Michael Doise

The App store provides many applications for personal banking. Most likely, your bank will have developed and published an app for iPhone users. JP Morgan/Chase is one of those banks who have provided an app to its account holders. Through this app, you may find locations and ATMs, view account balances, pay bills, deposit money through checks, and make transfers.
First screen

When the program starts, you may select to log in, contact, Chase, or find ATMs or banking centers. Most of the time you will select to log in to your accounts. This first screen is completely VoiceOver accessible.

Logging in for the first time

When you log in for the first time, you must show that your device is yours by receiving an email or text message with a confirmation code. This process also must be done on any computer used to check account balances online. This process on iOS devices is also accessible via VoiceOver.

Account Overviews

Once logged in, you may view your account balances. Each account will have its own box which shows part of the account number, the account name, account type, the balance, and a link to use that account to pay bills. Tapping on the account name will allow you to see the account history, and the amounts deposited or spent. Everything in this section is viewable and usable via VoiceOver.

Pay and Transfer

The next section of the app will let you pay bills and transfer funds. You have several options here. You may send money off via electronic check to pay bills, you may wire funds, transfer between accounts, and send money to another person’s Chase account. Each of these sections are VoiceOver accessible.

Deposits

A new feature offered in this app is to deposit a check from your iPhone. This works by taking a photo copy of the front and back of filled out check. do not be afraid to ask for assistance from friends here. Each selection is VoiceOver accessible, but the check must be legible.

More

The last section found in the Chase app has different items such as contacting Chase, and finding ATMS. There are also options to read FAQS, read disclosures, and view the privacy policy. This section is NOT VoiceOver compliant. No option is selectable on the page.

Conclusion

Chase Mobile App is a great app for online banking. The developer took the time to use standard developer techniques that allowed for much of the program to be used by VoiceOver users. The only area lacking access is the more section of the app. If you are a chase account holder and have an iDevice, then get this app. It will be very useful on the go.

Digit-Eyes is one of many applications that allows for the scanning of bar codes. When you scan a bar code, Digit-Eyes will send back any information found by their database of UPC codes. You may also scan labels printed from their web page to custom label items around the home or office.
Bar Code Scanning

The first major feature of Digit-Eyes is the ability to scan bar codes. This will work with any commercial UPC or EAN Barcode. When you start the app, tap scan, and aim at a bar code. The program will do a scan every five seconds. This allows for you to get the code in position, and the program will automatically take the picture for you using the camera. This is to make sure a better picture is taken, instead of a blury image due to finger and hand movement. If the program finds a code, the program will beep, and bring up the information based on the scanned bar code. It will also tell you if it could not retrieve any data.

Text Labels

Digit-Eyes will also do two types of custom labels. The first is called a, “Text Label.” A Text label is a label that a person can scan, and VoiceOver can read. When you have created an account at http://www.digit-eyes.com, you may create and print address labels that contain text. The Digit-Eyes website has detailed information on how to do this. Once your labels are printed, use the method for scanning regular bar codes to scan a text label. Once done, VoiceOver will read the text to you.

Audio Labels

Audio labels work just like text labels. You go to the web site to print them, and you scan them just like every other code. The main difference is that you are given the ability to do a voice recording the first time you scan a label. This also is only kept on your device, so the Internet is not required.

Conclusion

Digit-Eyes is a great application for labeling items, or getting bar code data. The developers really put a lot in to the coding of this application, and made every control accessibile for VoiceOver users. This app is very similar to the functionality of the Pen Friend, which also allows for custom labels. This app is however more expensive than most app store apps at US$29.99, but I feel it is well worth the money.

This week, I thought I would start out with a good an interesting app. Well, it seems that I have found one good enough to report on.
SHAPE’s IM+ for iOS devices has been in the App Store for a long time providing instant message capabilities to iOS users. Since release, IM+ has used the same technique that all other im clients in the App Store have used. This technique is that when you send or receive a message, Voiceover will read the sender and the timestamp, but not the message. This issue has prevented blind and visually imapired users from using multi service clients on their devices.

Today, Apple approved the newest version of IM+. One of the new features added is the ability to use Voiceover with this application. SHAPE changed their software so any user can browse the name, time, and message separately from each other.  What this means is, blind users can now log in to all of their instant message services from just one program and get full functionality from it.

There is still one drawback however. IM+ is not a free download from the App Store. The price for IM+ is $10.00, which is kind of steep for an instant messaging client.

The most notable alternative however, is offered by Fring. Fring also offers an instant messenger client that supports many services, but Fring segregates blind and visually impaired users by requiring the download of a voiceover compatible version of their software. This version however does not have all of the functionality of the regular app. Fring’s biggest asset however, is that both versions of Fring are free apps in the App Store.

In conclusion, there are finally options out there in the App Store for the blind. Which app to use is left up to you, but let us know which im apps are your favorite by replying to this post.