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

Pages

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, 4th, and 5th generation) and iPad.  Requires iOS 5.1 or later.  This app is optimized for iPhone 5.

Description:   This ten dollar word processing app is good for what it does, but for the following reasons, it just doesn’t get it for me. As a user of Windows with the Jaws screen reading package for over fifteen years, and with a typing speed in excess of fifty words a minute, the Pages app will help me to produce documents on the IPhone with a Bluetooth keyboard, but these tasks can be accomplished by me more easily on Windows. When you’re typing along, it’s just fine, but when editing using VoiceOver, you have to rely on its feedback. This involves turning on and off the QuickNav feature, and using the rotor gesture to select the navigation unit, whether it be by characters or words. It’s several keystrokes that a sighted user doesn’t have to use, since they can touch right where they want to make the edit. Also, you can’t simply use the toggle commands to underline or bold like you can in Microsoft Word. It also takes a few navigational elements in order to get to the canvas area where you can start editing. If I need to quickly write down something, and if my Windows computer is running, I can start typing in a blank document in about two seconds, and for my speed of productivity, it’s to Windows I’ll go, though this Pages app is good within its own platform, extra keystrokes and all.

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

Pros

• Ability to access your documents in a mobile setting

Cons

• Not as speedy as working with documents on Windows platform

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

Typing on the Iphone With VoiceOver and it's Built-in Keyboards

By Matthew Bullis

When it’s required, you’ll have a keyboard pop up to enter text on the iPhone. Two free layouts are built-into the operating system for VoiceOver users. There will be times when you don’t have an external Bluetooth keyboard, or when you just need to enter one or two fields of text. You’ll need to know how to type on the IPhone keyboard in either typing mode, as a VoiceOver user.

The standard layout allows you to find the letter you want by sliding your finger around until you hit it just right. Stop there with that finger and tap with another finger anywhere else to type that letter. Keep practicing until you get reasonable results. The More button gives you extra needed symbols.

The other layout is touch typing. Try this one second, after you use the rotor gestures by twisting two fingers like a radio dial until you hear typing mode. You’re on Standard, so swipe down with one finger to get Touch Typing. Twist again to set the rotor to something else to avoid accidentally switching modes. Now, the split tap won’t work. You need only find the desired letter by sliding around and lifting to select that letter.

Repeat the rotor process described above to switch between typing modes. Try both modes and get comfortable with each, or very good with one, so that you can type on the IPhone when you need to.

Color ID Free

By Tobin Ernst

App Details

By:  GreenGar Studios

Price:  Free

Devices:  Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch (4th generation), iPod touch (5th generation), iPad 2 Wi-Fi, iPad 2 Wi-Fi +3G, iPad (3rd generation), iPad Wi-Fi +4G, iPad (4th generation), iPad Wi-Fi + Cellular (4th generation), iPad mini and iPad mini Wi-Fi + Cellular. Requires iOS 5.1 or later.

Description:  Color Identifier uses the camera on your iPhone or iPod touch to speak the names of colors in real-time. It’s an Augmented Reality app for discovering the names of the colors around you! The color names are fun and specific: Paris Daisy, Lavender Rose, Moon Mist, and many more. The app also supports Simple Colors. Tap the color square at the top to toggle between Simple Colors and Exotic Colors. It can be a useful app for the blind and visually impaired, but also fun for anyone. It will also tell you the hex value of the color, so you can identify exactly what color the camera sees. It’s fast, easy, and fun! Try it today.

Color ID is compatible for blind, low vision, or sighted.

Pros

• Fast to pick out colors
• Free
• Accurate

Cons

• Color wheel is too robust; would like to just have it ID "royal blue, navy blue, power blue"
• Colors only show up if it is at a certain angle or in the right lighting
• Not Android compatible, only available for Apple products