Bluetooth Keyboards and limitations:


As a disabled technophile, my relationship with Amazon (and to a lesser extent, Apple) can only be described as a love-and-hate affair.  That does not mean I love apple more than Amazon, quite the contrary, I use Amazon far more than Apple.

Apple has made their iPhone 4S accessible to the visually impaired, and I have seen with my own eyes, how a blind person can overcome touch screen with mixture of voice feedback (Siri) and voice command. Google Android has achieved more or less same level of functionality, so, today’s high-end smart phones, Android, Apple or Windows (for the adventurous) should be accessible for most visually impaired people.

What about Amazon Kindle? As far as the E-readers go, the most accessible model for visually impaired remains, Kindle Keyboard 3G. Released in 2010, (the 6” model has been discontinued in 2013, while the DX 9” model costs $299) it is both textile and affordable, and the Neo-speech TTS voice engine combined with voice navigation made it a favorite among the blinds, I remember how happy a consumer was about being able to read the news paper again after decades. None of the newer models (including the critically acclaimed Kindle Paperwhite) comes with text to speech or even anything for the ears. (I am guessing they have given up on the concept of Universal Design.)

That left me with the Kindle Fire HD (which I once called – the most inaccessible tablet on the market) it has since, included Ivona Sally and some accessibility features from Android Icecream Sandwich such as, explore by touch in its updates…better late than never.

One thing I love about Kindle Fire HD is the simplicity of its fool proof GUI interface, which could conceivably be navigated with the arrow, esc and enter key. To test that theory, I hooked my Kindle Fire HD to a Bluetooth Keyboard that costs $20. The navigation of the Home Page was every bit as smooth as I anticipated. The problem only hit me when I tried to run individual apps, I’ve had similar problem with my iPhone after hooking it up with a Bluetooth keyboard, which is that their purpose was to serve as assisted add on and not a replacement for the touch screen, that means I still need to touch the “play button” on the touch screen to activate the text to speech, I cannot do it by simply pressing key on the keyboard. I have to admit, I feel disappointed by the result, and I hope amazon will at least make their stock apps more keyboards friendly.

Comments

  1. SarahApril 22, 2016 at 6:05 PM

    I had the exact same problem with my bluetooth foldable keyboard... I sure wish they'd make the apps more keyboard friendly already!

    ReplyDelete

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