for now this is the bottom line.
Android is a tinkerers wet dream, access is slowly coming together. But if you just want something reliable you can use right out of the box with out tuns of pre configuration go with iOS. On the hole it manages most things better for an average user.,
Well said. The lack of a read to end command is pretty frustrating as well, as I enjoy reading news and such things. Also, there seems to be no way to navigate in a text edit field, like if you later discover you made a typo in the middle of the word. There seems to be no way of backing up focus to that letter and deleting it. The inability to navigate by headings, links, etc. on the web is also frustrating, but then again, Android accessibility is just an afterthought. That said, it's still a far cry better than it was wen I first tried it back in the eclair days.
Yes Jesse thats one of the reason why i choose to explore the Galaxy Nexus. I have the opportunity to choose either S2 or Nexus, i choose to go with the Nexus. Thinking that it is the stock OS, it will make things better, but, to my disappointment, the slaggageness doesn't resolve in this matter.
I do understand that Androy accessibility is still on development, i do understand it is totally different platform compare to IOS, but simply to say that it have nothing to do with the OS is sort of saying that it is ok for microsoft not to implimant accessibility feature in their system.
Will i reckomend Droy to the blind? perhaps not just yet, maybe the low vision i might, but perhaps not the totally blind.
I realize that i gotta use alot of my eyesight nevigating the phone, because of the slaggageness of TB.
I'm also, tired of installing this, configuring that, customise something else, in order for some other thing work. It seems, there's no consistancy across the platform. Grunted, Androy is open source OS, however, i think a little of consistancy and standard won't harm.
Exactly, using the vision I have with android isn't mission critical, but its nearly so.
Odd, I have no vision and get along with the android platform, and if you want to edit what what you wrote here is how you do it. If your device has ICS, turn on the d-pad for eyes-free keyboard, take to fingers then swipe up quickly, this will change the granularity to sintence navagation,paragraph navagation intire text navagation and character navagation. If any of you have douts of how much vision I have go ask someone who knows me off this community. I have just light and that does not help with a touch screen. Any way, glad to help any one who wants to move away from IOS to android.
To me this is what I see IOS beeing as a OS, if you want your hand held most of the time we got you! If you want us to let go of your hand not going to happen. Oh, if you want to stray away advintually away from our Itunes platform not going to happen. So when making your choice, do you want a OS that will hold your hand most of the time or a OS that lets you do what you want with it as you the user see fits. I like choice, so your going to find me over here in android land :) and I do not need big brother holding my hand.
at post 12, the only problem with what you stated above is that you're not adopting android in it's imphasy as you may have with voiceover on the mac as it's been around now since what 2008?, and they have had talk back since shortly there after. As previously mentioned the documentation is scattered at best, and much of what's out there is old and out of date. Even major blogs that claim to encourage android/ talkback use are several months, years old. My biggest gripe with android/google by reason of time,is I think the access to the android OS should have grown considerabley at this point. I used android for nearly a year and a half jumping between 1.6 2.1 and finally 2.2, and as I said earlier my recent experience with even the Galaxy III I still had issues that I dealt with 3 years ago. I personally like the fact that access to android is available, and I like the openness of their platform, but for real productivity, I just simpley can't use it, and I don't feel confident recommending it to my clients and customers. That being said, I think it's great to know what's out there, and at some point and time I'd like to get my hands on a Nexus just to stay up to speed with the development of android. @starfly, while perhaps some on here often challenge your opinions, I'm not one of them. I read your posts on android with sincere curiosity and while this doesn't mean I always agree with you, no need to sign off your posts assuming I'll flame you for what you've written. You're entirely entitled to your point of view, and often I find it helpful as you're up on android and many of us arn't.
It is not about holding hand and that, its about what is accessible and user friendly. So far, i've not seen that to be prove in the ICS just yet.
Grunted, it might be different using Jelly Bean, but i'm not impress with it so far. Yes, there're some function that the droy sort of do it better than IOS, but it is not enough reason for me to suggest anyone to switch from IOS to Androy.
Being one who's somewhat rabel when come to trying new things and that, i'm content with Galaxy Nexus i have, however, i'm not satisfy enough to suggest it to user, definitely not the brand new touch screen user to get in to the droy world.
As i said, that is different from a low vision user, who may benefit with the large Galaxy Note 5.8 screen, or the Nexus7 7inch screen. But for a totally blind user, i'm not convince just yet.
I might change my view ones i upgreat to Jelly Bean, who knows, but for now, IOS Devices will be my first choice.
However, by saying that, i'm also quite interested in the nexus7 tab. I think Androy got lots of pertential, when come to accessibility development. who knows, in the future it might be more advance than Apple accessibility.
As both Androy and IOS user, i feel that Androy users often generally want to prove that they have something better than IOS. They will try to do anything to prove that, even without knowing how exactly the IOS operates and what sort of function it may have
In Jellybean, there is no Eyes Free keyboard. The built in keyboard works beautifully. As a result, there is no D-pad mode.
thanks, BigDogDaddy, I feel if your going to educate people about an OS you must know its ends and outs. I also have emailed the android access.net team to update their link "getting started". Its grossly out of date and needs an up date.
Jesse your correct :), now to just wait and cool my hills until I get jelly bean.
buttercup as a former user of IOS I know how IOS works, because of IOS I quickly adopted the HD2 which was not a IOS device but the Ipod did get my mind wondering what it would be like to use a full touch screen for a phone. So... off I went to the HD2, which now runs a dead OS "windows Pocket PC with HTC sense overlay". Also at that time I stuck with the IOS "Ipod touch" until IOS 5.0. Some where is an Ipod touch that is my wife's with the camra floating around the apartment, probly lost. I am here to educate people about android and to show its another alternativ to IOS. For those who have given it a try, read, asked one of us who has an android device and uses it on a dayly bases, then went back to IOS. Thanks for trying it, na, android is not for everyone. :) Guess what, nor is IOS for everyone. The touch screen part of IOS has nothing to do with it, to some, it feels very, restrictive. Want to tether before Iphone 4S, time to jell brake it. (: Want to cut, copy paiste, for get it. These are a two points and there is more. Any way, to finish up my post :), some like IOS because they like how the OS works, some like IOS because they need documentation to get them started and :) here is the kicker, some get pushed to IOS and told there is no other alturnitive close to IOS. :) That simplely is not true at all.
Starfly, the biggest complaint I have with your posts is your idealism. Like a child, you assume that everyone who uses an Apple device "wants their hand held," "loves Apple," or any number of idealistic things I had formerly associated with only the Apple fanchildren. I am not into any software religion for or against.
But here is what Android proponents fail to understand: most of the world, the blind being no exception, have devices for only one reason: they have a job to do and the device helps them get it done.
When I used a PAC Mate for 6 years, for instance, there were people I knew who loved other technology and asked why I would use something from such and such a company. Very simple: Had I been sighted, for those six years I would have been using an HP IPAQ or something: with Windows Mobile Professional, which included applications like Excel wheihch I needed in order to run my businesses. I am so sick of this 'blind people this' 'blind people that' claptrap. Honestly? Being on this forum for the past three-and-a-half years, my suspicions have been confirmed: the blind are just a cross-section of the comunity at large. What that means for people of whatever software religion? The device is just a tool, and there is a job to do. If the device can't get the job done, the world could care less how it's coming along, or it's almost as good as the other, or it has a particular religion.
I'll never tell Command at the Coast Guard Auxiliary that I can't do a particular job because I am using x or y device, and proceed to spue forth some diatribe.
I didn't like it in the mid 90s when Apple's excuse for network support on my users' macs was Open Transport 1.1, because it failed to perform no matter what religion Apple put forth. And I don't like it now with a lot of the Android stuff because it fails to perform, in real life, for real tasks on the job or taking care of the kids, or making arrangements for parents / in-laws, the list goes on.
The blind are not, as you say, wanting to have their hands held: they are everywhere in society, fully participating and engaged taking care of business. And no, when a standard arrives that lets us compete alongside sighted peers, no matter what standard that is, there is no other way. Not because of a religion or fandom, but because it's up to us as individuals to actually get the real work done: not some arcane task but really being able to copy text from an email sent by a superior into a document, copy the results from a search on the web into an email for parents or in-laws, copy something from Notes into Safari to look something up at the kid's school's websites. Because that is how people who are actually out there actually using devices get the job done. Android will whip Apple's ass completely and absolutely when and only when people are able to be more productive on more things they actually need to do, than they are on Apple. Again, the types of things I just mentioned, not some arcane number of apps in the store or what radio you can run.
This is actually why I was one of those who was pretty skeptical of VoiceOver on the Mac to begin with, because it struck me as something for kids.
What seems to really be happening is adults who have a job to do use iOS now and kids who want to play, or adults who like technology as a hobby use Android. Especially among the blind. It's no surprise that the highest incidence of iOS users now are what were yesterday's Windows Mobile and Blackberry users. We're the crowd who actually has to get things done on these devices, and if we're blind, we have to do it as close to the same speed as our sighted counterparts. That aspect is absolutely nonnegotialble.
I, too, could see getting a Nexus7 tab for the fun of it. But from the volumes I've read online about Android, I would not trust a lot of very important tasks to it yet.
I thought the iPhone was little more than a shiny toy in 2007 when iPhone 1 came out, was full of bugs, dropped calls, and you dreaded getting a call from someone with an iPhone. Blackberry and Windows Mobile were still King then, as was Symbian. Apple did not acquire real stable adult users by this Apple fanboy foolery, nor will Android gain any number of them through Fandroid behavior. The only reason many people took Apple seriously at all was because they finally got simple things into the OS like copy and paste, they finally got Exchange working in email and a lot of other normal day-to-day tasks that everybody has to do. Everybody but kids. Android 2012 is definitely sexier than iPhone 2007, or maybe even sexier than iPhone 2012! But, it's still around iPhone 2007 when it comes to productivity in a lot of areas, and maybe sort of halfway to iPhone 3GS for the blind.
The complaints about Androids and productivity are not just among the blind. It's like those of us - myself included - who still complain about certain productivity aspects to Apple that we got for free with Windows Mobile and Blackberry devices.
I agree completely with what leo said above. Its not that I dislike android for androids sake, I just don't truly feel I can be as productive using android. I have not found ways to replicate several common tasks, such as interact with text in emails, text messages etc, to slowly read out a number to someone, check the spelling of a name, etc. there is no simple way to read from start to end, of an article, no way to adjust speech speed or voice on the fly, there is also no way to turn talkback off and back on on the fly such as tripple click home, and more. Some features like quickly switching the screenreader on and off in just one step are mission critical to me, because I do not always need spoken feedback. For those things I don't need it used for, it only gets in the way.
Sure, your answer to reading in edit fields is simply to install eyes free keyboard. your answer for making the most of the net is installing firefox or chrome, depending on which version of android you have. In the end, android is usable, yes, but for every day tasks, I just can't rely on it the way I did with iOS. It just doesn't exhibit the same ease of use, speed, focus, attention to detail etc. I know android 4.1 will give you more reading options, and will make it easier to do many things, but its still not really feature complete.
I've seen talkback crash a number of times and wondered to myself, if I didn't have the sight to turn it back on, and didn't have time to reboot the phone, what would I do? Same thing goes for speech inexplicably crashing, while talkback continues to work. In either case, on iOS, just trippleclick home, once or twice, and you're back up and running. there are some aspects of android I like a lot more than iOS. But at the end of the day, I don't care if it can make me breakfast, wash my clothing, answer my texts by it self and more, if its not going to work reliably 99 percent of the time, and it can't stack up feature to feature, I can't in good conscience make it my constant primary device.
Unless jellybean really sells me over, i'll probably grab an iPhone 5, but i'll also pick up a nexus 7, or one of the newer rumored nexus tabs coming down the pipe. I look forward to seeing android grow, but the fact of the matter is that its not going to fill the needs of practical power users who make the most of a phone, every day to get the job done. when you have school, work, a combination of these, or anything else that requires you to be always on, needing to take time out of your life, to update, install, configure and manage applications, services, and android as a hole is going to be a very hard sell, if its given any weight at all.
Admittedly, sighted users don't have nearly the issues we do with this operating system, but at this point expecting or claiming we're on equal access when it comes to android isn't reasonable.
Most people I know who are not technically inclined who don't have someone to do the system administration for them are honestly 100 percent better off with iOS, as access stands in october of 2012.
I'm still learning, and have enjoyed this trip with android, and i still look forward to making the most of it I can with the time allowed me before I most likely switch.
I know there will be things I miss about android, just as I miss things about iOS. Keeping audiobooks and podcasts play positions in sync across devices was really handy for example, as was iCloud in general. Notes, contacts, mail, calendars, reminders, web page tabs all stay in sync. Its something i'm finding a little hard to downgrade from at the moment. Sure, google will allow you to store and sync many of these things with its products, but again, they just don't integrate in to my Mac OS workflow in as seamless a way as does what I left behind.
I use a mix of google and apple services on my mac, and I'm starting to now fully realize the drastic impact getting locked in to either ecosystem can have on my day to day life.
Okay :), for arguement sake, what can you do that I can not do with the android platform from ICS and up? I'll be fare and say gingerbread was limited and going back was limited as well. So post on and I will take notes and add from the android said. Please leave cut, copy and paste out, can do that and was able to do that in gingerbread to an extent. If ask ya I could take notes and pass on to my boss via drop box, skype, and now sky drive. To correct leo, android is not a kiddies OS as you want to paint it. Please leo go use it, give it a try, at least I gave IOS a try more then 3 to a month's time. Try until IOS 5.01, then left IOS for good.
Also Leo, I am not speaking from someone else's point of view nor am I compairing budget phones to an Iphone that runs android. You pay for crap you get crap. Same for android that is that. So as you put it, I have used my android for work, really how many use there phone for spead sheets. Some ya but word processesing or taking nots, we can take notes. Any way post on do tell Leo with out you ever touching an ICS phone what it can not do. Seeings I dout you have developed for android time to discredit your productivity comments.
I can think of a few things. 1: Android has no read to end command. The new Talkback has it in beta, but in my experience, it's squirrely at best. 2: You cannot navigate a website by HTML elements. On my iOS devices, I have the rotor, and can navigate by headings, lists, links, form controls, etc., just like on the PC screen reader. 3: As was previously mentioned, I can't adjust speech rate on the fly. 4: Can't make edits without an external keyboard. 5: No quick way to enable or disable Talkback. None of these things are unreasonable to ask for, and have all been a part of the iPhone from the 3GS. I was in with Android near the ground floor when it didn't have much, but Apple did get it right the first time, as was their mode of operation up until recently.
Now, there are some pros to Android. 1: Choice of screen reader and TTS voices. 2: Lots of neat widgits and apps. 3: lots of open source, so if you like to tweak, you can.
Will I keep my Nexus 7? Certainly, but at this point, it's just a toy. Access is still not quite where I'd like it to be for me to consider Android for day to day use. It's about on par with what I had in the Windows Mobile days with my Motorola Q, and HTC variants.
I completely agree with what :Lio, Storwind and Jesse have said here.
Starfly, without having personal attack on your or anything like that, but the fact is that for you, if A don't work, try B C or D. Install it more because you can always buy a secondary storrage card for space, if 1 2 3 don't work, go for x y z. Why should i go for all the alternatives when i can have an any IDevice out of the box, and use it like a normal sighted person does? I no need to install 3 web browser or more just because Safari didn't work, or not accessible. I no need to use the alternative voice or installing any external voice engine cause everything is come in it. I can easily mute the voice, change the speech, change the voice setting, switching from one language to another, changing typing mode, within a second or two without going in to setting and accessible and that.
I can pretty much get the job done withint a minute, include sending a message, replying an email, playing songs, checking twitter, updating facebook, check in at 4square right at my finger tip. I can also leave others comment, make a note, write my shopping list using the internal build in keyboard without installing any 3rd party app or things like that.
I can even reply on the board post usingthe build in internal keyboard quite easily and comfortably.
This is what it is different between IOS and Androy. I no need to install 3 things to get a simple thing done, i can go from A to B without going to A1 to A20, make a UTurn at D5 and C2 in order for me to get to B.
And no, i'm not talking from someone who hasn't use the Androy phone. i've been using the droy phone for 10 days now, and my opinion has not change since.
By having both phones, i quite understand why Apple wanting to sue Samsung over some of the paton. If you have some eyesight, lots of the stuff from Samsung Galaxy and also IPhone are very similar, in fact, it is too close at times.
I'm quite okay using the Galaxy phone, and that is because, i have the advance of using iphone, and that helps me on nevigating the androy to be honest,.
Oh, also, i need a phone that i can be out and about with, a phone that is responsive, quick, and hassel free. I not interested in a phone that is semi responsive, hang every now and then cause for whatever reason TB decided to have a pms. Scare the hell out of me, cause it starts talking when you start bumping in to things and that. But as i said earlier on, i'm happy and greatful to have the Galaxy Nexus as my secondary phone. Lets hope, by the time Jelly Bean upgreat is here, it will make a different from what it is now.
I returned the Nexus7 to the store, and suffered the restocking fee. Still, it was worth trying it out. I'm hopeful that Android in the future will be a competitive and worthy OS for everyone, and have as good of accessibility in iOS. The phone offerings running the Android OS are really sweet, and the tablets are cool, too, but as has been said here previously, great access is still a little while away. Like it or not, Apple has set the bar pretty igh, and anything else that comes along with similar claims had better back them up. I feel we'll be screwed again with Microsoft in the next few weeks, so don't be shocked.
Yes, if you let Android run its course, you'll see a difference.
I have joined its corse :) and jumped in to android full force. There is no IOS device to fall back on for me nor I give apple another dime of my money for an IOS device unless the wife really wants it. wave "by apple" :)
Thanks to the jelly bean OS, talkback now update again, it can be found in the play store, this tablit just got more acessible. I have posted some help on jelly bean under the cell phone board.
I am just posting this here, go check out that android show and top tech bits has the docter something or nother podcast which both go over the nexis7. Talkback has come a long, long way.