Man, do I ever hope this guy is right, because I hate touch screens. I say that without the slightest hint of exaggeration. If there was a regular old push button cell phone that could do all the fun and useful appy smartphone stuff that the iPhone does, I can’t guarantee you that I wouldn’t run through your grandmother to get my hands on one.
Even after 12 years and three of the things, I still don’t like my iPhone all that much. There are a number of reasons for that, but we’ll stick to a basic one. Typing. As much as I appreciated apps like Fleksy and FlickType when they existed, I was never as fast with them as I was with good old T9 on my Nokia. I’ve gotten myself to be a decent but slow touch typist on the regular keyboard, but it’s inefficient as hell and I curse it regularly.
Speaking of cursing things regularly, don’t even get me started on all of the touch screens I encounter in the wild. Hell, even on my way out into the wild.
Several years ago, someone involved in the management of our apartment building decided that what we really needed around here is a touch screen keyboard to replace the old telephone looking buzzer code system in the main entrance. They didn’t tell your blind friends about it ahead of time, of course. Why would they do that? If they had, we would have done inconvenient things like point out that they’ve effectively locked rent paying tenants out of their homes if we ever lost our keys because touch screens to blind people are like step ladders to a wheelchair.
Yes, buttons can present their own problems, but the major difference is that most people can learn and remember a button sequence, because there are ways to orient yourself to where everything is. There’s no way to do that with a flat slab of touch screen unless it also has a screen reader interface, and 99% of them don’t have that. Even if one technically exists, it’s usually not active and there’s no way for the people who need it to activate it. And before you say anything, the answer to your question is no. Asking someone else to activate it for me is not helpful. It would be if literally anyone knew anything, but literally no one does. I’m not even saying that to sound like an asshole. It’s just facts. The next time I don’t get an answer something like “ooooooo………….thaaaaaaaaaaat wooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuld be haaaaaaaaaaaaaard………….yeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh……..”, will be the first time I don’t get that answer. People just don’t see it as a problem.
And so people like me now live in a world where we can’t do all sorts of shit we used to be able to do. We can’t helpfully answer someone’s phone while they’re driving. We can’t change the radio station or mess with the air conditioning. We can’t use someone else’s stove. We can’t turn on the washing machine…
And by the way, who are these clowns putting important controls in the splash zone of a cooktop? That getting through the prototype phase should be a mass firing, no?
It’s too bad the story can sufficiently taunt me now because it’s behind a pay wall.
But not only does our buzzer have an inaccessible touchscreen, but it talks in all the unnecessary places. “Main door is now open. Please enter the building,” I’m looking at you. So you can talk to tell me the thing that the door lock clicking already told me, but it won’t have any accessibility for actually using the thing.
I know, right? Talk about adding insult to injury. And who is that bit of speech even for? Who, when presented with a concept such as a door that he has just unlocked himself, is completely at a loss for what to do next? I realize there are 2 steps, but I think you can handle it without instructions.
Oh, and sorry about the paywall. I read the story in Apple News, then sent it to myself to blog on a real keyboard. Didn’t realize it was subscriber only until I had written everything and then clicked over from here to find a bit to quote at the end and ran smack into said paywall. That’s why there’s no bit at the end.
Side note: Apple News is totally worth the subscription if you tend to read a lot of news.
That is pretty neat. Although I would have enjoyed reading the whole story, it was a good excuse to throw a Power Salad video in the comments.
For sure. thank you for the sufficient rocking.