When I first tried it at three o'clock in the morning, I couldn't figure out why it just reported black. I can see some light and color, but just in blurs, and objects don't really have a color, just light sources. I have never experienced this before in my life. These names in combination with what feels like a rise in serotonin levels makes for a very psychedelic experience. Some of them have very surreal names, such as Atomic Orange, Cosmic, Hippie Green, Opium, and Black-White. This puts the total at 16,777,216 colors, and I believe it. It must use a table, because each color has an identifier made up of 6 hexadecimal digits. It uses the iPhone's camera, and speaks names of colors. I downloaded an app called Color Identifier. The other night, a very amazing thing happened. I simply swiped my finger and it read her message: "Hi Austin." She almost cried. Within seconds, my phone alerted me, and said her name. She pulled out her phone, and sent me a text message. Mom's hopes sunk, but mine didn't, since I understood the software enough. "Well, yes, but it doesn't read the message." the salesman said. "Can he get text messages on this?" she asked. I continued to excitedly ask questions, as did my mom. After a little work, we had things settled. We went up front to make the necessary arrangements. Amazingly, it even renders stock charts, something the blind have never had access to. Within 30 seconds, I checked the weather. To my great surprise, I picked it up immediately. I anticipated a weird and slightly arduous journey, especially when it came to using the keyboard. Many reviews and people said to spend at least a half hour to an hour before passing judgment on using a touchpad interface with speech. You can also double triple-finger tap to toggle speech, and a triple triple-finger tap turns on the awesome screen curtain, which disables the screen and camera. It also has a rotor which you activate by turning your fingers like a dial. This makes for more rapid entry once you understand it. You can also split-tap, where you hold down one location and tap another. Tap an item to hear it, double tap to activate it, swipe three fingers to scroll. Fortunately, I read up on it before I went. To my delight, the salesman knew about VoiceOver and how to activate it, though didn't know about how to use it. It felt like coming full circle, since we went to an Apple store many years ago to get my Apple II/E. I could hardly believe it, and figured that I should reevaluate things. That changed when another blind friend with similar opinions also founded in long years of experience bought one, and just went nuts about how much she loved it, especially the touchpad interface. I laughed at the trendies, both sighted and blind, buying iPhones and enthusing about them. I figured that Apple just wanted to get some good PR - after all, how could a blind person even use a touchpad? The blind have gotten so used to lofty promises of a dream platform, only to receive some slapped together set of software with a minimally functional screen reader running on overpriced hardware which can't take a beating. When I first heard that Apple would release a touchpad cell phone with VoiceOver, the screen reading software used by Macs, I scoffed. It offers unparalleled access to properly made applications, and changed my life in twenty-four hours. I consider it the greatest thing to happen to the blind for a very long time, possibly ever. When I got an iPhone, my life changed forever. The powerful story he tells here explains why. He believes the device is the future of accessibility for the visually impaired. Austin Seraphin is legally blind, though he can some light and color. Editor's Note: This review of the iPhone will probably be the deepest you'll ever read.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |