Over the years, I have written a dozen or so articles discussing the accessibility of various types of cell phones for AccessWorld. This is the first of a two-part series of articles on Smartphones, another category of cell phones that can provide access for people who are blind or have low vision. Access to Smartphones is provided not by their manufacturers, but by third-party vendors of screen-reader software. In this article, I examine the access to Smartphones provided by Code Factory's Mobile Speak Smartphone screen reader, and in the September issue of AccessWorld, I will examine Dolphin's Smart Hal screen reader. Regular readers of AccessWorld will be familiar with Code Factory's Mobile Speak and Mobile Magnifier access products for Symbian cell phones from previous articles. Readers will also be familiar with Dolphin's Hal screen reader and its Lunar screen magnifier and Supernova combination screen reader and screen magnifier, as well as the Lunar screen magnifier.
Motorola Manuals Cell Phone
Smartphones have all the standard features that you can find in today's cell phones, such as Caller ID, a Contacts application, text messaging, and a call log. However, they also have many more features and functions that you may find on a PC, such as Bluetooth wireless connectivity, Internet Explorer, a calendar, Outlook E-mail, an audio player, and a camera with still and video capture and playback. What is important to those of us who are blind or have low vision is the Smartphone's operating system, which has the ability to load third-party software products, such as Smart Hal and Mobile Speak Smartphone, as well as many other third-party software products, including map and GPS navigation software, text editors similar to NotePad, and the Audible Player for reading books purchased and downloaded from Audible.com.
Smartphones are similar to the cell phones that run the Symbian operating system that is compatible with Nuance's TALKS and Code Factory's Mobile Speak software that I have discussed in previous AccessWorld articles. One important difference, and an advantage over Symbian phones, is that Smartphones are carried by all the service providers in the United States. Smartphones are available for both the CDMA and GSM cellular networks. Symbian phones run only on the GSM cellular network and thus are limited to carriers, such as T-Mobile and Cingular/AT&T, that use the GSM network. It is important to note, though, that a particular Smartphone will not work on both networks. Some, like the Motorola Q, work on CDMA networks, and some, like the 2125, work on the GSM network. Thus, you need to compare the compatible phones from Dolphin's and Code Factory's web sites with those available from your service provider to find a Smartphone for you.
For this article, we used version 1.2 of the Mobile Speak Smartphone screen-reading software. The Mobile Speak Smartphone software is another product in Code Factory's long line of access software products for cell phones that we have written about in AccessWorld. Mobile Speak Smartphone is a full screen reader, compatible with Windows Mobile Versions 5.0 and 6.0. It can access nearly everything that can be displayed on a Smartphone. Mobile Speak Smartphone uses many of the same keystroke combinations that Mobile Speak uses on Symbian phones, but there are some differences that you will need to learn. For example, instead of using the Edit key to initiate commands, you use the Home key. The Mobile Speak Smartphone User Guide, available on Code Factory's web site, lists the commands for Smartphones, and there is a specific section for phones with QWERTY keyboards, such as the Motorola Q or the T-Mobile Dash. You can learn the key commands on the phones themselves by pressing the Home key four times quickly. Doing so takes you into Command Help Mode, and you can press any key to learn its function. Mobile Speak Smartphone also allows you to explore the screen with the MSS cursor, a review cursor that is independent of the system focus but that can simulate the press of the Enter key. This is similar to using the JAWS cursor or the Window-Eyes WE cursor or the Hal virtual focus on a PC. This cursor may be useful when you use nonstandard, third-party applications on your Smartphone. Mobile Speak Smartphone also provides support for an advanced scripting language called LUA, which can be used by adventurous and technologically savvy persons to make more applications accessible.
Readers who are familiar with my cell phone articles know that I use the "Sweet 16" list of desirable features to judge the accessibility of cell phones. As was reported in our previous cell phone evaluations, before we began our reviews, we surveyed 40 cell phone users who are blind or have low vision to determine which features they would most like to have made accessible. The 16 features that were rated the highest by the respondents became the basis of our evaluation and are known as the "Sweet 16." We looked at whether users would be able to access these features and noted the barriers to accessing them.
The Mobile Speak Smartphone manual is available on the company's web site in HTML format and is perfectly accessible using a screen reader. Like Code Factory's manuals for its other cell phone access products, this manual is fairly short, about 18 printed pages, and is designed to get you started so you can proceed to learn on your own. However, it does have plenty of valuable information, including the key commands and their functions. It also provides clear step-by-step instructions for installing Mobile Speak Smartphone independently on a Smartphone. It requires the use of a PC and screen reader and may not be easy for the novice who is not familiar with assistive technology. However, a person who is a solid and confident user of a screen reader such as JAWS, Window-Eyes, or Hal should have no problem installing the software.
I was impressed with the access provided by Mobile Speak Smartphone on the Motorola Q. Certainly, many of the features and functions of Smartphones and Mobile Speak Smartphone are more for the savvy assistive technology user and the techie types who enjoy a challenge and enjoy learning how to work with all the features of a device and with other third-party software products. In fact, as I was learning to use some of the applications on my phone, I sometimes felt like a dumb guy trying to use a Smartphone. That being said, someone who is simply interested in the basics of a cell phone and who wants to be able to know the battery and signal status of their phone and who is calling and to have an accessible Contacts list, would also enjoy using these products.
What I particularly like about Smartphones and the available screen-reader programs is that they open up another category of accessible cell phones and are available for both CDMA and GSM service providers, so all U.S. service providers will be able to offer this access solution. This increase in our choices is certainly good news, and now we can only hope that all the service providers will become aware of these options and that the employees in local stores will learn more about the choices they have to offer their customers who are blind or have low vision. Perhaps even some of the manufacturers can learn that it is possible to make cell phones accessible to people who are blind or have low vision, and more of the manufacturers and service providers will do more to live up to their commitments under Section 255 of the Telecommunications Act.
My phone is no longer turning on. This is my second day having a cell phone, and after buying the cell phone yesterday, today it started to flash red and then eventually shut off. It isn't turning back on, even though I am pressing the power button like the instruction manual says to. What am I doing wrong?
Thinking of getting your loved one a cell phone this holiday season? Good luck. Cell phones may or may not be hazardous to your health, but choosing one can certainly tax your sanity. You have to select a provider (such as AT&T; or Verizon), a make (like Motorola or Nokia) and a plan (weekend minutes or anytime minutes?). Then there are all the bells and whistles. Remember: if the salesclerk asks if you want Java or Brew, he's not offering you a drink but rather a choice between two kinds of software for playing cell-phone games.
For the past 2 years, AFB TECH has been tracking the evolving trends in the accessibility of cell phones. We have evaluated several cell phones on the market to determine accessibility for blind or visually impaired users, and to see what cell phone manufacturers and service providers are doing to comply with what is commonly referred to as Section 255. Section 255 of the Communications Act, as amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, requires that cell phone manufacturers and service providers do all that is "readily achievable" to make each product or service accessible.
As we reported at this conference last year, our 2003 evaluation work showed 4 of that year's top of the line cell phones to be severely lacking in accessible features. However, 2003 also saw the emergence of TALKS and Mobile Accessibility, 2 software products from Europe that can be installed on certain cell phones to provide speech output for accessing screen information.
In 2004, we continued our work evaluating upgraded versions of TALKS and the new Mobile Speak software, which is produced by the makers of Mobile Accessibility, its less robust predecessor. We evaluated TALKS and Mobile Speak on the Nokia 3650, 3660, and 6620, which are 3 of the limited number of phones that feature the Symbian operating system and are compatible with third party software products.We also evaluated 3 other cell phones that feature varying degrees of speech output right out of the box without the need to install third party software: the Owasys 22C from Spain, the Samsung SPH-a660 and the Toshiba VM 4050, also marketed as the Audiovox CDM 9950. 2ff7e9595c
Comentarios