[Electronics-talk] Microsoft Surface

Thu Apr 11 22:55:30 UTC 2013

that is my understanding too, no accessibility on the windows phones.

-----Original Message----- 
From: Tracy Carcione
Sent: Sunday, April 07, 2013 9:13 AM
To: Discussion of accessible electronics and appliances
Subject: [Electronics-talk] Microsoft Surface

It seems, from a recent post on the NFBCS list, that there is no
accessibility built into Windows phones yet.
Tracy

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Barbour" <jbar at barcore.com>
To: "Discussion of accessible electronics and appliances"
<electronics-talk at nfbnet.org>
Cc: "Discussion of accessible electronics and appliances"
<electronics-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Saturday, April 06, 2013 1:56 PM
Subject: [Electronics-talk] Chrome os (was Re: Good article on androidversus
iOS accessibility.)

> 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
>
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