So, I was working with a student who is blind, and has never used an iPhone before, and never saw the iPhone screen or layout. Tutorials are so very important for new users of, probably anything. Apple should have had a tutorial for VoiceOver on the iPhone from the start. TalkBack had a tutorial, and it's one thing Google has gotten very right. There's even a tutorial for all of the new features, and the Braille keyboard even! With VoiceOver, the onscreen braille keyboard there may as well be a "hidden" cheat code for all that it is mentioned anywhere in VoiceOver's UI (settings). So, those who are newly blind may only be able to make calls and send and receive messages. And if they get a call? Well, they'll just have to call back. And when they want to end a call? Well... Gotta wait until someone else ends it or the battery goes dead. I mean, I love teaching these people, I really do. I'm not complaining about that at all. But Apple doesn't make it any easier, when they well could.
Hot take: Android phones are better for blind beginners than iPhones. Every TalkBack feature is conveyed through the tutorial, every UI element is shown and navigated to using exploration or swipes/flicks, and midrange phones are getting very good these days I hear, so a blind user, who may only live on SSI/SSDI (social security checks), may more easily afford a great midrange phone. Of course there is the iPhone SE, but you know, no tutorial and all that. And what if a blind user doesn't live near a training center, or doesn't feel comfortable with their blindness enough to go to a "blindness" center? They're stuck, as far as I can tell. Oh and the new gestures for getting to the home screen and such. That'll be easy for a brand new iPhone user to do.
@devinprater maybe @Sommer@mastodon.social can help get this on Apple’s radar?
