I just got back from the Green Hills Apple Store in
Nashville Tn.
My intention was to go and look at the iPhone, and probably walk out
with one if I liked what I saw. However, due to the lengthy process of
making a purchase, the apple store stopped selling iPhones about an
hour and a half before they closed. I showed up 5 minutes after this
cutoff time, but was encouraged to look at the display model as long
as I liked until close. Upon enquiring about having a sales person
turn on Voiceover, they called on another rep who had more experience
with Vo. Turns out, he has some form of visual impairment, which
causes him to have to use the zoom feature. He knew right where vo
was, and turned it on for me. Now, the journey begins.
My immediate observation was that of many other people. Vo is too
quiet, even with the volume cranked. In a store with a great deal of
background noise, I found vo somewhat hard to hear. Should have
followed my gut instinct and brought a headset along with me.
My first 10 minutes with the phone was met with some uncertainty. I
was successfully able to explore the phone and open several apps.
However, I found the sensitivity of the touch screen a bit strange.
While dragging my finger along the icons, some would open at random.
At first, I found myself quite lost inside of the apps I was opening.
However, I soon found a consistent pattern to how these apps are laid
out. Once I realized this, I was better able to navigate around
several apps. I was soon successfully able to dial my own phone
number, making my cell phone ring in my pocket. Then, using my cell
phone, I was able to call the display model, answering and ending said
call. In the iPod app, I was able to choose a playlist and start it
playing. I was able to then pause, advance to next track, etc. I even
found myself able to locate the transport button I wanted without
thinking. I guess that's where muscle memory really starts to come
into play. I was not, however, able to bend my head around how to drag
a slider, such as the icon that allows you to advance through a song.
I think there was a tutor message, which would have given me those
instructions, but I accidentally interrupted it, and was unable to get
it to tell me again.
My cursory glance of mail yielded few results. I saw the messages, was
able to open one and sort of read it. However, I was not fully able to
bend my head around it's layout. I couldn't find the compose button,
and I didn't understand the relationships between the message and the
mailboxes. I would assume that the mailbox list would be on the left,
and the messages on the right. I thought that's how it would look, but
I'm not sure.
Safari was a bit interesting as well. I didn't spend but a few minutes
looking at it, and was a tad confused because I saw part of a web
page, along with bookmarks. I wanted to try and enter in a website to
not only look at something familiar, and have an excuse to type. I was
not able to find the button to enter a website, however, I did find
the Google button and began entering in info into the search box. I
tried to type some search terms, but kept making tons of errors.
However, I could understand the concept of typing, and could easily
see that more time taken to practicing would yield much better results.
Final thoughts.
In short, I get it. Voiceover is implemented in such a way that there
are few concepts to understand. Once these concepts are understood and
applied to all apps, your only learning curve is figuring out where
things are on the screen in any given app, and just the general
operation of the phone itself, which is mostly built on logic. I feel
like a week of working with the phone would get me pretty much up to
speed. It wouldn't be that much of a learning curve to stunt my
productivity. My only concern is the fact that I can definitely dial
faster on my nokia n82, and easily locate a contact, using quick
letter navigation. I know that the dial pad will take some time on
the iPhone. It's just one of those things that's going through my mind
as I'm making this decision. The store opens at 10 AM tomorrow. I
could easily go in and get one. Am I ready? Not sure. Should I wait
till september for the possibility of an iPod touch? Again. Not sure.
However, I don't really like the idea of having 2 devices on my
person, when an iPhone would do the trick for everything. Hmmmmm. What
a quandary. I'll keep you all posted.
Reeves
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