[Home-on-the-range] interesting article
Milton Ota
mota1252 at samobile.net
Sat May 18 18:12:34 UTC 2019
I must have missed something, I didn't see how much memmory the phone has.
Irie-AT has been in the past at the NFB National Convention and I don't
see why they wouldn't be there this year as the company is based in Oregon.
Original message:
> Did you see how much memory it has? That is not a bad price at all.
> Cindy Lou
> Sent from my iPad
> On May 18, 2019, at 12:08 PM, Rob Tabor via Home-on-the-Range
> <home-on-the-range at nfbnet.org <mailto:home-on-the-range at nfbnet.org>> wrote:
> I visited the website from the link in the article and the SmartVision2
> is priced at $599, probably with shipping costs added. The price
> doesn’t seem too terrible, considering I was prepared to hear at least
> $800, and taking into account the phone was designed with front end
> accessibility.
> If Aire-AT has company reps in the convention exhibit arena, it may be
> worth our while to get a hands-on look at it to gain our own first-hand
> impressions.
> Best regards,
> Rob
> From: Home-on-the-Range [mailto:home-on-the-range-bounces at nfbnet.org
> <mailto:home-on-the-range-bounces at nfbnet.org>] On Behalf Of Cindy Ray
> via Home-on-the-Range
> Sent: Saturday, May 18, 2019 9:59 AM
> To: NFB of Kansas Internet Mailing List
> Cc: Cindy Ray
> Subject: Re: [Home-on-the-range] interesting article
> I can’t imagine what this phone would cost. I am not sure I see where
> that phone would be less intimidating than any other smart phone except
> it does have keys. However, with the size stated, the buttons would
> likely all be small and close together. If you were a person with big
> fingers or calloused fingers, it would probably be some hard to use it
> I think. Of course I haven’t seen it, so I could be just being negative.
> Cindy Lou Ray
> Sent from my iPhone
> On May 18, 2019, at 9:43 AM, Susie Stanzel via Home-on-the-Range
> <home-on-the-range at nfbnet.org <mailto:home-on-the-range at nfbnet.org>> wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
> I know all of us know people who need a simpler phone. The President of
> the Kansas City chapter forwarded this article from our Voice of the
> nation’s blind blog.
> Susie
> Feed: Voice of the Nation's Blind Blog
> Posted on: Thursday, May 16, 2019 9:26 AM
> Author: avetro
> Subject: The SmartVision2: A Smartphone Made Easy
> The SmartVision2: A Smartphone Made Easy
> <image001.jpg>
> avetro May 16, 2019
> Matt Hackert
> Thursday, May 16, 2019
> The SmartVision2 from Irie-AT is a smartphone built from the ground up
> with accessibility in mind. Its key feature is its simplification of
> many smartphone tasks, designed to reduce the learning curve of
> smartphone technology for those intimidated by mainstream iPhones and
> Android phones. Overall, I think that the SmartVision2
> <https://irie-at.com/product/smartvision2/> accomplishes this goal.
> General Overview
> There are two versions of the SmartVision2, differentiated only by the
> software features offered. Irie-AT allows you to purchase the basic
> model but gives you a fifteen-day trial to test-drive the features only
> available in the premium model. Should you decide to upgrade, special
> pricing is available to make the upgrade a little more affordable.
> The phone itself is nearly identical in size and weight to the iPhone
> 7. The front face of the phone has a four-inch touch screen with the
> tactile keypad comprising the bottom portion. The tactile interface is
> further broken out into two sections—the navigation section that
> includes call pick up and hang up buttons on the outer edges, home,
> return, menu, and delete keys closer to the center, and a four-way
> navigation button and OK button in the center; and a standard numeric
> telephone keypad. The number “five” is marked tactually.
> Three Interface Options
> The SmartVision2 offers three ways to interact with the phone:
> * Tactile keypad
> * Touch screen and gestures
> * Voice command
> All three interface options work fairly well, and most users will
> likely use a combination of them in daily operation of the phone. I
> personally enjoyed the ability to use a physical keypad for inputting
> phone numbers but preferred to use the on-screen keyboard to type
> text-based information such as names and email messages. You can, in
> fact, use the old-school method of typing alphabetic characters using
> the phone’s numeric keypad, pressing a number one, two, or three times
> to access the corresponding letter.
> Tactile Keypad
> The tactile keypad on the lower portion of the phone appears to be a
> good option, especially for those new to smartphones or who have
> difficulty with using gestures on a touch screen. In particular, the
> numeric pad is fast and easy, even if you are comfortable with
> touch-screen keyboards.
> The one caveat I would point out is that the navigation buttons are
> small and closely packed. The down arrow in particular butts right up
> against the number two and can be tricky to press, especially if your
> finger dexterity is less than optimal. One handy feature, though, is
> the OK button in the middle of the navigation keys—you can flick to an
> element, then press the OK button, rather than try to double-tap on the
> screen, risk moving focus to something else, having to find the right
> object again, and double-tapping.
> Touch Screen
> As an iPhone user, I found moving to an Android-based, touch-screen
> interface easy and intuitive. Flicking left and right and
> double-tapping work as you might expect. Some symbols on the on-screen
> keyboard are located in different places, but touching and sliding your
> finger works easily enough to find what you need. On the downside, the
> responsiveness is a bit slow. In particular, exploring the screen (with
> the exception of the on-screen keyboard) feels sluggish.
> I discovered, with both the keyboard navigation and touch-screen
> navigation, one unique feature is that in most menus and settings
> screens, navigation will cycle continuously, meaning that there is no
> “bottom” or “top” to a screen. If you flick right again past the last
> element, or press the down arrow again, focus will cycle back to the
> top. Likewise, if you try to navigate up from the topmost element, you
> will be brought back to the last element on the screen.
> Voice Command
> The SmartVision2 has a voice command button on the right-hand side,
> just above the two volume buttons. Press this button to “wake” the
> device, and you will hear a tone prompting you to speak a command to
> the device. One annoyance I found was that there was a delay,
> frequently in excess of ten seconds, between pressing the button and
> hearing the prompt that the device was ready to listen. One possible
> explanation is that I also noticed a tendency for the device to lose
> Wi-Fi connectivity, despite high signal strength. Once you get that
> far, however, response is quick and accurate. You can issue almost any
> command you would expect to be able to give on a standard Android or
> Apple phone. In addition, all edit fields allow you to dictate text,
> which works well. Note that you do need a network connection as the
> SmartVision2 sends your dictation off to Google for interpretation, as
> is the case for other smartphones.
> Software
> The built-in software of the SmartVision2 is pretty comprehensive. It
> includes phone, email, text messaging, and web browsing, as well as a
> calendar, contact management, camera, and photo management, as well as
> other apps found on other mainstream devices. One unique feature I did
> not have a way to test is the ability for friends or family to “remote
> in” to help troubleshoot problems. If this feature works as advertised,
> it would be a nice feature for those not technically inclined when they
> run into problems.
> Further, if there’s something you need that doesn’t come automatically
> installed, the SmartVision2 includes the Google Play Store, and will
> allow you to install third-party apps. The home screen is highly
> customizable, and you can assign shortcuts to keypad numbers.
> The SmartVision2 also includes several specialized apps such as a color
> detector, lighting detector, and video magnifier. For OCR and GPS
> navigation, you will need to purchase the premium model, which also
> gives you an eBook and DAISY reader/creator.
> The native apps generally work well. The color detector and light
> detector are not great, but I have not found any that are very reliable
> on other devices. For color detection in particular, the ambient
> lighting of the room strongly influences what color is detected and how
> true to life the detected color really is.
> In terms of the premium apps, while they seem to work fine, I feel that
> there are other free or less expensive alternatives that perform as
> well or better. Google Maps does as well as the Kapten GPS app. KNFB
> Reader does as well or better than the premium OCR app. And there are
> alternative DAISY readers such as Voice Dream Reader and Writer that cost less.
> Conclusion
> To conclude, Irie-AT does a really good job delivering a solid phone
> that has the potential to open up access to many smartphone features to
> people who might otherwise be intimidated by mainstream phones and
> their many complexities. It is not a cheap solution, though. I do feel
> that the basic model will work quite well for most users.
> —Matt Hackert
> The National Federation of the Blind is proud to offer this smartphone
> review as part of our celebration of Global Accessibility Awareness Day
> <https://globalaccessibilityawarenessday.org/>, Thursday, May 16, 2019.
> Our accessibility resources
> <https://www.nfb.org/programs-services/center-excellence-nonvisual-access>—which
> center on consumer involvement, meaningful partnerships, and technical
> assistance—continually help inform and improve technology for all of
> us. Join us in our commitment to build a more accessible world.
> Access Technology <https://www.nfb.org/blog-categories/access-technology>
> Read this blog post
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