[Blindtlk] Help & Advice for Talking Cell Phones

[Chris Nusbaum]

Mark,

Welcome to the list, if you are in fact a new member!! I hope you find the
discussion here both informative and enjoyable!

As for accessible cell phones, it all depends on which carrier you have, and
what you want in a phone. The most accessible phones I know of are the
Sampsung Haven, which is carried by Verizon only, and the iPhone, which is
carried mainly by AT and T and Verizon, although I believe Sprint now
carries it. The Haven and the iPhone are, while they are both totally
accessible, very different devices; to put it as simply as I can, the iPhone
is a smartphone, the Haven isn't. If all you want in a phone is the ability
to make phone calls and send text messages, and your carrier is Verizon, the
Haven would probably be your best option. By the way, I personally have a
Haven. All menus are read by a built-in speech synthesizer, and everything
on the phone, except for the My Verizon feature (I'm not really sure what
that feature does anyway,) are 100% accessible out-of-the-box. The interface
is based on buttons, mainly a phone keypad and other buttons (like arrow
keys and an OK button) to go through menus. The only thing I kind of dislike
about my Haven is that to type a text message, you have to use the phone
keypad, typing a key sometimes 3 or 4 times in order to get the letter you
want. For example, if you want to type a j, you would have to hit the number
4 button on the keypad 4 times. This makes the texting process slow and
tedious, in my opinion, and makes writing longer texts a real pain in the
butt. If you want a smartphone, with the capability of accessing your email,
surfing the Web, and access to many apps, but still want it to be
accessible, I think the iPhone is the best option. By the way, I know of
some blind people who use Android smartphones and love their phones.
However, the big difference for blind people between the iPhone and Android
phones is the iPhone comes with accessibility built in out-of-the-box,
whereas you have to retrofit an Android phone with a separate screen reading
app, usually Mobile Accessibility from Code Factory, which is a little
expensive. The downside to the iPhone is that it has a touch screen.
However, many blind people, including many people on this list, use and love
iPhones with VoiceOver. So, the touch screen really isn't a disadvantage
when it comes to accessibility because of VoiceOver; the iPhone just has a
little steeper learning curve than a traditional cell phone with buttons
like the Haven. There are many great resources on the Internet for blind
users of the iPhone and for prospective buyers. If you are considering an
iPhone, there are 3 resources which I have found to be especially helpful
for me in learning how to work my iPod Touch, which has the same interface.
The first of these is a great book written by Dean Martineau and Anna
Dresner, Getting Started with the iPhone, available in hardcopy Braille and
in electronic format from the National Braille Press (www.nbp.org.) The
second is AppleVis, at www.applevis.com. This Web site contains many useful
articles and podcasts on how to work an iOS device with VoiceOver and
accessible apps. Finally, there's a great conference for new iPhone users
which is run by Beverly Hunter, who is also on this list. It is held every
Tuesday night at 8 PM Eastern time on the Conversation Station chat line.
The number to call is 616-883-2999. When you hear the music, press pound,
then from the main menu, press 1, and enter as your room number 2428 and
press pound. There is no specific topic for this conference unless Beverly
decides there will be one, so feel free to bring any of your questions to
the expert iPhone users who are in that conference.

If you have any questions about this, please let me know on-list or off.
Good luck in making your decision on which phone to buy!

Hope this helps,

Chris Nusbaum

-----Original Message-----
From: blindtlk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindtlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Mark Harris
Sent: Saturday, May 19, 2012 4:51 PM
To: blindtlk at nfbnet.org
Subject: [Blindtlk] Help & Advice for Talking Cell Phones

Would like to receive feedback on what accessible cellphones are being used
and how they are working for you. Please give all good & bad experiences so
I can stay away from the poor preforming products. Give info on the features
each cellphone offers and how user friendly it is.
 

Thanks in advance for any and all feedback. Please contact me off list.

Cordially,


Mark Harris 
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