advantages of techology

Apple's updated mobile operating system, iOS 10, includes many new accessibility features. One of these features is Software TTY calling. TTY calling allows people who are deaf and people with hearing disabilities who cannot communicate using voice calling to communicate with people by using voice calling through relay services. The TTY user with a hearing impairment types a message and a relay operator reads that message aloud to the person on the other end of the phone call, who does not have a hearing impairment. When the person on the other end of the phone call speaks the relay operator types what is spoken and the text then appears on the TTY device. Previously, this communication method required a physical TTY machine such as the one pictured above. These machines are large and much less convient to carry around than an iPhone. With iOS 10, Apple is building the functionality of a TTY machine into the iPhone. This eliminates the need for people who rely on TTY calling to ha...

Apple recently updated the bio of Lisa P. Jackson to reflect her new role overseeing accessibility at Apple. This expands her previous responsibilities of overseeing environmental initiatives at Apple. Ms. Jackson's official title is now Vice President of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives. Apple CEO Tim Cook has been vocal regarding his views of the importance of accessibility. This new management change, which puts a Vice President level executive in charge of accessibility for the first time, seemingly reaffirms Apple's long-standing commitment to accessibility . Apple has been a leader in accessibility. Its products include superior accessibility features out of the box. Features such as VoiceOver , Speak Selection, Zoom, AssistiveTouch , and Switch Control give people with disabilities equal access to Apple products at no additional charge. From personal experience I can say that these features are truly life changing and positively impact many people. Even consi...

Voice Dream  has become a well-known name in the assistive technology community because of Voice Dream Reader: a  text-to-speech  reader available for i OS devices . Now the developer has released a new app called Voice Dream Writer which aims to support writers with special needs. Voice Dream Writer has features that can benefit people with a wide range of needs including people with dyslexia and people who are blind or visually impaired. People without disabilities can also benefit from the app. For example, english language learners could benefit from spoken feedback and other features offered by Voice Dream Writer.  The text-to-speech feedback is designed to help writers find mistakes in their writing. The style of text-to-speech reading can even be changed to help writers focus either on spelling and grammar, or on content and organization. The app also offers easy access to an outline view that can help with organizing a document. Other features allow users to ...

Keeble is a virtual keyboard for iPad made by AssistiveWare. The app is only available in English for iPads running iOS 8  and above. As a result of new features available in iOS 8 the Keeble keyboard can be used in almost every app on the iPad including mail, Safari, and messages. Keeble gives users a number of customization options to make text input easier for users with special needs such as motor challenges, dyslexia , and other disabilities. One option available is the ability to change the appearance of the keyboard. Users can change the color of the keyboard which could be helpful for users with visual impairments. The higher contrast colors can be more easily seen compared to the white and gray colors of the default iOS keyboard. The layout can be change from a QWERTY layout to an ABC layout if desired. Keeble also includes word predication to speed up typing; especially for Switch Control users. The word predication features is slightly more advanced than iOS 8's built-i...

Apple's voice activated features have received some new features as part of iOS 8 . Siri is a virtual voice activated personal assistant that can answer your questions, call your friends, check the weather, and much more.  Now it can  be activated hands free by saying, "Hey, Siri." Previously, users would have to press and hold the home button to activate Siri. The new feature will allow people with physical disabilities to easily activate Siri. The hands-free activation feature does have one major caveat: the device must be plugged in and charging. Users who need or want to access this feature on- the- go can purchase a battery case to utilize this feature. It is possible that future iOS devices will not require a power source to use the "Hey, Siri" feature. In addition, when dictating a question to Siri or dictating text into an app the recognized words appear almost instantly after being spoken. To use dictation bring up the keyboard and then press the mic...

iOS 8 includes a new greyscale mode that could benefit people with visual impairments. The new mode is included in addition to inverse color which was previously available. The new option will reduce the bright colors and possibly reduce glare to make the screen easier to see. Greyscale and inverse color can be enabled simultaneously for further visual changes. Even for people without visual impairments greyscale maybe made the screen slightly easier to view outdoors. To enable greyscale navigate to Settings > General > Accessibility > Greyscale. Please note that the above screenshot is an altered colored screenshot.

Guided Access is one of the many iOS features being enhanced in iOS 8 . Guided Access is used to keep a someone on a single app using  a password. For example, if you want your child to read a book and not watch a video you can lock them into the reading app, eliminating the ability to navigate to other apps. With Guided Access enabled, a child or student will need a passcode in order to enter another app. To learn more about Guided Access click here . One of the enhancement allows users to end a Guided Access session with their finger print using Touch ID. Similar to how third-party developers can implement Touch ID authentication, Guided Access will also take advantage of finger print reading technology. Instead of entering a passcode, users with a Touch ID enabled device will be able to end the session simply by placing their finger on the Touch ID sensor. This feature will simplify the processes of ending Guided Access and potentially eliminate the frustrat...

iOS 8 includes enhancements to VoiceOver , the built-in gesture based screen reader for people with visual impairments. One of the improvements is a new built-in Braille Keyboard for Six-Dot input. The new feature is similar to the BrailleTouch app released a few years ago with one major difference; the built-in option can be used to enter text into any app directly. The option can be enabled in the VoiceOver rotor. The Braille keyboard will offer VoiceOver users who are familiar with Braille an alternative, and possibly much faster text entry method. iOS 8 will also offers third-party keyboards such as Fleksy  which could also offer significantly faster text input for VoiceOver users. Once you turn the Braille keyboard on six positions will appear on screen representing the six Braille dots. When the device is held with the screen perpendicular to the floor it automatically enters screen away mode. When using this mode the user faces the screen away allowing three fingers ...

iOS 8 includes some new accessibility features and many improvements to existing features. One of the new features is called Speak Screen which allows users to quickly have text on the screen spoken aloud using text-to-speech . Speak Screen is included in addition to Speak Selection which allows users to highlight text and press speak to have content read aloud. Unlike Speak Selection, which requires text to be highlighted first, before reading the text aloud,  Speak Screen does not require users to highlight the text they wish to have spoken. Especially for longer articles or emails, this highlighting process could be time consuming and frustrating. Speak Screen solves the problem by speaking all text on the screen with a simple two-finger swipe down from the top of the screen. After swiping down with two fingers, text starts to be read aloud with text-to-speech , and the Speak Screen menu appears on top of your current app. This menu allows you to stop and start speech, adjust ...

In previous versions of iOS , zoom was only  a simple full screen magnification. With iOS 8 , Apple has vastly improved zoom with partial screen window zoom, filters, and smarter magnification options. Zoom is a vital feature for people with low vision and its new features in iOS 8 makes it even more useful. One of the most noticeable enhancements is the ability to magnify certain areas of the screen while leaving the rest of the screen unmagnified. As opposed to full screen zoom, the zoom lens allows for more easy navigation while still allowing certain important areas to be magnified. Users can change the size of the magnified area and pan around the screen in order to magnify different areas. An option is available to add a zoom control to the screen which acts like a virtual joystick for controlling which areas of the screen are magnified.Within the magnified area, users can apply filters to make viewing easier.  The filters available are inverse colors, greyscale, low li...

The general consensus is that Apple will introduce new iPhones with larger screens in a few days. With many people with disabilities using Apple's flagship device for their accessibility needs a change can have a large impact on users. From a software prospective iOS 8 will offer many accessibility improvements , but hardware is also an important aspect of accessibility . The larger screen will certainly benefit some users with special needs, but may also cause problems for others. Users with low vision may benefit the most from the larger viewing area. On current iPhones, with large text enabled, only a small amount of text is able to fit on screen. A larger screen will allow more text to fit on screen requiring less scrolling for users who prefer or require large text. The large screen will also give VoiceOver users more space to use three or four finger gestures. On the other hand a larger screen iPhone may pose a challenge. Users with physical challenges may have a difficult...

Potential  Feature for App Store Would you buy a song that may or may not play, a car that may or may not fit in your garage, or a remote that could or could not work with your TV? Probably not, but a similar problem is facing VoiceOver users (and users of other built-in accessibility features) every time they look for a new app on the App Store. This user base is growing quickly due to high quality accessibility features that Apple builds into every iOS device. Currently, the App Store offers no way for users to know if the app will be accessible before hitting the buy button. For VoiceOver users, this means throwing away money if the app turns out to be inaccessible. While the issue of app accessibility has been getting a lot of buzz lately, hopefully Apple can implement some solutions to the problem before and until app accessibility is virtually ubiquitous. One way to help users know if an app is accessible before hitting the buy button is to add an accessibility report to the...

Recently, select Apple Retail Stores have started hosting free accessibility workshops. The hour long sessions are instructed by Apple Store employees and cover various accessibility features included in iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks . Workshops are divided based on the user's needs and include hearing, vision, and physical and motor skills. These workshops will presumably cover features such as VoiceOver , Assistive Touch , Switch Control , and more. These workshops are a great way for Apple customers to learn about helpful accessibility features that are already built into their devices. The workshops will also offer u sers of Apple's accessibility features an opportunity to get their questions answered in person. The training of the workshop instructors will be key to a successful experience. Hopefully, these workshops will be offered in all Apple Stores in the near future.  While accessibility specific workshops may not help Apple's bottom line, they demonstrate Apple con...

Apple announced that their World Wide Developers Conference ( WWDC ) will take place from June 2nd - 6th in San Francisco, California. At the event, Apple will preview the future versions of iOS and OS X . It is unknown what these changes will entail, but if history is any indication Apple will preview iOS 8 and OS X 10.10. Consistently, over the past few years Apple has steadily improved the accessibility features of both iOS, which runs the iPhone, iPad , and iPod Touch and OS X, which runs on Mac computers. Last year with OS X 10.9 Mavericks, Apple added Switch Contro l, large text , VoiceOver enhancements, customizable closed captioning, and enhanced dictation. iOS 7 added Switch Control , improved Siri , and ability for developers to utilize system text-to-speech voices. At WWDC 2012, Apple devoted precious time during their Keynote to detail improved accessibility features found in iOS 6. With millions of users any accessibility improvements can have a dramatic impact on many...

Voice Dream Reader is an app for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch that supports people who prefer reading in different ways. Voice Dream can read documents from a number of sources with multiple high quality text-to-speech voices. Users can import PDFs , Word documents, text files, webpages, and even Bookshare books into the app. Once the text is loaded into the app you can listen to it using text-to-speech, highlight the text, search for a specific words or phrases, and get definitions for unknown words. Among many other uses, Voice Dream Reader is a terrific Bookshare book reader for students. Voice Dream also works very well with VoiceOver . Now, with newly released Voice Dream Reader version 3.0, new features have been added that makes the app even more useful. Up until yesterday evening, Voice Dream only supported text. All images and formatting associated with a file were stripped away. With version 3.0 images and formatting within PDF files are retained. Now you can read a PDF in ...

As a dyslexic high school student my iPad , with a number of assistive apps, has become a very valuable tool. With my iPad I can read and fill out a PDF using text-to-speech, read a book with Voice Dream Reader , or map out my ideas with Inspiration Maps . The iPad mini is a perfect size for my needs allowing me to read sitting up, or reclining comfortably while listening to a book. Before I got the iPad I would either be tied to a computer to read using text-to-speech, or reading on the tiny screen of my iPhone . Here's a list of my favorite iPad apps and how I use them to help me both in and out of the classroom. Voice Dream Reader - $9.99 Voice Dream Reader is a text-to-speech reading app that allows users to read a wide variety of files through the app. The app includes the ability to buy very high quality text-to-speech voices for use with the app. Voice Dream Reader allows you to highlight  important parts of a passage as you read along.. One of my favorite features is...