PocketTime

By Matthew Bullis

App Details

By:  Aeliox

Price:  $0.99

Devices:  Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.  Requires iOS 3.0 or later.

Description:  This $1 app has been in the app store since March 2010. However, around March 2013, a company in Switzerland called Alexandra Vision, developed a vibrating timepiece for discreet time checking. A long vibration stands for five units of time, and the watch has three buttons, hour, tens of minute, and last digit of minute.

www.AlexandraVision.com

However, if you don’t wish to spend about $150 for their Memeor watch, the PocketTime app from Aeliox might be the thing for you as an I device user. Be sure to purchase the app from Aeliox, as there is another app by the same name which does not perform the same function. PocketTime, unlike the watches from Alexandra Vision, will give seven vibrations for seven o’clock, instead of using long and short vibrations. PocketTime will pause between time digits. If the digit is 0, you’ll get an extra pause. You simply activate the app, turn off VoiceOver, which you’ve hopefully set to the triple click home setting, and thereafter, when you touch the screen anywhere, you’ll get the time pulses. That’s all this app does, and it does it well. I personally prefer my Meteor watch from Alexandra Vision, but as I have said, if you already own an I device, this may be your way of telling the time during a particular situation when it’s not appropriate to use a talking watch. Press the home button to return to normal functioning, and remember to turn VoiceOver back on.

PocketTime is compatible for blind, low vision, and sighted.

Pros

• Ability to silently tell time

Cons

• A vibration for each unit of time, instead of long vibration for five units