App for Blind & Visually Impaired Users
By Matthew Bullis
Amazon recently announced the accessibility features added to their Kindle app. Previously, blind users have had to struggle with Kindles’ hardware platform. The PC Kindle program was a step forward, but you still had to use the text-to-speech voices supplied in the program itself. With the accessibility features implemented in the iPhone app now, you are able to enjoy Kindle material in any of the iPhone voices, or even with a paired braille display. Although you cannot buy Kindle books from this app, as it’s only a reader, this task is easily handled from the Amazon web site. Within the app, you must select the Cloud link to collect your Kindle materials and sync them to your i-device. Tap on a book to download it. Once the book is loaded, swipe down with two fingers and it will read continuously, with a little swish sound when it changes pages. Single tap with two fingers to start and stop reading, and three finger swipe right to go back a page, and left to advance a page. Double tap to get out of the book and into the menu to switch sections or go elsewhere in the app. Other than that, it’s pretty much straight forward, and ready to enjoy.
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