Voice Over vs. Talkback Vs the rest (Score 1)

Okay, it's too much of a pain in the rear to go back and comment on all the different posts, so here is an all in one. This is going to be pretty long... First, a little off topic is alright, but what on earth was all that rant on hungry kids in Africa? Second, someone commented that the iPhones had voice over capability and such for the blind/VI since the first iPhone. That's incorrect, it was the iPhone 3GS that started to give the blind/VI user access to their devices. Along with that, was the iPod touch 3g, the first iPad, and the iPod nano and shuffles from the same period. Apple computer's are a different story, and different timeline, and not relevant to this topic. Android has *very limited* accessibility starting as early back as Android 1.6, but like I said, that was extremely limited. Not to mention, in Android 3.x accessibility was completely broken, and so unusable, that that might as well not be considered. Now for some differences. I've been a blind user, that has had no sight, relying solely on text to speech capability for electronic devices for a while. The iPhone has Voice Over, as stated above, and android uses Talkback with Kickback and Soundback for a "full" accessibility package. I've owned an Android (Samsung Epic 4G) and currently own an iPhone 4S. Here is what I think about them, and accessibility on the platforms. iPhone: The good - ability since IOS 5.0 to turn it on without sighted assistance, ability to choose how you navigate (headings, text fields, line, word, character), ability to use a flick gesture to move around page/screen, or place finger on the screen in relative location to navigate, along with a lot of other things. Support for apps is also decent. There are over 200 known apps that have been searched out, as well as many that aren't listed, that "just work" (ugh, I hate using that damn line for an apple device though, sounds like I buy into the whole ecosystem). APIs are included in the xcode for IOS dev, and honestly, most things could be very accessible if companies took a little more time in dealing with accessibility. Oh, and one of the things I really like... I can actually finally read books without having to purchase super expensive external readers, and software to run them, and so on. Bad - Very resource intense, as well as choosing a different voice for the reader changes your location services to a point. I love googling things in the U.S., and having google.com/au pop up as my search provider, as well as reading dates differently than everything else that's posted in the United States. Android: Good - Community supported,seperate apps that are given specifically to the blind as part of the "accessibility package for free, interesting apps such as "intersection explorer" and a GPS solution made for walking, that are blind specific. Bad - I hate to go this route, but there are a lot of bad things. More resource intense than the iPhones, I had to reboot my phone a minimum of 6 times a day due to the screen reader freezing completely. More than a pain when doing things like using the location services/GPS to navigate. Many of the "blind specific" apps downloaded in the package you are told to start off with, never worked. I couldn't use the web browser if my life depended on it, and the intersection explorer wasn't usable, the only time it worked, I couldn't change my address, and honestly, I don't care about an intersection half way across the country. Page/screen navigation wasn't specific enough. You could only navigate by section. If that section was a paragraph, a line, or a word, you had no way to navigate more in depth. Really a pain as trying to pick a phone number out of a text when it reads the line including "5555551234" read just as it's printed comes blaring across. Also, it's blaring mistake and problem... I had to have the girlfriend sit down, while trying to google things to get accessibility up and running, and she had to activate everything, then download packages, then activate, then update... You get the point, before I as a totally blind user could even touch the phone. Also, couldn't use any phone service that was menu based. No calling my bank for a quick check-up, or calling about my credit card,, movie times... anythign that you have to choose form menus. The onscreen keyboard wasn't accessible, the dialpad that you get with the Talkback package didn't work on menu driven components, and the slide out keyboard couldn't recognize things like the star, or pound... Talk about freaking useless. Honestly, what these people are doing is what companies have been doing for a while. They are taking what is there, and packaging it into a nice, tidy, and hopefully already set up, deal for the blind/VI. I hate to say this though, but even with my limited use of Talkback on the newer Android tablets, there is a long way to go before any Droid device is as accessible, as easily. I hate to make that comment, because I would love to see Android give apple a run for their money, but unfortunately things that are supposed to work, don't, things that do work, only work partially, and what does work right, isn't enough yet. I also hope they don't go the road of charging "specialized pricing" for these devices. Too many companies are already out there that offer high cost, barely affordable "accessibility solutions" to a community that typically doesn't have an endless cashflow. If they can get this working, and get it working correctly and affordibly, then why not think of porting it from something like the SII or the Ace, and move it to something that can handle more?