Sendero GPS LookAround

By Matthew Bullis

App Details

By:  Sendero Group, LLC

Price:  $4.99

Devices:  Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.  Requires iOS 4.2 or later.

Description:  This $5 app is aptly named, as it’s not actually a complete GPS solution. It will tell you where you are, and you can ascertain the nearest cross street, but you cannot get step-by-step directions to where you want to go. Simply shake the phone and get localized information, sorted by category if you like. You’ll not be able to input an address and find the distance to that point though. LookAround is just what it does, so that you can apply what the app tells you to your surroundings. Use this as one of several tools in your mobility arsenal. You’ll probably want a more robust solution if you’re doing a lot of navigating to unfamiliar places.

Sendero GPS LookAround is compatible for blind, low vision, and sighted.

Pros

• Low price of $5 to get information about your surroundings
• Accessibility will always be built in, since Sendero is a blindness-specific company

Cons

• Not a complete GPS solution
• Does not include turn-by-turn navigation
• Unable to put in an address and be directed to it

Review of V O Starter for the Iphone

By Matthew Bullis

App Details

By:  Michael Doise

Price:  $0.99

Devices:  Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch (3rd, 4th, and 5th generation), and iPad.  Requires iOS 5.0 or later.  This app is optimized for iPhone 5.

Description:  This $.99 app, pronounced V O Starter, available in the App Store, lets new users to the VoiceOver interface get to know how VoiceOver changes the way you interact with the screen. With a step-by-step user wizard, plus a menu interface to alternatively let you choose the practice session you wish, you can learn how to use different gestures to make the most of your IPhone or I device experience. This app is what really should be included in Apple’s Practice Gestures part of the operating system, since the existing practice area necessitates you knowing something about gestures already, in order to get into that screen.

If you’re relatively comfortable with the use of VoiceOver, perhaps you’ve not come across pickers or switches before. VOStarter has a screen for those features to let you test those out. You get a challenge when you’re using the entering text screen, since VoiceOver doesn’t speak the exact thing you’re supposed to type in, including the space character and the exclamation point, but you do get the hang of learning how to type and select characters. Apart from this small stumbling block, you learn quite a lot about how to control your I device with VoiceOver, and there’s not too much else to say, except that this app teaches you well and quickly, so you can continue on and be productive in other ways.

VOStarter is compatible for blind and low vision.

Pros

• Covers the use of a few gestures that the Looktel app does not

Cons

• Not free like Apple's gesture screen or the Looktel app
• Trouble with the typing screen for new users
• No games to test your practice

LookTel VoiceOver Tutorial

By Matthew Bullis

App Details

By:  IPPLEX

Price:  Free

Devices:  Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation), iPod touch (5th generation) and iPad. Requires iOS 6.0 or later. This app is optimized for iPhone 5.

Description:  This free app from LookTel gives a different slant to the tutorials of VoiceOver which have come before it. This tutorial is straightforward with its screens, and it even has two games built in, to test your use of its gestures. Each screen is filled with detailed descriptions of how to use each gesture, and you can go back and practice with these, should you have questions. It remains to be seen whether LookTel will add more gesture practice screens, but the two games, basketball and crack the safe, make this app one which has good replay value.

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

Pros

• Two games to test your gesture knowledge
• A free way to learn how to use VoiceOver

Cons

• Not at this time

Numbers

By Matthew Bullis

App Details

By:  Apple Inc.

Price:  $9.99

Devices:  Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation), iPod touch (5th generation) and iPad. Requires iOS 5.1 or later. This app is optimized for iPhone 5.

Description:  This ten dollar app from the productivity category in the app store lets you navigate Excel spreadsheets. You pretty much need to use a Bluetooth keyboard for this app. However, with VoiceOver, this app is a challenge. It lets you navigate across the columns but not down the rows. I’m not sure what’s gone on there, but these issues have been reported to Apple by other users. Other suggestions have also been sent. Without the ability to review the whole worksheet, it doesn’t really help me, and I need to use the Windows version. It’s not as simple as just sliding down the cells with your finger. VoiceOver uses the downward motion of your finger to change the rotor settings, a feature which is unique to the VoiceOver feature set. You can’t disable the rotor, and nor would you want to, since that’s how you navigate by words, characters, links on a web page, and so on. I look forward to a creative solution from an app update in the future, should that become available.

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

Cons

• VoiceOver use with this app is a challenge, able to use Excel on a Windows platform much easier