iOS accessibility for vision

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For people who are blind or vision impaired, iOS devices running iOS 4 has many accessible features including:

  • VoiceOver, Apple’s gesture-based screen reader technology, available in different languages, which:
    • Reads a description of every item on the screen
    • Comes with adjustable speech rate
    • Reads each character on the keyboard when you touch it and speaks each completed word
    • Features the “rotor”, a virtual control wheel that allows you to adjust how VoiceOver moves through a document or navigates web pages
    • Works with all in-built applications. Apple is working on making additional applications VoiceOver compatible but this is not yet available
  • Support for braille display using Bluetooth wireless technology, allowing you to read VoiceOver output in braille. iPhone can also be controlled by braille displays with input keys and other controls when VoiceOver is turned on
  • Voice control
  • Zoom
  • White on black for higher contrast
  • Speak auto-text, which speaks iPhone’s text suggestions that occur while typing or when a word in misspelled
  • Tactile buttons
  • Giant fonts for mail messages
  • iPhone stereo headset with built-in remote control button
  • Audible, visible, and vibrating alerts
  • Hands-free speakerphone (only available on iPhone)
  • Downloadable, assignable ringtones (only available on iPhone)
  • Triple-click home, allowing you to easily turn VoiceOver, White on Black or Zoom on or off easily
  • The high pixel LCD backlit display (not a feature of iPhone 3G S) is “the highest-resolution phone screen ever”. This improves the sharpness of text and graphics for those who are vision impaired. In addition, the Retina display offers four times the contrast ratio of previous models, heightening the colour vibrancy and providing contrast from all viewing angles 

The iPhone user guide is available in HTML format or tagged PDF format.


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