The Visually Impaired Discovering Life in New Ways with the iPhone!

I never thought about a visually impaired person using an iPhone with its flat screen and no brail yet, that is exactly what many of them are doing. They have found a way of making the iPhone their own tool. There are apps being made for the blind by the blind. The app VizWiz is helping them make clothing decisions by allowing them to take a photograph of their cloths and sending it to a service that tells them what color it is. They are also finding ways of being even more self dependent with apps like Sendero an accessible GPS that tells the user’s current position by giving them their street, city, cross street and nearby points of interest. The visually impaired can feel the difference in coins but can’t tell the difference in bill amounts. Now, there is another app called LookTel Money Reader that allows the user to scan the bill of money being handed to them so, they know exactly how much money is being returned to them. Instead of them just trusting that the person is giving them the right amount back. The iPhone has an option that allows the user to have the iPhone verbally read what is on the screen allowing the person to put their finger on the screen to be told where they are on the screen. This allows them to navigate the screen and choose the right button that now all they need to do is double tap to enter. Another app Paisios is working on an app that will not only tell someone what color their clothes are but, also tell them what other colors it goes with since, for many visually impaired the word yellow only mean ripe banana they have never actually seen yellow. The apps that stick are the ones that are practical, accessible, fast, and easy to use. Some of the apps they wish were out there are ones that offer navigation that works indoors, informs them of construction sites to avoid, and describes to them what restaurants and stores are on the streets as they are walking down them. They also have some of the same concerns as seeing people about becoming too dependent on the new technology. They are concerned that the new generation with all these new app options that are reading out loud to them they will forget how to read brail.   

  

I think these are great apps. It just shows you that technology is truly expanding into levels of use that are making the world absolutely limitless no matter your abilities are or are not. I agree with the idea that we always have to be concern with becoming too dependent on technology for everything. Yet, why would anyone want to discourage it if it can improve the quality of someone’s life by allowing them to do something they would otherwise be unable to do. I know I would not want to discourage anyone from living their lives to the fullest.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/print/2012/05/how-the-blind-are-reinventing-the-iphone/256589/