Vision Extra: Dr Scott Hollier on Android Lollipop, Samsung Galaxy S6 and the Apple Watch

Transcript

8th April 2015

Peter: Hello, and welcome to Vision Extra coming to you from RPH in Adelaide.  Peter Greco with you and with us is Scott Hollier. Scott, welcome to the program.

Scott: Thanks Peter, it’s great to be back.

Peter: Now, you’ve been I guess a little bit lucky or certainly been doing some great work as far as checking out some new software on the Android phones go.

Scott: Yes, fortunately the phone that I have, which is a Motorola Moto G Google Play edition gets updated a lot and just recently it ticked over with Android 5.1 Lollipop, which has been really great to have a play with.

Peter: Don’t you love the names that particularly the Android updates, the new names they come up with.

Scott: Absolutely.  I mean I figure given that they named [inaudible]. Recently we’ve had Jelly Bean, KitKat, Lollypop and my tip for the next is Marshmellow.

Peter: Okay, well I’ll hold you to that. [laugh]  What do you think of it? Early sort of thoughts, what are they?

Scott: Well look, basically there’s two things we’re discussing today.  One is that there is a major step up from KitKat to Lollipop in itself, and then there’s a few nice little additions to 5.1 with that slight update there.  So I mean in terms of Lollipop more broadly, one of the things I really like about Android 5 is that they have added a lot more features around vision so you now have some great colour contrast options.  So if you want to make things more grey scale or if you have a particular colour vision issue then there are some good support [inaudible] new things and labels and experimental but they do work quite well.  And it builds nicely on having the Talk Back screen reader and also the magnifier and some of those other features.  So I think that in itself is a really good thing. It’s also been nice to see that Talk Back itself has been improved and updated. Some of the negatives that people have commented on and being vision impaired myself I share this, is that there is a lot more white and bright in Lollipop.  So the setting screen for example, they’ve now flipped the colours around with black text on a light background and that can be a bit glarey.  But one of the other new features of Lollipop is that they’ve now got the inverted colour option, which is a little bit of catch up there to iOS but really nice to see the feature added. On the 5.1 side of things, so specifically the latest update to 5.1, we have seen that Talk Back has been greatly improved and I’ve been having a bit of a play.  I noticed that things like the battery indicator is a lot easier to get a hold of.  On some of the 'tip' pop up screens that you get, Talk Back seems to handle those a lot better now.  And the basic responsiveness of it is quite good.  But that said I have found a bit of a bug and I don’t know if it’s just my phone or 5.1 more broadly but the ability to adjust the media volume to change Talk Back doesn’t seem to be working very well.  So Talk Back is a little bit loud for my liking at the moment but that could just be my particular phone and I’m sure  I could actually chuck in a bug report to Google on that. But like all these things, Peter, it’s early days with 5.1 but what I always draw encouragement from with these things is that Google are putting in the effort to continuing to make their devices more accessible and the affordability too with Android devices being generally a lot more affordable in the smart phone market. It’s great news for people who are blind and vision impaired.

Peter: Scott, do you think that it’s been demand driven, those better accessibility features? Is that being demand driven?

Scott: I think so.  I think it’s part demand and I think the fact that Apple has certainly dominated the accessibility space on mobile devices.  I think that there’s been people saying “look, we like what Apple are doing but when you’re talking about $800 to $1,000 for a phone we really want other options”.  And I think Google were a bit slow off the mark with their initial efforts for accessibility but they’re well and truly caught up now.  When you can buy a $60 tablet on eBay or $100 smart phone with accessibility packed in, and in terms of its use I think it’s pretty comparable.  I think Apple have still got the edge but for what most people want to do Android is there now.  And so I think certainly the demand and the desire for affordable access is a really key thing.

Peter: And Scott, you are saying that the phones and the tablets etcetera come with accessibility features built in, you don’t have to buy any software to add to your unit do you?

Scott: Absolutely.  And I mean at Media Access Australia we’re big fans of seeing mainstream products with accessibility built in. I always think back to the joke when the Apple Mac first introduced a Voiceover in 2005, that people were making the joke saying “once upon a time I spent $2,000 on assistive technology, now I spend $900 and get a free Mac Mini”.  And it’s  a little bit like that.  I like that thinking that you buy a $60 tablet and you’re basically getting access with a tablet thrown in, it’s a nice position to be in.

Peter: And 2015 is here. Scott, what about the new Galaxy phone? Have you also had a bit of a look at that?

Scott: I’ve had a look at some models of it and the great thing is that Samsung do often bundle in a few extra accessibility features. It’s always nice to see things like some additional colour themes and things but what’s interesting is that Samsung did have the edge, I think, of Android phones when it came to accessibility. But now that Lollypop is rapidly improving accessibility we’re starting to see Google in its own right catch up. So I still think in terms of the overall quality of Android phones, Samsung is certainly one of the leaders and I was drooling a bit when I was looking at the S6 the other day, especially the Edge one, which I’ve seen some YouTube videos of dropping them and running them over with tractors and things and the phone still seems to stay alive, which is impressive.  So when it comes to quality I think the Samsung phones are still seen as the premium product but it is worth mentioning to your listeners that some of those budget phones, I mean my Moto G for example was a $200 phone and some of those cheaper ones, as long as they still run I’d say at least a 4.2 Jelly Bean, but more likely 4.4 KitKat or even Lollipop now, there’s some good options out there for people who are blind and vision impaired.

Peter: Scott, did I also read, I think it’s the new Samsung Galaxy phone that one of the new gestures, if you like, is that you shake the phone?

Scott: Yeah and it’s interesting that the shake feature is quite useful but you can actually turn that on in Android [inaudible] switch your phone to read out things and do things, you can actually set that so that you shake the phone and Talk Back kicks in and starts reading things out to you.  So there’s some really nice neat little features tucked away under the bonnet for Android these days, which is great.

Peter: What about the size in terms of the screen, for both the Google or the Galaxy phones?

Scott: Yeah, the trend is certainly for screens to go bigger and I think that’s a really good point in that the built in magnifier, the zoom feature, it does work quite well if you have Android 4.2 or later.  But you can really take advantage of that when you’ve got some of these really crisp screens, like the S6 with Samsung, or the Google Nexus range.  Yeah, the bigger the screen [inaudible] res, 720P, 1080P screens or even higher now, you can get some really crisp images and the zoom combined with that really crisp screen helps.  I think it is nice for people with low vision to see that things are moving in a trend where we definitely like to see our devices a little bit bigger.  And I’ve noticed now that the term ‘phablet’, with a cross between phone and tablet seems to have dropped off a bit now, people just generally accept that your phone is going to be pretty sizeable and I think that’s a good thing.

Peter: Yeah, well I think certainly the sale of the iPhone 6 would suggest that that’s been the right move.  What about as far as, for people who particularly rely on the speech Talk Back, how would you compare that to a Voiceover?  Can you compare or are they just different?

Scott: No, I think you can make a comparison and I would say the Voiceover has the edge. Voiceover has been with us for a longer time.  I also think there’s more of a community support with websites like Apple Vis and others out there.  The iPhone, it is more established.  Apple have developed it quite a lot and there is a good industry support around it so if there are issues they get picked up quite quickly.  But that said, I think if you just want to do the basics with your phone, I mean the way I have my Android phone set up is I use Big Launcher, which is the app which basically simplifies your launcher down to six basic icons and then you can get to all your other apps through one of those, and I have it in high contrast.  Look, for my needs, be it contacts or basic web browsing, the ABC app, I’m a bit of a news junkie like that, and even apps like Where Am I, which just give me a quick heads up as to where I am if I’m at a party and I need to call a taxi or something. For all these type of day-to-day functions I think Android is more than capable and so really it comes down to what your needs are, if you really do need something in [inaudible] eco system, I think Voiceover is the better of the two.  But if you want to do just basic everyday things and you have a reasonably current Android device then for the most part it should be good.

Peter: Now speaking about Voiceover, the Apple watch is about to come back. Some early thoughts about that?

Scott: Yeah, well it’s been nice that Apple have confirmed just yesterday that the watch will have accessibility features.  We’ve seen some leaked screenshots in the news kicking around for the past month or two but nice to have it official.  So for people considering buying the Apple watch, the Voiceover screen reader is built in.  We don’t know how it compares with more traditional iOS devices like the iPad and the iPhone, given that it does run a different operating system but presumably with Apple’s good quality I’d assume that it would work in a similar way.  There’s also zoom, there’s the ability to change some colours and themes and things like that.  So credit where credit’s due, it’s always nice to see not just a new product launch but an accessible new product launch and the only thing, Peter, is I think it would be really good if Apple could send us some of those $14,000 18 carat gold ones.

Peter: That’s amazing.  That’s an extraordinary price.  It is more than a watch but gee, I guess if you’re leaving work and the employer presents you with a gold watch maybe that Apple watch, that $14,000 Apple watch will be the one to go out with.

Scott: Indeed!  But for the more budget conscious I think the base model is more around the $500 mark, which for my price point is still a little steep but probably better than 14 grand.

Peter: So all in all, getting back to the Android 5.1, thumbs up?

Scott: I do.  I just had that funny little bug with the volume but in terms of the overall features I think it is a nice little update from Android 5.0, which is what I had on my phone before and a significant step up from 4.4 KitKat.  So if anyone is considering getting an Android device see if you can find one running 5.0 Lollypop.  5.1 has only just started rolling out so it’s more likely in the shops you’ll see Android 5.0 devices but still a worthy upgrade.

Peter: Are the updates free for those phones as well?  Like to go from 5.0 to 5.1?  Is that free?

Scott: Yes.  The nice thing is that if you do get a Google Play edition phone, and there’s a whole variety of them, where Google have basically just put a vanilla flavour of Android, pure Android on devices, select devices, then whenever Google do an update they just roll out your device.  So I did some hunting as to what is the cheapest Google Play edition for [inaudible] Moto G, which is a two year old phone now, but yeah it keeps getting updates, which is terrific. 

Peter: Tremendous. Scott, if people want to find out more they can also have a look at mediaaccess.org.au, you’ve got some great information there. You’ve written a couple of really interesting reviews so that’s a good starting point as well.

Scott: Yeah. I’d certainly encourage people to check out mediaaccess.org.au, especially in our digital technology section there.  And also, if people do want to get in touch, if anyone has any particular questions about anything relating to mainstream devices and accessibility we’d love to hear from you.

Peter: Terrific. Well it’s always good to chat to you, Scott.

Scott: I appreciate the invite, Peter. Thank you very much.

Peter: We’ll speak again soon. Scott Hollier there, who does some fantastic work for Media Access Australia, who do some wonderful work in their own right.  Mediaaccess.org.au if you want to find out more.  If you want to listen to this program again, maybe you missed some of it, you can go to our website, www.rphadelaide.org.au/links/VE.mp3, the VE is for Vision Extra, the name of this program. Back on this radio station at the same time next week.

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