welcome to my world of written word.
by c.h.ha
iphone 3gs is ingenius
January 26th, 2010 by Christine
I had been on the market for a cell phone for several months. The Division for Blind Services was willing to pay for this mobile software used on Windows smart phones that will allow sight-impaired people to use cell phones to their full functioning capacity, i.e. text, email, etc. The software from Code Factory is called Mobile Speaks, and it reads aloud everything on the screen, allowing blind people to navigate their phone more easily.
Since I knew I’d be using this phone until it goes to the grave, I wanted to make sure I chose the perfect phone. Code Factory recently released Orator, the same software but for the Blackberry. I went to many cell phone stores to test out different phones and found that my main problem with the Windows phones and Blackberries is the keyboard was too tiny for simple navigation. I’d constantly press the wrong key, and it was frustrating to say the least. A text message would inevitably take me 10 minutes!
Then JS came upon a tutorial online for the iPhone 3GS, which comes with built-in accessibility features like VoiceOver, the same application that got me to switch to Macbooks a few years ago. Basically, VoiceOver reads aloud whatever your finger touches on the screen. The virtual keyboard works by reading aloud whatever key your finger floats over. And to choose a particular key, you simply tap the screen with a different finger. The phone will then repeat the typed letter so you can ensure you picked the right key.
At first, it took me a while to navigate the phone, but like most things, muscle memory kicks in, and now I can type at a decent pace on the phone. I’ve even downloaded word games like Word Warp where you make as many words out of 6 given letters as you can. Of course, I had to up my allotted time from 2 minutes to 4, but I bet I could still beat some sighted people.
All in all, thank you, Apple, for making my life just a tad bit better! Now I can join the world in texting and twittering.
great. now i’m all alone.
That’s great news C! Hope you feel more connected now…
that’s awesome c! you’ll have to show me.
there was a christian artist who was supposed to play a mini concert in TN for our conference named Ginny Owens.. i think you’ll like her music.
actually she was replacing Sheryl Crowe who couldn’t make it because of her grammy nomination (seriously). but the 1 inch of snow in TN shut the place down.. wimps
does it sound like John’s GPS??