[Electronics-talk] Chrome os (was Re: Good article on android versus iOS accessibility.)

[Jim Barbour]

Chrome is supposed to have its own screen reader built-in. However, I don't know anything about how good it is, nor  how good the chrome OS is.

Another option for you might be look at the Microsoft surface Pro. It to is expensive, but is a lot more like windows.

Jim

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 6, 2013, at 10:14 AM, "Julie Phillipson" <jbrew48 at verizon.net> wrote:

> Ok thanks.  I want to use it mostly for GPS but there are a whole lot of other aps that I like on both that I would like.  I'm sure I would use it for all sorts of other things to.  I originally started looking to replace my netbook but well they seem to be disappearing.  As far as I know chrome seems to be the thing with smaller computers that are mobile but has chrome gotten accessible?  The last I knew it was not compatible with Jaws or any other screen reader.  Is that still the case?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Electronics-talk [mailto:electronics-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Jim Barbour
> Sent: Saturday, April 06, 2013 11:26 AM
> To: Discussion of accessible electronics and appliances
> Cc: Discussion of accessible electronics and appliances
> Subject: Re: [Electronics-talk] Good article on android versus iOS accessibility.
> 
> I don't think Marco is saying that android is not usable by a blind person, I think he is saying that iOS  is more usable by a blind person. I would agree with this.
> 
> I have used an iPad, and a Nexus seven, And I believe the accessibility outcomes would be about the same as a comparison he did between iPhone and Nexis for. However, the hardware does not compare equally.
> 
> Bottom line, if you bought a Nexus seven, You would be able to use it. If you spend extra money for an iPad, you would notice the improvement for sure.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Jim
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> On Apr 6, 2013, at 7:02 AM, "Julie Phillipson" <jbrew48 at verizon.net> wrote:
> 
>> I've been investigating both an I pad mini and a nexus 7 does this article speak the same to nexus 4 as to nexus 7?  I listened to a pod cast on That Android show on the Nexus 7 and it sounded much more accessible.  It also sounds like many of the things he talks about in this article could be done with an external keyboard or on a full computer more easily.  The price difference between the two is significant too Nexus 7 $249.99 I pad $450 for a 32 gb tablet, but if its not very usable to a blind user then what good is it?  So how inaccessible is it really?  I want to get one or the other and I'm only going to buy it once and not both, like a lot of you tech guys do!  I'm pretty good with figuring things out on the computer but I don't want to be frustrated to the point of giving up on it either.  Just a lot of conflicting information out there.  I also wonder if he was taking advantage of all the aps available for blind android users?
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Electronics-talk [mailto:electronics-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On 
>> Behalf Of Christopher Chaltain
>> Sent: Saturday, April 06, 2013 2:51 AM
>> To: Discussion of accessible electronics and appliances
>> Subject: Re: [Electronics-talk] Good article on android versus iOS accessibility.
>> 
>> Looks like a good summary of some points where Android's accessibility isn't up to par with Apple's. He's going beyond just some accessibility issues though, and some of the issues he brings up won't be important to every smart phone user.
>> 
>> He seems pretty happy with his iPhone, so I wonder why he's even looking at Android. The historical points he brings up about Android's lack of accessibility reads like there might be a bias here against Android, although I suspect his evaluation was pretty fair. If your only criteria in comparing the two platforms is going to be accessibility then I think it's pretty well understood that Apple has the lead here, and there's no reason to switch. I think it would be more interesting to hear from someone who has a compelling reason to use Android and how accessible they find the platform.
>> 
>> I also note that he didn't point out a single short coming of the iPhone and it's accessibility. I'd be curious to know how Android handles some of the situations where I find the iPhone lacking.
>> 
>> On 04/05/2013 10:05 PM, Jim Barbour wrote:
>>> This article tracked pretty well with my results on android. I'd be curious how others felt.
>>> 
>>> Jim
>>> 
>>> Switching to Android full-time – an experiment | Marco’s 
>>> accessibility blog 
>>> http://www.marcozehe.de/2013/04/05/switching-to-android-full-time-an-
>>> e
>>> xperiment/
>>> 
>>> A few weeks ago, I decided to conduct an experiment. I wanted to determine if Android 4.2.2 “Jelly Bean” was finally ready for me to switch to full-time, away from an iPhone.
>>> 
>>> Background
>>> 
>>> I’ve been an iPhone user for four years, ever since the original iPhone 3G S came out with VoiceOver support in June 2009. What Apple did back then was revolutionary, completely opening up a wealth of apps and services to people with vision impairments without the need to purchase extra assistive technologies at prices that were again the amount of the phone they were supposed to make accessible. Instead, VoiceOver, the screen reader for iOS, was bundled with the operating system for free.
>>> 
>>> At the same time, Google also announced first steps in accessibility for Android. But this paled by comparison, offering little more than a command shell for the Android platform with some speech output.
>>> 
>>> Later, TalkBack came about and gave at least some access to Android apps in Android 2.x. However, this access was still very limited compared to Apple’s model, as Jamie Teh points out in a blog post.
>>> 
>>> In October 2011, Android 4.0 AKA Ice Cream Sandwich came out, and compared to what was offered in previous versions, was a big step forward in terms of accessibility. Not quite there yet, as this AFB review spells out, it offered touch screen access for the first time, more than two years after Apple came out with VoiceOver, and with a model that still left a lot to be desired.
>>> 
>>> The biggest step forward came in June 2012, when Google announced Android 4.1 AKA Jelly Bean. With it came a revised model of touch screen access, called Explore By Touch, that closely resembles the model Apple, and now also Microsoft, have employed. Similar gestures allow for easy transition between platforms.
>>> 
>>> We had just started work on accessible Firefox for Android, and Jelly Bean meant that we had to add quite some magic to make it work. But we did, and the warm reception and good feedback from the blind and low vision community has been humbling and inspirational!
>>> 
>>> So when with Android 4.2, and especially the 4.2.2 updates, the gesture recognition seemed to solidify and become more reliable, I decided that it was time to give Android a serious chance to replace my iPhone as my regular smartphone device. I was also inspired by this MACWORLD podcast episode, where Andy Ihnatko talks about his switch from an iPhone 4S to an Android device, not from an accessibility, but from a general usability point of view. After all, Android has matured quite a bit, and I wanted to take advantage of that and finally use Firefox for Android full-time!
>>> 
>>> First steps
>>> 
>>> So on the 23rd of March, I got my shiny new Nexus 4. I decided to go for a Google phone because those get the latest updates of Android fastest. Moreover, they come with a stock user interface, nothing home-grown like the HTC Sense or Samsung Galaxy devices have. On my partner’s HTC One, for example, a TalkBack user cannot even use the dial pad to enter a phone number.
>>> 
>>> The hardware is quite OK. The phone feels solid, the glass surface on the front and back feel smooth and pleasant to the touch. The phone quality is a bit muffled both on the sending as well as the receiving end. My best friend who has a slight hearing problem had trouble understanding me. The speaker on the back also leaves a bit to be desired, esp since the speaker in the iPhone 4S that I am used to is quite good. I also found out during the course of my testing that I have occasional problems with Wifi connections becoming very slow, download rates plunging or downloads breaking up alltogether. Deleting and re-adding the access point entry seems to have, at least temporarily, fixed the issue. This is also being discussed lively in the Android project issue tracker, so is nothing specific to my device alone.
>>> 
>>> I was betrayed of the initial setup experience. No matter what I tried, the gesture that was described in the Jelly Bean accessibility guide for both the Nexus 4 and Nexus 7 devices, didn’t work. TalkBack would not start at all. So my sighted partner had to do that setup for me. We could then turn on TalkBack. After an update to Jelly Bean 4.2.2, we could also enable the quick button and gesture sequence to turn on TalkBack while the phone is running regularly. This experience did not leave that good of an impression with me.
>>> 
>>> Setting up accounts was a breeze. To be more flexible, I got my calendars and contacts off of iCloud and store them in an OwnCloud installation at my web space provider’s server. I didn’t want to go the Google Contacts route because of recent announcements that left me uncertain whether this would be supported across platforms in the future. For OwnCloud, I installed a CalDAV and CardDAV provider software from the Play Store that works like a charm with the Nexus 4.
>>> 
>>> However, some of the stock apps like Calendar don’t work that well with TalkBack, or at least not if one is used to the excellent support of Calendar in iOS.
>>> 
>>> BUMMER! Calendar works signifficantly less good with TalkBack than the Calendar app on iOS does with VoiceOver.
>>> 
>>> Multi-lingual input
>>> 
>>> Because I am writing in both English and German frequently, I wanted a way to quickly switch between these two input languages. The problem with one is that, if I write the other language, the auto-correct will often try to deduce German words out of English vocabulary, or vice versa. Fortunately, this is as convenient as on iOS once set up. In Languages and Input Settings, with the stock Android keyboard, one needs to disable the System Language checkbox and then enable the languages one wants to have supported. Next to the space bar, there is now a new button that cycles through available languages.
>>> 
>>> BUMMER: iOS does announce the new language switched to, TalkBack doesn’t.
>>> 
>>> This can be a real productivity killer if one uses more than two languages frequently.
>>> 
>>> The next problem arises with German umlauts. Sighted people long-tap the a, o and u characters for the ä, ö and ü characters, and s for the ß character. TalkBack users have a big problem here, since neither TalkBack nor the alternate screen reader Spiel allow for keys to be long-tapped. On iOS, when in touch-typing mode, one touches the letter in question and leaves the finger there, taps the screen with a second finger, and can then double-tap and hold to simulate a long-tap on the letter, and finally choose the relevant special character. Since iOS 6, a German keyboard with dedicated umlaut characters is also available, and on the iPad, even the ß character has a dedicated key.
>>> 
>>> On Android, the stock keyboard does not come with such extra keys, and accessibility does not allow to bring up the umlauts. Alternative keyboards from the Play Store such as the SwiftKey or the “German keyboard with Umlauts” app offer no accessible keyboards. It appears that accessibility is tightly integrated with the Android keyboard alone. Asking around in the community did also not yield any positive result on this matter.
>>> 
>>> BUMMER! No umlauts for blind users on Android! This also is true for accented characters in French, Spanish or other languages.
>>> 
>>> Text editing is another problem that lags behind terribly in Android if you do not use an external keyboard. On iOS, one can control the cursor, do text selection, do editing functions such as cut, copy and paste. On Android, there are gestures to move by character, word, or paragraph, but there is no way to select text or bring up the editing functions of a text field in a controlled fashion. I do not want to have to always use an external keyboard!
>>> 
>>> Moreover, if