[gui-talk] FWd: iPhone, a Reality Check

Tue Jun 9 15:54:58 UTC 2009

I'm skeptical due to the necessity to interact with a touch screen no matter
what they say about its ease.  However, I'd sure like the opportunity to
investigate this phone.  I hope AFB reviews it soon.

-----Original Message-----
From: gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Steve Pattison
Sent: Tuesday, June 09, 2009 1:56 AM
To: Access L
Subject: [gui-talk] FWd: iPhone, a Reality Check

From: blindphones-bounces at mosenexplosion.com
On Behalf Of Jonathan Mosen

There's been some pretty lively discussion on Twitter since the announcement
of the new iPhone, which some are calling accessible. As 140 characters can
be quite limiting, I thought I would make some extended comment through this
list.

There seems to be a great deal of excitement over the fact that Apple have
put a screen reader into the iPhone. For no extra cost, someone can go to
AT&T in the US, or your iPhone carrier in other countries, pick up an
iPhone, and get speech without installing any additional software. It can be
made to talk by enabling the feature from the PC, so no sighted assistance
is required. At face value, the principle is an enticing one, although the
concept is not entirely new. Phones such as some of the LG range have
offered an out of box experience that has varied in its degree of
accessibility for some time. There is also the question of how easily we as
blind people can influence product enhancements. But hats off to Apple for
getting this done for sure.

Just because we're blind, doesn't mean we're immune to the latest trend and
marketing hype. Sighted iPhone devotees love the look of the iPhone, and its
touch screen. So there are blind people who want an iPhone because it's
trendy. There's nothing inherently wrong with this either. If we want to be
part of the latest big thing, it is wrong for consumers that happen to be
blind to be locked out. It is worth baring in mind though that Nokia still
well outsells all of its competitors put together in the global market.

We all use our phones for different purposes, and perhaps it is true that
because screen readers have only run on smartphones, some of us are using
smartphones when we otherwise wouldn't be. A smartphone is all about
productivity. Getting information in and out of the device with ease is
critical.

There are comments in the Apple documentation, found at
http://www.apple.com/accessibility/iphone/vision.html that intrigue me with
respect to reviewing what is on the screen. They say in part:

What makes VoiceOver on iPhone truly remarkable is that you control it using
simple gestures that let you physically interact with items on screen. It's
easy to learn and fun to use. Instead of memorizing hundreds of keyboard
commands, or endlessly pressing tiny arrow keys to find what you're looking
for, with VoiceOver, you simply touch the screen to hear a description of
the item under your finger, then gesture with a double-tap, drag, or flick
to control the phone. 

VoiceOver delivers an experience unlike any screen reader you've ever used
before. Traditional screen readers describe individual elements on the
screen, but struggle to communicate where each element is located or provide
information about adjoining objects. This contextual information is very
important but typically filtered out by other screen readers. For example,
"off-screen" models used by traditional screen readers to represent
applications and web pages intentionally strip away contextual information
and describe web pages as a list or menu of items. But with VoiceOver on
iPhone 3G S, you'll experience something entirely new.

So say the people at Apple. It seems they are indulging in some serious
hyperbole here. As a Talks and Mobile Speak user who uses a lot of the
screen readers' functionality, it is simply not the case that there are
hundreds of commands to remember. Further, are arrow keys and a keyboard or
number pad really so bad? It would appear to me to be an optimal interface
for a blind person to use.

But the really interesting philosophical point for me relates to their
comment about knowing where information appears on the screen. Apple says
this is important. But this begs the question, who says that where
information appears on the screen of a phone is important? Not many, if any,
blind people. We're not talking about formatting complex documents here. We
want to get at our information, whether that be reading a message or
checking our battery status, efficiently. I've used accessible phones for
six years now. Never once has it even occurred to me to wonder where the
power and battery status appears on the screen of my phone. Why should it?
Irrespective of where it appears, I want a foolproof, 100% guaranteed way of
hearing that information without fuss. The description on the Apple site
simply seeks to turn what is a negative for us, the lack of arrow keys and a
real keyboard, into a positive. In my view, it's a false positive. We do not
need to know where something appears on the screen. That said, with
practice, it probably will be straightforward enough to aim at the right
part of the screen to get the information you want, although I'd say not as
reliable as getting there from a keyboard.

For input, anyone who has a current smartphone running one of the other
operating systems will be taking a step back in terms of ease of use and
productivity.

If you want to dial numbers and play music from your library, the iPhone
will allow you to do this by speaking to the device. We won't know how well
this works in noisy environments, but speech recognition is quite good these
days, so one would expect satisfactory results in most conditions.

The area where the iPhone is especially weak is inputting data, such as
texts, e-mail and contacts. The contacts of course could be entered on a
desktop device and synchronised, but when on the move, you want to be able
to send texts and e-mails speedily.

When you are running Voiceover on the iPhone, a different user interface is
active for the touch screen from that which is in play for sighted users.
Here's what Apple's own documentation says about entering data.

When you're typing text, such as an email message or a note, VoiceOver
echoes each character on the keyboard as you touch it, and again to confirm
when you enter it. You can also have VoiceOver speak each completed word
instead of and in addition to individual characters as you type them. A
flick up or down while typing moves the insertion point cursor left and
right within the text so you can edit a word just as easily and precisely as
typing a new word.

To help you type more quickly and accurately, iPhone features word
prediction and suggests the correct spelling when you type a word
incorrectly. With Speak Auto-text enabled, you'll hear a sound effect and
the suggested word spoken automatically. You can just keep typing to ignore
it, or press the space key to have iPhone type it for you.

So say Apple. So this sounds fairly similar to the functionality offered on
Pocket PC touch screen phones by Mobile Speak Pocket, although it is
considerably more advanced in terms of the various gestures one can make on
the screen to control a range of functions. My concern is the speed at which
data entry will be possible. You first have to locate the character you
want, on a completely flat surface touch screen, with Voiceover voicing each
character as you search for the one you want. Once located, you must confirm
the entry of that character. Now with practice, one may get fairly accurate
about guessing where your finger needs to be on the screen in order to get
the character you want. However I think one can be more precise, and more
importantly, efficient if one uses a qwerty keyboard or number pad. A really
proficient T9 text user is something to be hold in terms of speed.

Efficiency is critical for people who need to process information quickly to
be as productive on the job as their sighted peers.

It is possible that the word prediction algorithm may substantially speed up
data entry. However it would seem unlike that even then, data entry would be
as fast as an accomplished T9 user.

Then there is the question of third party applications, which may be thin on
the ground for the iPhone, at least initially. Apple says:

VoiceOver works with all of the built-in applications that come with iPhone
3G S, such as Phone, iPod, iTunes, Mail, Safari, and Maps. So, you can place
and receive calls, surf the web, text and email your friends, check your
stocks and the weather, and much, much more. Apple is also working with
iPhone software developers so they can make their applications VoiceOver
compatible. 

This is, at least in the short term, a lot more limiting than other options
such as Symbian or Windows Mobile.

In the end, it depends on what you're after. Some people believe that having
a "mainstream" device accessible out of the box is so important, that they
will sacrifice productivity. And of course, there's no need to buy any
additional software. I personally believe that we are a market deserving of
our needs to be met in the best way that meets our needs. There are still
better phones out there. The new Nokia range, such as the N86, has an 8 MP
camera, great data speeds, built-in voice over IP, and the potential to run
the KNFB Reader. If you are willing to put up with access that is more
fiddly for a lower price, then maybe the iPhone is an attractive
proposition. For me, my phone is not a gimmick, nor is it an experiment. I
need a phone that will let me manage my data on the move, and get the
messages out, without hunt and peck.

To those who say that the touch screen is the way of the future, this is
clearly not the case. Many, many manufacturers, even those that dabble in
some touch screen models, are still producing great new phones with
keyboards or number pads that have far better specs than the iPhone.
Further, I watched with interest the hopes being expressed by some bloggers
and tech commentators that maybe Apple would come out today with an iPhone
complete with slide-out qwerty keyboard. So even sighted people in some
quarters are starting to find the touch screen wearing a bit thin.

In summary, Apple should be congratulated for taking a device that clearly
breached Section 255 of the US Telecommunications Act, and having a go and
making it compliant. NFB and ACB have been asking for this, and I've no
doubt this is a sincere, and commendable effort on Apple's part to deliver.
Whether it can compete with well established offerings in terms of
productive, efficient access, I am not convinced. I still ask, what have we
gained in terms of efficient access to the exchange of information. Had
Apple come out with the same offering today, but with the addition of a
version of the iPhone with a qwerty keyboard, I think they would have been
right on the money.

Hopefully we can avoid the knee-jerk reactions of the fanboys out there, and
have some serious, thoughtful discussion about the appropriateness of this
kind of a user interface in meeting Section255 compliance.

Jonathan

Regards Steve
Email:  srp at internode.on.net
MSN Messenger:  internetuser383 at hotmail.com
Skype:  steve1963

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