The iPhone is the smartphone of choice for people who are blind or vision impaired according to Paul Schroeder, Vice President of Programs and Policy at the American Foundation for the Blind. The latest updates to the iPhone’s operating system add even more accessibility features to the already impressive suite of features that have made this smartphone so popular with this consumer group.
iOS 4 is compatible with the iPhone 3G and 3GS, and the iPod Touch (second and third generation) so all of the new accessibility features that come with iOS 4 are available to iPhone and iPod Touch owners as well as owners of the soon-to-be-released iPhone 4.
A summary of new accessible features in iOS 4:
- New VoiceOver gestures already seen in the iPad, including single finger triple tap to perform what would be a double tap when VoiceOver is not active, the two finger scrubbing motion to activate a ‘back’ button when present, and the four finger swipe up or down to move to the start or end of an area.
- Support for more than 30 Bluetooth wireless braille displays.
- Braille tables for 25+ international languages.
- Use a physical keyboard by pairing a Bluetooth wireless keyboard with your iPhone.
- Touch Type by running your finger across the keyboard and listening to each letter being read out. When you find the letter you want, simply lift your finger to select it.
- A new Typing Practice mode helps new users get accustomed to typing on the iPhone keyboard.
- Rotor is now visible to sighted users to make it easier for them to assist you or to use the rotor themselves.
- Add settings to the web rotor such as lists, tables, text fields and buttons.
- iBooks application is now available on the iPhone and iPod touch as well as the iPad. Added features include native support for PDFs, sync bookmarks and notes across multiple devices including the iPad, and the option to annotate eBooks.
- Large Font feature lets you increase the font size of key elements in Mail, Contacts, Notes and Messages.
Future iPhone 4 owners will also be able to take advantage of FaceTime that allows video calling over WiFi and gives people who are Deaf or hearing impaired the ability to communicate using sign language via the iPhone 4 and its forward facing camera.
Australians were expecting the iPhone 4 to be available here sometime in July. However, with 600,000 iPhone 4 pre-orders taken by Apple in the US in a single day, this could delay the Australian release date.
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