Little known iPhone feature lets blind people see with their fingers

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“A few years ago, backstage at a conference, I spotted a blind woman using her phone. The phone was speaking everything her finger touched on the screen, allowing her to tear through her apps. My jaw hit the floor. After years of practice, she had cranked the voice’s speed so high, I couldn’t understand a word it was saying,” David Pogue reports for Yahoo Finance. “And here’s the kicker: She could do all of this with the screen turned off. Her phone’s battery lasted forever.”

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“Ever since that day, I’ve been like a kid at a magic show. I’ve wanted to know how it’s done. I’ve wanted an inside look at how the blind could navigate a phone that’s basically a slab of featureless glass,” Pogue reports. “This week, I got my chance. Joseph Danowsky offered to spend a morning with me, showing me the ropes.”

“I asked Joe if there’s anything he’d ask Apple to improve in VoiceOver,” Pogue reports. “‘The biggest problem with the iPhone is when you use it a lot, you need a bigger battery. I’m using it all the time. If the phone were just a little thicker, to accommodate a double battery, that’d be a nice thing. I’m also a little disappointed they did away with the standard headphone jack, because when you use it a lot, you need to charge it all the time [and the new earbuds plug into the Lightning charging jack].’”

“I pointed out that none of his complaints about the iPhone have anything to do with accessibility. They’re the same complaints we all have,” Pogue reports. “‘I know,’ he said, laughing.’VoiceOver is very consistent and it’s extremely good. There’s no problem with VoiceOver.’ (The Associated Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired would undoubtedly agree; in January, it gave Apple its Louis Braille Award.)”

Much more in the full article here.