
A little-known iPhone feature that lets blind people see with their fingers - Tomte
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/david-pogue-on-iphone-voiceover-163733668.html
======
james_pm
My daughter who has Fragile X Syndrome, has used an iPod touch for years now.
She's 14, and reads at about a grade one level. Between the screen reader that
will read articles, texts and almost anything else on the screen, and the
predictive typing and dictation, the iPod is an incredible device for her.

She has an Android phone, but it's not even close in terms of the
accessibility options provided. Apple is excellent in this regard.

~~~
component
There's an iOS accessibility engineer who's blind [1]. It's amazing how
dedicated they are on accessibility features

[1] [http://mashable.com/2016/07/10/apple-innovation-blind-
engine...](http://mashable.com/2016/07/10/apple-innovation-blind-engineer/)

~~~
d4l3k
There's also a blind Android accessibility engineer at Google.

The differences probably come more from the splintered android landscape and
Apple's stricter review process.

Source: met him

~~~
canes123456
I don't think the review process matters because their plenty of apps that
don't support voice over at all on ios. I think it comes down to apple
supporting it much earlier and advocating for it. More blind people started
using iOS and then support for apps started getting better.

~~~
derefr
A major difference (that the review process could influence) is that iOS apps
seem to be pushed toward using native controls whenever possible (or
abstraction libraries atop those controls), where Android tends to have a lot
of custom controls. The native OS controls have very good accessibility, so
the average iOS app (which leans heavily on native controls) should be more
accessible than the average Android app (which doesn't.)

------
joshaidan
I had a user once request that I add VoiceOver support to my app. I was
surprised by how easy and simple it was to add it. If I recall correctly, it
was just a few fields you have to fill out on your UI components. So once I
learned how to use them, I always fill out to fields on future projects.

~~~
derefr
It's too bad you do actually have to fill them out to activate the
functionality, rather than there being some intelligent default enabling
accessibility (if clumsy) from the first time you drop a control in Interface
Builder.

------
hackuser
When I see stories like this one, read here how good the accessibility is in
iPhones, and read about how good their security is for end users, I don't
understand why it's trendy to tear down Apple and Tim Cook.

What a great citizen of the IT community and the world. It would be a great
loss if new management came in and decided that all of this wasn't profitable.

~~~
forgottenpass
_I don 't understand why it's trendy to tear down Apple and Tim Cook._

They made their decision on what their externally-facing corporate culture
would be. It's no one's fault but their own, that people hold them to a higher
standard than they may hold others.

 _What a great citizen of the IT community and the world._

They're leading the day-to-day normalization of the idea that end users don't
get (and shouldn't have) ultimate control over their devices. Calling them a
"great citizen" is an incredibly frustrating thing to read.

~~~
frogpelt
_They 're leading the day-to-day normalization of the idea that end users
don't get (and shouldn't have) ultimate control over their devices._

Or said another way, the vast majority of users don't care to have complete
control over their devices and place more value on Apple's approach.

~~~
H4CK3RM4N
At least they're not handing this control to the NSA/CIA. Apple's also made a
few important steps towards keeping data encrypted and on device, instead of
being sprayed across the internet(the Mac's new photos.app is a great example
of this).

------
e28eta
I find VoiceOver handy while driving. I'm never doing anything complicated,
but it's an awesome complement to Siri for getting things done with minimal
distractions.

    
    
      - Easy to turn on/off with triple tap home button shortcut
      - Doesn't require looking at the screen at all
      - Double, two finger tap to play/pause podcast player or music
      - Automatically reads incoming notifications
    

I highly _discourage_ trying to learn to use VoiceOver while driving. But if
you're reasonably familiar with it (say, from testing iOS apps for basic
compatibility), it can be useful.

~~~
adiabatty
Interesting. I used to use VoiceOver when doing platelet apheresis (lying down
in a bed for an hour and a half) and I found that a lot of stuff I wanted to
do other than play/pause needed two hands to perform reliably, like making the
rotor gestures. I'm having trouble imagining what's easier and safer to do
with VoiceOver while driving compared to glancing at the phone for a tenth of
a second and then positioning your finger later based on what's on the screen.

~~~
StavrosK
VoiceOver is just better designed. I have a blind friend who never figured out
how to use an Android device because of the radial menus. I had to explain to
him exactly how to use them, because the way Android teaches it to users is by
SHOWING A DIAGRAM ON THE SCREEN. Way to go, Google.

------
conradev
If you're interested in learning more about VoiceOver, AppleVis is a great
community resource for learning more about it:
[http://www.applevis.com](http://www.applevis.com)

If you want to see more of it in action, you can check out the Apple Design
awards, where VoiceOver engineers demo apps:

[https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2015/103/](https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2015/103/)
(36:30, disclaimer: I work on this app)

[https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2016/103/](https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2016/103/)
(55:45)

------
bo1024
This is only tangentially related, but VizWiz[1] is an app developed by
researchers to help blind people "see" objects around them.

The user takes a picture of the object with their phone and asks a query, and
it is uploaded to a crowdsourcing platform (Mechanical Turk, I think) where
workers answer the query, e.g. "What are the ingredients in this can of food?"

[1] [http://www.vizwiz.org/](http://www.vizwiz.org/)

~~~
RobMurray
There is also TapTapSee[1], which gives you a description of a picture,
Bespecular[2] which sends pictures plus a question to volunteers, and Be My
Eyes[3] which connects you to a volunteer by video call. My wife Vicky did an
interview with the BBC about be my Eyes.[4]

[1][http://taptapseeapp.com/](http://taptapseeapp.com/) [2]
[https://www.bespecular.com/](https://www.bespecular.com/) [3]
[http://www.bemyeyes.org/](http://www.bemyeyes.org/) [4]
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-39056979](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-39056979)

------
musesum
A friend is blind. The iPhone+voiceover is his primary means of conducting
business. We've often talked about UX. Here's what I've learned:

Voiceover is currently an extra layer over a visual interface. So, it
amplifies the gesture cost of a visual+touch UI.

After writing a NLP interface for a productivity app, I learned that most of
the verbal interaction took less time the visual alternative. It didn't matter
if you were sighted or blind. Fitt's law meant that navigating a visual+touch
UI was too slow.

So, I'm now working on a verbal+touch UI. In that regard, voiceover users are
power users.

~~~
wangii
Interesting. I have the same conclusion and working on my idea. Which app are
you working on?

~~~
mack73
The achiles heel for voice-driven UI though is there is no silent mode. Don't
you therefor have to create both a GUI and a VUI?

~~~
jevinskie
Hmm... perhaps a braille terminal with two-four characters on the bottom of a
wrist watch?

~~~
krallja
Br

ai

ll

e

is

re

ad

li

ke

En

gl

is

h:

by

th

e

sh

ap

e

of

a

wo

rd

or

se

t

ph

ra

se

.

------
m1el
I have mixed feelings about this. On one side, I'm very happy for blind people
being enabled by software and hardware.

On the other side, I'm concerned that people have to use proprietary software
to enable their sight. I doubt that there is open source software for blind
people of similar quality. Am I wrong? I hope there is such software.

What would RMS do if he had a choice between using a mobile phone with
proprietary software to enable sight and remaining blind?

~~~
beejiu
You are assuming that Apple is making these accessibility features for
capitalist reasons rather than to comply with disability and accessibility
legislation.

~~~
sundaeofshock
If that's the case, why isn't anyone else reaching this level of
functionality? It is clear they are going above and beyond any level required
by regulation.

~~~
nicky0
Some people will never miss an opportunity to bash Apple. They can't help it,
it's a reflex, like breathing.

------
gcr
The iPhone is full of wonderful affordances like this for low-vision folks.

My favorite option I've discovered is the magnifier. When it's on, you can
triple-tap the home button to open the camera and turn the iPhone into a
little hand lens, even if it's locked. The shutter button doesn't save the
picture; it just freezes it (with some fancy optical stabilization) so you can
pinch and zoom even further with your fingers. This is more convenient than
swiping around on the lock screen to open the ordinary camera.

It's really helpful to read signs and restaurant menus. Settings -> General ->
Accessibility -> Magnifier.

------
Tomte
I love that part: "And here’s the kicker: She could do all of this with the
screen turned off. Her phone’s battery lasted forever."

~~~
mstade
My cousin keeps breaking her phone's screen. She's terrible with actually
caring for her things, and because it obviously becomes very expensive to
repair or replace all the time, she uses accessibility features to deal with
it instead. She has no disabilities whatsoever, except arguably an inability
to physically coordinate her actions such that she might avoid dropping her
phone all the time...

~~~
brianwawok
I had to do this in my 4s when the power button broke. I had to use the
accessibility power button...

------
djhworld
There's a bit in the video that displays the guys emails, and then a list of
phone numbers from his missed call list. Hopefully he gave consent for that to
be shown on camera?

Anyway, it's really cool how well the VO stuff seems to work on Apple devices,
including OSX. A lot of companies tend to just do the bare minimum to meet
regulatory code.

------
mariusc23
Does anyone know what the story of accessibility is like for React Native
apps? Hope it's not as sad as it generally is on the web. I imagine it's about
as good as native apps, but curious if anyone knows specifics.

~~~
firloop
From my experience (as a dev) it's pretty good. You have to explicitly turn
off accessibility features like dynamic type (larger fonts based on a global
user setting) and VoiceOver works just fine with the default <Text> component.
Since it's a native app React Native seems to have better support for these
things than a WebView base like cordova.

However, I am not a disabled person, just a curious dev, so I'd definitely
defer to someone with more experience using accessibility tools. Just saying
it looks pretty good on the surface to me.

~~~
RobMurray
Feel free to point me in the direction of a react native app - I would be
happy to test it with Voiceover and let you know how well it works.

------
lima
Blind friend of mine uses it all the time. Has a navigation app that tells him
the distance to certain waypoints, it's fascinating.

Allows him to do a lot of stuff that wasn't possible before.

------
Sir_Cmpwn
There was a cool talk at HOPE 2016 about this:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoevABNU5DI&list=PLcajvRZA8E...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoevABNU5DI&list=PLcajvRZA8E099SG5JGAaS56NMHPTbuHIV&index=77)

------
WalterBright
It would be cool to have a device that instead of pixels, had bumps that raise
up or down. Point the phone's camera at a scene, and you can 'see' the scene
with your finger.

~~~
wongarsu
It would be very useful, but the display tech isn't there.

The state of the art are still two lines of text in fairly big braille devices
(for ~$5k-$10k). There is some very interesting work being done at the
University of Michigan[1][2] on a new mechanism based on microfluidics, bit it
remains to be seen if that mechanism will reach a form factor even approaching
a phone.

1: [https://www.engadget.com/2016/01/12/braille-tablet-
display/](https://www.engadget.com/2016/01/12/braille-tablet-display/) 2:
[http://www.engin.umich.edu/college/about/news/stories/2015/d...](http://www.engin.umich.edu/college/about/news/stories/2015/december/bringing-
braille-back-with-a-better-display-technology)

~~~
robin_reala
Single line Braille displays are a fair bit cheaper though, for example this
single line one at $2600
[http://www.apple.com/shop/product/HJB42VC/A/humanware-
braill...](http://www.apple.com/shop/product/HJB42VC/A/humanware-brailliant-
bi-32-braille-display)

------
WalterBright
This is a very nice feature. I soon found a bug in it, though. It wouldn't
read PDF files in iBooks. PDF support always seems to be a sorry stepchild in
every operating system.

~~~
throwanem
Depending on the PDF, there may not be any text there to read. As long as
there is, I've found it to work quite well in iBooks for iOS 9.3.5, and will
sometimes have it read a chapter at a time to me while I'm doing hand chores
or otherwise unable to read from the screen directly.

~~~
WalterBright
There is text there, it just won't read it. Ironically, it'll correctly draw
boxes around the lines if you touch it.

------
twunde
Things like this make me simultaneously excited to be a dev and disappointed
that I'm not working on something as life changing as this.

------
bm98
As a web developer, I wonder if this class of accessibility functionality
renders the web accessibility guidelines [1] obsolete? Many of the guidelines
have to do with organizing content and following rules that make it easier for
older (inferior) screen readers to handle. But I just enabled this feature on
my iPhone, and browsed some sites that I know are ridiculously noncompliant,
and it handled them beautifully. Even guidelines having to do with describing
photos and avoiding text in images could be rendered obsolete with some of the
third-party apps that perform OCR and use AI describe photos.

[1] [https://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag](https://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag)

~~~
RobMurray
It definitely doesn't make the web accessibility guidelines obsolete. there's
a lot more to web accessibility than just getting Voiceover to read the text
under your finger. It is essential to have descriptions for images that are
links, and appropriate use of headings makes finding the relevant information
far easier.

------
RobMurray
Does anyone know of an HN client that works well with Voiceover?

------
wingerlang
I tried it out a while ago and it's really easy to use. I can definitely see
how someone using it day in and day out are really speedy with it.

------
zakki
Idea: Haptic feedbac mimicking braille characters.

~~~
totallynotcool
Sort of like... morse code?

Edit: That was sort of tongue-in-cheek, but I could see being able to run your
finger around the screen and when you hit a 'dot' there's a haptic response.

~~~
hendypok
I started a project exactly along these lines!

[https://github.com/Hendekagon/MorseCoder](https://github.com/Hendekagon/MorseCoder)

\-- it's very basic

------
Tajnymag
I feel like Google Talkback can do basically the same with. You hover over the
screen and Talkback tells you, what's underneath your finger. It can even
notifications out loud. I would even go that far and say that it can do at
least 90% of what VoiceOver can.

Yes, it might not work magically in every app, but with a good choice of apps,
a blind person should be able to do most of the normal activities.

If I'm wrong, please, let me now.

~~~
MBCook
So you've never used it, it probably doesn't work with every app, but it does
a few of the same thing so it's probably the same?

That seems like it would be offensively dismissive to people who have to deal
with this issue.

Apple puts a phenomenal amount of work into allowing people with all sorts of
different handicaps and disabilities to be able to use their devices. I
remember being in college before the iPhone was out. I had a blind classmate
who had a special Nokia Symbian phone with thousands of dollars of software on
it just so he could use it. All paid for by insurance, and it crashed all the
time.

I don't think I've ever seen an article say a bad thing about Apple's
assistive technologies. They are built-in, they don't cost extra, they
basically work everywhere. Developers don't even have to put in that much work
to make use of it. It's a core part of the system which means that when they
decided to build watchOS it was already there and ready for people with
disabilities. When they updated the Apple TV to use a version of iOS it got
lots of the accessibility features as well.

~~~
Tajnymag
Fair enough. I didn't want to sound offensive. I just wanted to hear someone
else's opinion to how they differ and why one is better than the other.
Completely neutral here.

