New Notetaker for the Blind: The Apple iPad

This, IMHO, is probably the biggest thing since sliced bread for the blindness PDA industry. Most of our PDAs have rather mediocre storage, by today's standards, and for that storage & custom user interface that makes the device friendly for people who are blind, you pay about as much as you would for a good gaming PC (approximately $1,000-$2,000). This is the first possibility for a notetaking solution that I've seen, talking out of the box, for under $1,000. What do you get for that approximately $900? 64GB of flash storage, WiFi 802.11n (most notetakers are stuck at B or G), it talks out of the box (same setup procedure as the iPhone in iTunes), full sized keyboard on the dock, and the iWork suite ($30 for a full suite that is near-desktop experience; $10 each for individual apps). I love this. Braille may be coming for this. The feature in the iPhone that allows you to keep VoiceOver on with speech off makes me wonder. We'll see when it comes out in late March.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Apple
• iPad
• Notetakers
• Blindness
• Low Vision
• Accessibility
• Affordable

[Lachlant1984]

I know you now have an iPhone as well as the iPod Touch, do you have an Apple Bluetooth keyboard as well? If you do try using it with your iPhone or iPod Touch, I've tried using a Bluetooth keyboard with my brother's iPad and VoiceOver, it works really well, but the command set is a bit different, nevertheless it does work. If you can, try it out and see what you think.

[rml695]

@Lachlant1984 I do not have a bluetooth keyboard at this time. :)

[ChattyChelby]

I am legally blind, and have been thinking about saving up for an ipad. I have heard great things about it, and I already have an ipod touch. So, I basically know how to use an ipad. Assistive technology for the blind is extremely expensive (as mensioned in the video)! I am hoping to be able to get my hands on an ipad of my own!

Please check out my channel. Its about my life as a blind teen. Thanks in advance!

[rml695]

@ChattyChelby I did, subscribed, too :)

[rml695]

@ChattyChelby I also sent you a friend request, not sure if you saw it yet.

[rml695]

@ChattyChelby I can't reply to comments on my profile (not sure why), so yeah. GOod luck in school. LOL :)

[claycas92]

i was wanting it to run snow leopard

[oolong2]

There are a lot of devices that will be coming this year that meet that criteria.. Archos 9, HP Slate, etc.

Not to mention all the 1ghz windows mobile devices that are already out.

[rml695]

@swordkillax I was going off of the figures I had, and do be aware, that I believe this video was made before the iPad was released.

[swordkillax]

you will probably get 20 hours when wifi is turned off and screen on lowest brightness. Blind people don't need the screen remember?

[ESAN100]

Keep in mind that the 10 hour battery life that they are mentioning is with the screen on. If it has a screen curtain mode, like the iphone, then we should expect quite a bit more time from the battery.

[VideoGuyNC]

I never said their security suite was the best. It is pretty good for a free and included security suite. I personally use a better suite, but they're at least trying. When the Mac is hit with the first serious virus attack (and it will happen), they likely try to name it the "iBug" and make it sound like a new feature. Besides, are you sure the "adware" is really a problem? Many scans show things like cookies as adware. MANY cookies are simply identifiers for sites such as eBay, Amazon, etc.