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IAccessibility Staff Pick Our Best Devices of 2017

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Each year, the iAccessibility Management Team looks back at what devices they liked best and we put each person’s favorite down in a blog post. It is now time for our 2017 picks. Do you agree with us? Let us know on Twitter or in the comments section. You can also email your pics for 2017 to feedback@iaccessibility.net

Michael – All-New Amazon Element 50 Inch 4K HDTV

Amazon Element TV

The Amazon Element TV is a 4K HDTV with Amazon FireOS built in. It offers Amazon Alexa voice support, and allows low vision and blind users to use VoiceView, Amazon’s built in screen reader that works on the FireTV line of devices and the Amazon Fire tablets.

Jason: Logitech Slim Combo Keyboard Case for iPad Pro

Logitech Slim Combo Case for iPad ProMy pick for best device of 2017 would have to be the Logitech Slim Combo Case  for the 10.5 inch iPad Pro. While I’m not a big fan of the plastic material the case is made of, it’s really light, and typing on the keyboard is a really nice experience. The F and J keys have easy to locate markings on them to help with orientation. In fact, the markings are a bit too prominent for my taste, but it’s something I’m more than willing to live with.

The keyboard has some dedicated function keys for things such as adjusting the display brightness, searching in Spotlight, and controlling media playback. Because the keyboard connects via the Smart connecter, there is no Bluetooth connection to deal with, and no batteries to charge. It’s there when you need it, and you can remove it when you don’t.

The case itself snaps over the back of the iPad, leaving the side with the lightning connecter and speakers exposed. There are covers for the sleep/wake and volume buttons.

It also features a kickstand that angles the iPad in a similar fashion to a laptop screen, so it’s not laying flat on a table or your lap when in use. Both the kickstand and keyboard attach magnetically to the case, and, in the case of the keyboard, will lock the screen just like a Smart Cover does. The front of the case also has a holder for the Apple Pencil, unlike most others in its class.

I know of no other case for the 10.5 inch iPad Pro that has the same level of convenience and functionality that this case offers, and I recommend it to anyone who wants a keyboard and is getting an iPad Pro.

Aleeha: 10.5 inch iPad Pro

iPad Pro 10.5 with smart keyboardFollowing up on Jason’s comments, I have to say that the 10.5-inch iPad Pro is my pick for this year. Yes, the iPad has been a great device since day one, but the iPad Pro takes it to the next level, especially when combined with a case, like the one Jason mentions above. This lightweight, powerful tablet has become my travel companion, and, in several cases, is taking the place of my MacBook. It has an A10X chip, serious RAM, a beautiful display, a powerful camera, and, favorite in my book, four gorgeous speakers that make the sound from this device extremely pleasant to listen to. I think the 10.5 inch screen size is perfect for me: I can hold it easily and the screen real estate is not too much. With the new features in iOS 11 that allow a user to place two apps on the screen at once, which are completely accessible for blind users, this device is a real workhorse.

Dan: Samsung Galaxy S8+

Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus Midnight BlackYes folks, I continue my Android loving ways. It was a tough choice actually, but the Galaxy S8+ is my pick for favorite device of 2017. This phone is awesome. Its fit and finish are sleak. The Infinity screen display is amazing. You can hook it up to a docking station and almost use it as a desktop replacement. With an Octocore processor and 64Gb of storage, you can do just about anything you want (Minecraft is awesome on this device by the way.) Speaking of Minecraft, let’s not forget the Samsung Gear VR you can put this device into. Whoa! Now that is cool!

Ok, enough of me oohing and aahing. Here is why I love this phone.

The screen is really amazing. The curvature at the edge is very comfortable. I really like how the edges light up with notifications. Also, watching YouTube, Netflix, and Amazon Video is no problem. I use magnification quite a bit, and everything looks crisp and clear when I magnify the screen.

Battery life is truely a key point of this device. Every day, I stream music probably six to seven hours, have WhatsApp running constantly, watch several YouTube videos, write several texts, make and receive voice calls, and my battery is still at around 15% when I put it on the charger at night. I typically take the phone off the charger around 6:00 a.m. and put it back on the charger around 10:00 p.m. My household has had the S2, S3, S4, S5 Sport, and the S7 and I have never seen this kind of battery life out of any of these older devices. Keep in mind that your mileage may vary depending on your useage.

Expandable memory: Yes, I am one of those that still wants expandable memory. I only have a 64Gb micro SD card in my phone right now, but my music collection is expanding and I am due for an upgrade.

Finger print reader location: Samsung took quite a bit of grief from this one. I personally find it easy to use, based on the way I hold my phone. My index finger naturally falls into place for the fingerprint reader to scan my finger.

General look and feel: This phone just looks and feels cool in my opinion. the overall fit and finish is very nice. I also believe this to be one of the best phones Samsung has made to date, again in my opinion.

Matt – Victor Reader Trek

Victor Reader TrekMy pick for 2017 is not a tablet or a mobile device. It is, however, a very mobile way to access your favorite books, podcasts, and internet radio stations. You can also record notes with the built-in notes feature. The thing that makes this device unique is that you can also use built-in TomTom GPS to guide you while listening. This is all without taking your phone out of your pocket or getting distracted by notifications.

Back in October, HumanWare released a brand new device that puts the famous Victor Reader stream and the Treker Breeze together in one package. The Victor Reader Trek, priced at $699, feels a bit heavier than the second generation stream, has a faster processor, bluetooth capabilities for use with headphones or speakers, 32gb of internal memory, and comes with an 8gb SD card,which can be exchanged for up to a 256gb card, so you should never run out of storage.

I picked this device because, even though I use GPS on my phone, it uses up data, gets constantly interupted by VoiceOver speech and notification sounds that can be distracting. The Trek gets rid of that headache.

One of my favorite features, found only in the Trecker, is the ability for the device to describe to you what type of intersection you are about to cross. This is useful if you’re in a new area and you’re not familiar with it yet. You are able to explore an area before you take your route as well.

I know the device is a bit pricey, but I feel that it is a good fit for those who want a stand-alone book reader, podcast player, note recorder and navigation tool.

iA CodeCast 1: Hello World!

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iAccessibility App Development

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Hello World! This is the first episode of an all new show from iAccessibility where we discuss all things code. On this episode we discuss the basics of coding and how to get started.

Text Editors

Integrated Developer Environments

Education

Programming Challenge

Each episode we post a new programming challenge that you can submit to us by joining the iACoders mailing list. Simply send an email to iacoders-join@iaccessibility.net. You will need to confirm your email address, which may be in your spam folder after you join.

This week’s challenge is to build a hello world application that says Hello World. The app will then ask the user their name and then Print the person’s name back out after the word Hello. You will need to use code to print items to the screen, use variables, and request user information. You may use whatever language you like to make this solution, but do not put compiled code in the list.

 

What’s New in VoiceOver in iOS 11

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iOS 11

On Tuesday, September 19th, Apple released iOS 11, bringing with it some new VoiceOver features and improvements.

Apps

You can now drag and drop apps using VoiceOver To do this, do the following:

  1. While on the home screen, double tap and hold to enter edit mode.
  2. Find an app you wish to move.
  3. Set the VoiceOver rotor to”actions” if it’s not done automatically and flick up or down to “drag app name.”
  4. Navigate to where you wish to drop the app and choose an option. You can drop an app before the app that the VoiceOver cursor is focused on, after it, or create a folder containing the focused app and the one you’re dragging. If you wish to drag more than one app, you can choose the final option. This is to “Add To Drag Session.” You can use this method do drag files from one app to another minus the double tap and hold.

Verbosity

VoiceOver includes several new verbosity settings you can now change. They are located by tapping Settings>General>Accessibility>VoiceOver>Verbosity.

These options include:

  • Speak hints. This setting is on by default. Double tapping this setting will turn them off.
  • Punctuation. After double tapping this option, you can choose to set it to all, some, or none.
  • Speak detect text. This determines whether automatically detected text in the focused item is spoken. For example: If you are on an app with an unlabeled button, VoiceOver will announce something like “Button. Possible text: View menu.”
  • Capital letters: This option will change what VoiceOver does when encountering a capital letter. You can choose from speak cap, play sound, change pitch, and do nothing.
  • Deleting text: You can choose from speak, play sound, change pitch, and do nothing.
  • Embedded links: You can choose from speak, Play sound, change pitch, or do nothing.
  • There is a table output heading with options related to the reading of tables.
  • You can toggle reading of table headers and row and column numbers.
  • As in iOS 10, you can turn the emoji suffix on or off, depending on whether or not you want VoiceOver to speak the word “Emoji” when one is encountered.

Mail

You no longer need to three-finger tap on a message to hear the preview.

When reading a message, you have VoiceOver actions to reply, archive, flag, mark as read/unread, and to activate.

If you use threaded messaging, you have a rotor option, “Expand/Collapse Thread”. When expanded, you can manage all of the messages inside a thread on an individual basis.

Smart Actions Rotor

VoiceOver in iOS 11 now has a new feature that allows for the user to continue to use the last used actions rotor item. This is useful for deleting large amounts of messages. This feature also appears in the App Switcher

What have we missed?

Know something that is not on this list? Please let us know by emailing us at feedback@iaccessibility.net or tweet us at @iaccessibility1

Known iOS 11 Bugs

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iOS 11

Each year, Apple releases a new version of iOS with new features which change the operating system in ways that can cause bugs for users. While we all wish this did not happen it is inevitable, and it is good to know what works and what does not work, so in this article, you will find what we have found to be known bugs in iOS 11.

  • iPad multitasking with split view apps is broken currently with VoiceOver. Workaround can be found at https://iaccessibility.net/guide-getting-around-ipad-multitasking-bug-ios11/
  • Zoom will not rotate between portrait and landscape properly all the time. This occurs when the device is rotated to landscape and back to portrait. Sometimes, the device will rotate back to portrait but the zoom window will stay in a landscape state.
  • A VoiceOver bug has been found that causes drag and drop of icons to not work correctly in the Dock and on the Home screen This causes the entire device to hang for an unpredictable amount of time, and is not always seen to happen. Only known fix is to reset your device’s settings.
  • A VoiceOver bug has been found that causes Messages on iOS to say, “null” when a conversation is deleted. This does not display visually but does show with VoiceOver. @mcourcel on Twitter reports that closing Messages after deleting a conversation fixes the null conversation.
  • A bug has been found that causes iOS to relaunch Springboard when a user activates the App Switcher or opens an app from the App Switcher while VoiceOver is running. This does not happen if VoiceOver is not running. and does not always happen when switching apps.

What bugs have you found? Let us know and we will post them here. To send us your bugs, email us at feedback@iaccessibility.net or tweet us at @iaccessibility1 on Twitter.

Guide: Getting Around iPad Multitasking bug in #iOS11

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iPad Pro Front and Back

iOS 11 has changed the way users work with apps by introducing an improved Dock and a new way to work with two apps at once, which lets users stretch and shrink apps to be the size they want. You can also have an app float on top of another app, but these amazing features do not work properly with VoiceOver at this time. Our hope is that, in iOS 11.1, Apple will fix this bug, but until then, there is a work around to still use two apps at once with VoiceOver. Here is how it works.

  1. Find the status bar and swipe up with three fingers to reveal the control center.
  2. Find the app that you are currently using with one finger.
  3. Find the app you would like to use with the first app that one finger is on. This second app will be in the Dock.
  4. Double tap and hold on the new app and then drag the new app to your other finger.
  5. Keep holding your finger on the new app that will be moved on top of the first app until VoiceOver opens the first app and makes a sound.
  6. You can then move the new app to where you want, or move it to the right or left to make the app be to the left or right of the main app. At this point you may lift that finger.

During this process, VoiceOver will not read the status of the drag and drop so you will have to follow this guide specifically if you would like this feature to work. Hopefully Apple will fix this in a future update.

#iACast DemoCast 8 – iPad Pro 10.5 Review

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iPad Pro 10.5 with smart keyboard

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On this episode of the iA DemoCast, Michael, Aleeha and Lyn review the iPad Pro 10.5 inch which is the latest iPad from Apple in 2017.

During the review, we look at the form factor, the speaker quality, and how iOS works on the new iPad.

10.5-inch iPad Pro Wi-Fi 64GB – Space Gray – Apple

#iACast 39 – Quiet New Stuff

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two Samsung Galaxy S8 phones one showing the front and one showing the back.

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On this episode of the podcast, we talk about the newest releases in technology during the last week. Here is what we discussed.

We hope you enjoy each episode of the iACast. To leave us feedback, you may email us at feedback@iaccessibility.net.

#iACast 12 – Digital Accessible Art!

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Image of Apple Pencil being used with iPad Pro on flat surface

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Episode Notes

It has been since December since we recorded a new podcast, so here is what we have covered this week.

  • We discussed the updates that have been made here at iAccessibility concerning the podcast and our website.
  • Review of the new iPhone 6s battery case
  • Discuss the pros and cons of removing the iPhone headphone jack in the iPhone 7
  • Discuss error 53 and what it means. We also touch on the new iOS date bug.
  • We discuss the latest news about iOS 9.3 which will come out to everyone in March
  • Apple is rumored to release the iPhone 5se next month, and we talk about what features it should have and if people want a 4 inch iPhone
  • We discuss the New Apple TV and if people still use it
  • Facebook is a modern name in browsing the web, but do we really need the app on our devices to use their services?
  • We discuss the latest in entertainment news, which include movies, gaming and books
  • The Apple Pencil is a new way to draw on a tablet screen, and you can learn how to pair it and draw with it by listening to this episode

We will continue this podcast each week now and all episodes have been migrated over to this site. If you do not see episodes 11 and 12 in your podcast app of choice then please unsubscribe and re-subscribe to our podcast and you should see the new episodes there.

iAccessibility is on slack at iaccessibildtyslack.slack.com We encourage everyone who wants to communicate on what we discuss to contact us and we can add you to the accessibility Slack community.

Slack is accessible and it will work with all modern screen readers on any platform.

Please email Michael Doise if you have any questions or suggestions for this podcast. You may also find us online at the social links below these show notes.

We hope you have enjoyed this podcast and will listen next week.

Is it an iPad Pro, or is it just a big iPad?

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iPad Pro with Smart Keyboard

So recently, Apple released the iPad Pro, and promised that this device would be a computer alternative, so  have decided to do as many have done and try to use the iPad as a main computer. In many wyas, the iPad Pro has things that are better than an iMac or Macbook, and in some ways the iPad Pro is not. In this article we will explore how it is better and how it is not.

Why the iPad is a computer Aleternative

The iPad Pro comes with a beautiful 12.9 inch Retina display that looks amazing for web design and other professional and creative ventures. The on screen keyboard is no longer the basic iOS keyboard we have come to know, but is now a full featured keyboard with a number row and the punctuation in the correct places. You can even press the shift key and find the question mark or number row characters as you would on the computer. The current version of iOS also contains more keyboard shortcuts like Command Tab to switch between apps.

Safari on the iPad Pro also behaves more like Safari on the computer. I am actually writing this article on my iPad Pro, and have full access to the Squarespace tools as if I was on my Macbook. The only thing I did not see is how to drag and drop items into the correct places.

The Sound quality on the new iPad Pro is amazing, in fact it really rivals the sound quality on many desktop computers.

The battery life on the iPad Pro is amazing as well. I unplugged the iPad around 8 this morning and have played games and surfed the web on it all day and the iPad is still at 82% battery life. This does outlast the Macbook or Macbook Pro’s battery life.

Photos look great on the iPad Pro. You can get a good look at your high resolution photos that you have taken on your iPhone 6s or 6s Plus and they will look amazing on the iPad Pro.

Another advantage of the iPad Pro is that it will eventually get USB 3.0 support. The iPad Pro does not currently have any usb 3 accessories but iFixit has determined that there is USB 3.0 support built into the iPad mainboard.

How the iPad Pro is not like a computer

While the iPad Pro has many features that make it comperable to a computer, it still has its limitations.

The iPad Pro does not have XCode or the professional Mac apps for creatives. While the iPad software can support it, Apple will not add these programs to their iOS devices at this point.

Podcasting is still difficult on the iPad Pro because of sound and audio input limitations. I do not know if you can hook up a USB Mic to it yet. That will be tried shortly. This is still where the MacBook has an advantage.

Many also do not like the fact that the iPad still does not have multi user support. I think this may be coming in iOS 10.

The last major issue with the iPad Pro is the lack of a filesystem browser. Apple has added iCloud Drive support, but I believe that you will always need Internet Access for this to work.

Conclusion

The iPad Pro is really Apple’s best creative device. If you need a device with a filesystem and full podcasting support, then use a Mac. If you do not need these features and want a touch centric device, then the iPad Pro is best for you. If you want a good device to watch movies and TV Shows then the iPad Pro is amazing. I even use it as my home speaker system if I just want to fill a room with audio. The iPad Pro’s 4 speakers really are amazing to hear, and no writing can express how well these things sound.

The big thing is that you will not be able to write code for apps or create the most professional movies with this device, but you can start a project on it and do the heavy lifting on a Mac.

Please let us know what you think about the iPad Pro and write how you use it or not use it as a computer.

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