Hi Charles, Yes, I have heard that too, but my personal experience with testing the Android devices hands on is that accessibility is very good now. There is very little that I could not do on the Android phone that I could do on an iPhone. Keep in mind here that accessibility on Android is constantly improving with each version so negative feedback may be out of date or based on an older version of Talkback and Android OS. Both factors are something to be considered here when recommending to a new user which is better.
Plus my concerns are not strictly accessibility related. I was impressed with the Android when I could set it up to single tap on icons and have it bring up an app rather than double tap. That is an end user preference thing which I did not see in iOS. I also noticed that Google Talk back gestures are completely customizable where I couldn't find where to change them in VoiceOver. These are just a few things based on my limited experience where Android seemed better suited to my preferences in terms of being customized. The other issue here is that I am not just your every day ordinary end user. I am a power user with considerable programming skills and I plan to write software for my phone. For a power user and developer the Android is the superior choice because it is largely open source, uses standard languages and technologies like Java, and there is no fees to develop for the platform. I can use a Standard Java JDK with the Eclipse IDE for Linux or Windows to develop apps and games for the Android platform. Apple iOS is totally not free and much more difficult to develop for. To develop for an iPhone I'd have to run out and slap down $1500 for a Macbook, get and install XCode, and buy the iOS SDK on top of that. None of this considers the fact that the Apple iOS platform does not use standard APIs and languages requiring that I learn Object C and any iOS specific APIs. Bottom line, I'm looking at well over $2000 invested in the phone and the hardware and software to develop games and apps for it where Android only requires a phone. In short, I don't care how good accessibility is on an iPhone it is not worth $2000 or more to develop software for it. The access on Android is good enough for my needs and I can develop software for it for a fraction of the cost. to be honest I think what has happened here is that Apple got to the accessibility first. All the blind users ran out, purchased Apple iPhones, and now any time someone goes looking for a smartphone they say iPhone, iPhone, iPhone. However, now that Google is closing the gap, the accessibility is improving, people such as yourself already have an iPhone and refuse to switch or even follow changes in Android accessibility since it does not apply to you. Am I right? Cheers! On 11/8/13, Charles Rivard <[email protected]> wrote: > In my opinion, there are more blind friendly apps for the iDevices than for > > Androids. At least, this is what a whole slew of people have been saying. > I started with an iPhone, and won't switch for this reason. I think that > you get what you pay for, and if you can afford the iDevice, get it. > > There is an article at > > www.applevis.com > > about one user's experiences with both types of devices, and why the author > > of the article went from an iPhone to an Android, then back to the iPhone. > > > > --- > Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second. --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [email protected].
