Hi Dane and all,
I apologise if I came across as taking sides in the annoying war
between Android and iOS. I have no loyalty to any technology or company, I use
both systems and dislike both. I would respectfully say that Apple's
accessibility has not so much taken steps backwards but, and I particularly
refer to braille, jumped backwards over the edge of a cliff. I also agree with
you, Google has come a long way in terms of access. However, they had a very
long way to go to bring their accessibility to a usable state. The old example,
of a student who scored ten percent and then scored sixty percent three months
later is relevant. Yes, he has come a long way, but he's still not a good
student. Google is very much in that position. You're quite right to say that
many of the issues are usability ones and have workarounds, but I have reached
the point where I wonder why blind users are supposed to suffer through using
workarounds if other people don't. I may also say that for those of us with
hearing impairments a good many of Google's workarounds simply don't work.
To get back to media players, I understand the perfectly reasonable
desire for decent sound for those who can benefit from it. I share the desire
for physical controls. I would be tempted, though, to focus on sound production
and physical controls on their own. Keep in mind that, with tasker and
autoinput, you can even use a wired keypad to provide physical controls to a
device with USB OTG. You need not use Bluetooth. As I said, it may also be
possible to use a USB device with a DAC to produce better sound than whatever
manufacturers of phones/tablets start with. Finally, if your desire is for
physical controls and better sound reproduction, it may be worth looking at the
single board machines we discussed here earlier. These can often run Linux and
support for physical controls and DACs is more developed on that platform than
on Android. Basically, I'm suggesting that, besides the many detriments you
list below, Dane, there are no, or at least not many, benefits to using a
specialized Android media player. In most cases, any benefits can be obtained
more easily in a different way.
Aman
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [all-audio] Portable media players with android.
Es you may say so <smile>
>From the start of this thread I’ve been emphasising that accessibility for
>Android Media Players just isn’t on the radar for several reasons.
Firstly Android is absolutely open to developers thus they can use whatever
version of Android they like and customise Android to what suits their product
thus its more than likely that portable Media Players will be running say
Android 3 or earlier.
Android 3 was pretty awful when it came to accessibility and nothing much
really happened with accessibility until Android 5 when things improved out of
sight - just my opinion through experience -.
Secondly with Media Players who knows what sort of interface you’re going to
get, a touch screen? A wheel that just keeps spinning? A control strip? This
obviously complicates accessibility even further.
And third who knows with a Media Player if you’re able to install extra Apps
which you may need to do to make the player accessible.
Some Media Players lend themselves to further customisation whereas others are
closed.
Some have processors that just aren’t powerful enough to handle too many extra
Apps or have a limited amount of RAM.
So here we are back at point A again, looking for that accessible portable
music player with Android could be a huge waste of time unless you know of some
specific machine that’s running preferably the latest version of Android, that
has quite a bit of RAM - 1GB at the very minimum I’d reckon - and has or will
allow you to go to the Google Play store or give you access to the system to
install Google Talkback.
Does this sound like a Mobile Phone or tablet?
As far as Google and accessibility? Well nothing is perfect and I’m not
defending Google over anyone else.
Some may argue that Apple with accessibility may have gone backwards with IOS
but that’s another discussion for another list perhaps.
I believe that Google have come a long way with Android to the point where its
certainly good enough for use with the general public.
Yes like everything else there are a few issues but they’re usability more than
accessibility and there are workarounds.
> On 10 Jun 2018, at 6:36 am, Aman Singer <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Hi Dane and all,
>
> There is, if I may say so, a deep problem with Android accessibility,
> in my view. First, Google is obviously running this as a boxchecking
> exercise, and that lack of interest spreads throughout all Android products.
> There are, of course, devices which are better than others in accessibility,
> but even the best aren't as accessible as they could be, and there are some
> which are absolutely hopeless. I suspect, as I think you do, that some of the
> media players will be the hopeless ones. One of the saddest accessibility
> stories in the past thirty years, for the blind and deafblind at least, has
> been Android. There was a huge amount of potential and it has been wasted.
> The reasons for the waste are debatable, the fact of the waste is, I think,
> not debatable at all. Things could have been done much better, they weren't.
> Aman
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Dane
> Trethowan
> Sent: Friday, June 08, 2018 7:19 AM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: [all-audio] Portable media players with android.
>
> Yep a fair suggestion.
> Of course all this depends on how accessible the portable Android media
> player is or can be made to be which is the 40 million dollar question but to
> me to be perfectly honest its all a lot of mucking around and for what?
> I mentioned I have a Sony xPeria X-Performance, they're old hack as far as
> phones go now so why not pick yourself up one of these for a bargain price if
> you still can and.. well.. work from there.
> Yep, add the Bluetooth control you're talking about, have full accessibility
> with your choice of music player, stream to other devices in your house along
> with Bluetooth speakers, enjoy high quality sound through your headphones,
> amazing battery life etc.
> From what I've seen thus far of portable Android music players accessibility
> is just a pure waste of time in the main.
> Always happy to be proved wrong of course.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Aman Singer
> Sent: Friday, 8 June 2018 9:12 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: [all-audio] Portable media players with android.
>
> Hi,
>
> I realize this is perilously close to heresy, but I detest touch
> screens and sympathise with any desire for physical buttons. If I may ask,
> though, why not use a Bluetooth remote which has such buttons? See, just for
> example https://satechi.net/products/satechi-bluetooth-multi-media-remote
> You can get the best, more or less, of both worlds, physical buttons
> and a generally available, non-premium-priced, Android media player. As for
> the audio quality, I'm not the person to talk about that but it does seem to
> be possible to plug a USB DAC into some Android devices.
> HTH,
> Aman
>
> From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Anders
> Holmberg
> Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2018 5:29 AM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: [all-audio] Portable media players with android.
>
> Hi!
> Yes that’s a truth for sure.
> I was just thinking of if there were other functions that the phone didn’t
> have.
> For example physical buttons for play and stop and such, even though its not
> hard to stop and play from the touch screen.
> Also i am a bit dissapointed about the audio from the nokia 8 i have.
> Its good via bluetooth but the 3.5 mm jack could have been better on such a
> device.
> THe Iphone SE i have is far better there in my opinion.
> /A
>
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>
>
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