The iPad was meant to revolutionize accessibility • Hacker News Board

Re: The iPad was meant to revolutionize accessibility

#51

Post by abecedarius » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 5:46 PM UTC

scosman wrote: post #29

I’m working on free open source for non speaking people. In the early user testing stage. If anyone is interested in getting involved please reach out. Demo here: https://twitter.com/scosman/status/1608173613340917763 Top level ideas: - LLMs to reduce typing. Expand single words into complete sentences easily, and predict next sentence without typing. - Voice to text to LLM: listen to ambient conversation, and offer…

I was curious about the new UI for text input, but didn't see more about it in the README. Are you familiar with the Dasher design? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dasher_(software)

Re: The iPad was meant to revolutionize accessibility

#52

Post by amelius » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 5:59 PM UTC

brookst wrote: post #22

smoldesu wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, these ideals don't have to be mutually exclusive. Apple has made successful and secure platforms before with both an App Store and an external packaging system - they just don't bring that philosophy to the iPhone for profitability reasons. Once the EU enforces their external app store policy, you won't be forced into using non-Apple software. You can still continue using your iPhone exactly the way you do tod…

... Or unless you have family members likely to install and pay for scams. I'm ambivalent about the EU regulations. But it'll be interesting to see what happens, and whether consoles are next, and what that means.

Do you think that content filters can only be installed and controlled by the vendor of the device?

Re: The iPad was meant to revolutionize accessibility

#53

Post by eddieroger » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 6:13 PM UTC

r_p4rk wrote: post #49

My Grandmother was hospitalized many times from 2019 through to 2023 and passed in April, one of the standout things that made this a lot easier to go through was 2021 iPad Mini. During the years she suffered from various magnitudes of physical disability, including being almost completely paralyzed. A lot of this was during covid restrictions so we had to get creative with how we kept in touch. Here are a few things…

My Grabdma passed away ten years ago, and aside from wishing she was still with us, I wish iPads had been more prevalent for her last several years. I had her comfortable on an older Windows laptop, but it always intimidated her some. She would move the laptop around when she wanted to sit in the kitchen or her chair, but it was heavy and clunky, and she preferred an external mouse, which was just _one more thing_. I had an iPad when she died, but couldn’t have dropped the money to get one, but dammit I wish I could have. She felt so isolated in her final years (despite living with my parents), and having a 2lb window to the world would have made such a difference. Especially when I see the improvements coming in iOS 17, I think it really would have been a game changer for her.

Re: The iPad was meant to revolutionize accessibility

#54

Post by dantastic » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 6:18 PM UTC

onedognight wrote: post #35

nordsieck wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He’s used an iPhone for years but is stuck on an old one with the home button purely because we don’t think he’ll transition to swiping up. Not sure if you know this, but the latest iPhone SE still uses the iPhone 8 body complete with home button. Depending on which phone he's on, it might be a good idea to upgrade; all of the rumors that I've heard are that Apple will make the next SE on a different body.

I switched my mother, who also has cognitive decline, from the iPhone 7 to the iPhone SE to keep the same shape and the home button. She was never able to master the upward swipe on her new iPad. Changing to the newer iOS was challenging for her due to the significantly smaller and pushed to the top call answering buttons. Apple does a lot for accessibility, but I really wish they had an “old persons mode”.

I believe that the "top call answering buttons" is the banner for incoming call?. You can change that to be a full-screen one in settings-> phone -> incoming calls. If that's what you mean?

I really dislike the little banner thing and much prefer a full-screen image of whoever's calling.

Re: The iPad was meant to revolutionize accessibility

#55

Post by giantrobot » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 6:31 PM UTC

erosenbe0 wrote: post #39

maccard wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can still continue using your iPhone exactly the way you do today, with the option of letting it do more if you ever wanted. Until publishers decide to launch their own app store and remove games from the app store, forcing me to create accounts and store payment details with them. Then, poeple like me who explicitly purchased apple devices because this is a feature, are forced to have a "choice" between instal…

That would be a more fair criticism if Apple charged the game publishers fair fees commensurate with the cost of security audits, bandwidth, availability, and the like. Instead, Apple (and other app stores) tend to demand massive profit sharing.

WTF? Profit sharing? That's just a daft statement. Apple has a surcharge on transactions through the App Store. There's no further requirement from developers. Big devs take issue with Apple's fees because instead of considering the fees the cost of doing business they act as if it's some sort theft.

App Store transaction fees amortize the costs of development/operations of not just the store itself but the OS it all runs on. If you pay 99¢ for an app that covers re-downloads and multiple devices in perpetuity. All running on a global CDN with exceptional uptime.

Apple doesn't charge users a dime for new iOS upgrades over years of the life of the device. Even years old devices get the latest software features of new iOS versions. Supporting old devices has a non-zero development cost.

Re: The iPad was meant to revolutionize accessibility

#56

Post by sharkjacobs » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 6:36 PM UTC

This is an okay article about the state of the augmentative and alternative communication technology and industry which has been dominated by the iPad since its release. I think it has a bad, misrepresentative, headline, but that's almost de rigeur.

But the article also reveals a very sad story about the mother of a disabled child who longs for an "implanted brain chip" which will enable her daughter to "transmit [her] thoughts wirelessly" and communicate like other children.

> Could a brain chip allow my daughter to verbally express herself with the same minimal effort it takes me to open my mouth and speak? How might she sound, telling me about her day at school? Singing “Happy Birthday” or saying “Mama”?

It's part of a bigger trend of parents of disbled children in the AAC world. The fantasy of AAC is that all the cases are like Helen Keller, or Stephen Hawkings, or Roger Ebert, intelligent motivated individuals with mechanical impediments to traditional means of communicating, but they're not, and technology won't change that.

Re: The iPad was meant to revolutionize accessibility

#57

Post by mproud » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 6:52 PM UTC

iOS 17 has a feature called “Personal Voice”, which is something that might end up being very helpful.

> Personal Voice helps people with speech loss create a voice that sounds like them, and use it with Live Speech to communicate in calls and conversations.

https://www.apple.com/ios/ios-17-preview/

Re: The iPad was meant to revolutionize accessibility

#58

Post by scosman » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 6:59 PM UTC

abecedarius wrote: post #51

scosman wrote: post #29

I’m working on free open source for non speaking people. In the early user testing stage. If anyone is interested in getting involved please reach out. Demo here: https://twitter.com/scosman/status/1608173613340917763 Top level ideas: - LLMs to reduce typing. Expand single words into complete sentences easily, and predict next sentence without typing. - Voice to text to LLM: listen to ambient conversation, and offer…

I was curious about the new UI for text input, but didn't see more about it in the README. Are you familiar with the Dasher design? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dasher_(software)

I haven’t gotten around to documenting it yet. There’s a subdirectory “Morse” with an early version used in user testing, but nothing self explanatory. Plan is a 2-button (or 2 switch) design like Morse code, but without the learning curve and with auto completion.

Hadn’t seen Dasher but checking it out now!

Re: The iPad was meant to revolutionize accessibility

#59

Post by jrm4 » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 6:59 PM UTC

dagmx wrote: post #38

jrm4 wrote: post #33

This is the easiest answer ever: It's not meaningfully "free/open source." It didn't even have to start out that way; sure, keep that competitive advantage for a few years. But by today, you really should be able to develop an app or whatever for the iPad with ZERO friction and ZERO permission from Apple.

Then why aren’t there solutions that fit their bill on Android or open source platforms like Linux? I think interjecting one’s own ideals into someone else’s problems is a bit uncouth. The article even goes over how prior to the iPad, AAC providers would go to their own hardware solutions. OSS is meaningless to the why. It may be a solution but if it was the reason, then OSS has similarly failed the market even more.

Because Apple's been a bit too effective in dominating the industry, for reasons other than usability or technical superiority; since growing to the top they can leverage inertia and other factors.

I have no idea what you think "ideals" and "being uncouth" have to do with any of this; referring to OSS as e.g. an "ideology" strikes me as a weird misunderstanding of its present role in tech. It's not theory, fam, damn near the entire cloud runs on it today.

Re: The iPad was meant to revolutionize accessibility

#60

Post by majjam » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 7:06 PM UTC

msh wrote: post #47

CobaltFire wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My son is semi-nonverbal and autistic and this is a real pain point for us. We use amazon fire tablets simply because they DO have a kids (simplified) mode. Google has a version for Android on tablets, but they don't support it well. iOS has exactly nothing. iOS also sucks in that trying to load all his favorite shows for when we are out is near impossible (I have them loaded on an SD card on the fire). Ideal, no, bu…

Is it just not a question of the right app? If you install VLC or infuse you can easily side load videos.

Seconded, this is what I do.