the tablet war is heating up
- Thread starter falcarrion
- Start date
Fast Learner
First Post
I can see it as being useful for blind users who are also deaf. For folks who are simply blind, however, the iPhone and iPad are awesome. I run a iOS developer group and devoted one meeting to accessibility on iOS. Several blind users were kind enough to show us how stunningly cool the platform's VoiceOver feature is and it's importance in their daily lives.
VoiceOver not only allows you to navigate through apps and use the phone/pad like anyone else, but it also reads text on the web, in iBooks, etc. One user shared how the phone's built-in compass and maps features gave him the freedom to roam the city in a way he couldn't have imagined before (without spending many thousands of dollars on much, much clunkier hardware and software). One user passed along a joke from the pre-iPhone 3Gs/4 days: how many people does it take to help a blind man across the street? Two; one to guide the blind man and one to push his shopping cart full of assistive aids.
Video demonstration of the feature:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEDzitE2w_0"]This video demonstrates how it works[/ame]
The video towards the bottom of this page is Apple's instructions on using VoiceOver under iOS.
A video of user Justin Mann at the user group meeting I mentioned, explaining how it works for him and why it's important.
falcarrion
First Post
thanks for sharing. I think it is awsome when we do our part to include the handicaped.
I wasn't aware of VoiceOver. Interesting concept, I imagine. Without it, the iThings are pretty much useless to blind people (why buy a piece of flat plastic that you can't feel buttons to press to dial).
Based on the wording in the iSense video, it almost seems as if they were unaware of it as well, based on their premise that blind people were left out on the iThing.
Sadly, the iSense is just a video, made by some people with the means to make a slick video, but not the means to make the technology.
A real iSense screen would likely be built into the product, not a material made of Unobtanium that is laid over the existing screen.
Additionally, given that neither iPad model has a means of recognizing "what's on top of my screen", this is just imagination-ware.
Why am I being harsh on it? While we can hope it inspires somebody to solve the problem, it's a "duh!" idea. It's a slickly packaged promo for an idea that is inherently obvious to anyone versed in the art (the definition of what is/is not patentable).
A while back, the last time gas prices spiked, a friend of mine lamented "somebody needs to solve our dependance on oil." This struck me as lazy-wishing. Instead of whining about it or mastering the craft of making slick videos, why not go to school, and learn how to solve it themselves.
Based on the wording in the iSense video, it almost seems as if they were unaware of it as well, based on their premise that blind people were left out on the iThing.
Sadly, the iSense is just a video, made by some people with the means to make a slick video, but not the means to make the technology.
A real iSense screen would likely be built into the product, not a material made of Unobtanium that is laid over the existing screen.
Additionally, given that neither iPad model has a means of recognizing "what's on top of my screen", this is just imagination-ware.
Why am I being harsh on it? While we can hope it inspires somebody to solve the problem, it's a "duh!" idea. It's a slickly packaged promo for an idea that is inherently obvious to anyone versed in the art (the definition of what is/is not patentable).
A while back, the last time gas prices spiked, a friend of mine lamented "somebody needs to solve our dependance on oil." This struck me as lazy-wishing. Instead of whining about it or mastering the craft of making slick videos, why not go to school, and learn how to solve it themselves.
falcarrion
First Post
without Ideas or what you call imagination-ware we wouldn't have cars, computers, or anything at all. You can tell someone about an idea but to present it in slick video you can catch the attenion of the world.
JoeGKushner
Adventurer
I'm not trying to sound dense here but I have a G1. the battery went dead. I bought a battery, opened the case and popped it in.
Are you saying that's not possible with an iPhone?
Fast Learner
First Post
iPhones have no battery door and so no, the battery isn't officially user-replaceable. They'll do it at an Apple store pretty cheaply, but not as cheaply as doing it yourself. You can do it yourself on the iPhone, it's not hard, but it does require opening the case with a screwdriver, etc.
About 1/3 of Android phones are the same, no battery door, and the percentage seems to be going up. Same deal with them, though: you can do it yourself, it's just not slide-pull-push-slide like a phone with a battery door.
casual researrch I'd done on the 3g indicated Apple would charge about $100. You could find a company to do it for about $60.
The main reason is that by soldering the battery in, they save space. How much space? Probably millimeters. Some folks used the lack of user-changeable battery as a arguing point against the iThing. Having worked in the tech hardware industry for years, my perspective was that it was a worthwhile trade-off.
those millimeters are represented by connector contacts (usually springy), plasitic guides to keep the battery inplace and guide it in, plus extra plastic guides for the cover and a release mechanism. All of that plastic removed meant the phone could be smaller/fit more hardware in.
I recently had a debate with somebody about whether HP's DL360G7 truly had 18 DIMM slots like the spec sheet said it did. No, way I said. It's a 1U form-factor box. The drive bay, CPUs, powersupplies and PCI card tray takes up too much space. Literally, all the previous models I'd seen only had 4 slots.
So we get one in, and I pop the cover, and sure enough, there are 2 banks of 9 slots, one on the left, one on the right.
This is a machine that has a set height, width, and depth. And for 10 years, was constrained by the size of those parts I named. They got the power supplies to be smaller, the drive bay to use small-form factor drives, and PCI-express cards are smaller too. This opened up space in the chassis for a meaniningful amount of memory slots.
In a small device, millimeters mean a lot.
Fast Learner
First Post
The lack of battery door also means that the whole device becomes more solid, to the point where the iPhone 4 doesn't flex at all. To me, anyway, it makes it feel more... advanced, I guess, more futuristic. And more valuable.
My 3Gs has been in constant daily use for 20 months now and still has a charge that comfortably lasts all day and evening. A few apps -- intensive games, mostly -- can run it down faster than that, but it's almost never an issue. If it keeps up until the new iPhones in (likely) September then the lack of battery user-replaceability won't have affected me at all.
I've been using my iPad 1 continuously for 14 months and it still runs for 8 or 9 straight hours of constant use (and many days of casual use), so it's not an issue there yet, either.
So far I'm quite happy.
My 3Gs has been in constant daily use for 20 months now and still has a charge that comfortably lasts all day and evening. A few apps -- intensive games, mostly -- can run it down faster than that, but it's almost never an issue. If it keeps up until the new iPhones in (likely) September then the lack of battery user-replaceability won't have affected me at all.
I've been using my iPad 1 continuously for 14 months and it still runs for 8 or 9 straight hours of constant use (and many days of casual use), so it's not an issue there yet, either.
So far I'm quite happy.
John Crichton
First Post
Loving the battery life on the iPad 2 so far.
Hate that I need to plug it in to the wall to charge it.
