Fleksy – Does Fleksy change the way the blind uses the iPhone?

So now that Fleksy has been released for a few weeks now, I would like to look at the app, and see if it measures up to the hype that surrounded it at #NFB12?

How does Fleksy work?

Fleksy is a new keyboarding app for iOS that allows blind or visually impaired users to type on any iPhone or iPod touch. Once the user loads the app, Fleksy loads the speech engine and then brings up a text box and the on scren keyboard. Once loaded, a user can then tap on the screen where they think the character they need would be, and then the the user swipes right to complete the word they just typed. Once the user swipes right the app tries to guess what word they typed and puts it on the screen. swiping down will go to the next suggestion, and swiping left will delete the word. swiping right again will add punctuation.

thoughts

So how well does it work? Fleksy has proven to be a very accurate app. I believe it has up to 90% accuracy The speech is good, and it is very responsive. Several users have said they do not like the price of the app, but for the licensing and technology needed to build this app I can see why this is needed. There are still some things I do not like though. First, I think we should have an iPad version of this. This app will work on the iPad, but the app will still need to be doubled to be used in full screen on the iPad, which lowers accuracy. I urge the makers of Fleksy to please make an iPad app. I would also like to see some saving abilities. Local and iCloud saving would be an excellent thing to add. I would love to see the load times fixed to be a bit quicker, but I do understand why this happens.

Conclusion

Fleksy is a great new app to help the blind and visually impaired type quickly. Even though this is the best audience, I do think that this app could be used in other applications. I think that if the makers wanted a more broad audience, then they would market this app as a fully eyes-free capable app for sighted users who need to keep their eyes on the road or who need to watch where they are going while walking. Even though the app has a lot of new features and is very useful, I think it would be very worth the price if it has some of the features mentioned above. Despite the price, I recommend everyone get this app and support these guys. I also would recomend any iOS developers check out their APIs for their own apps.

Netflix is back for the blind!

Netflix just updated their app yesterday with two neat things. First is pretty obvious. Netflix now works with the retina display on the new iPad, but the second thing is the best for those who are blind. Netflix adds on their change screen for their update that they have added better support for VoiceOver users. I am not sure what that means, but it sounds like they have made netflix work with VoiceOver again on iDevices. I would love to hear readers thoughts on this or if they have seen it work better now.

PocketBraille Lite

Would you like to try out a free version of PocketBraille to see if you like it? PocketBraille Lite will soon be out in the App Store, and this app will let you try out the features of PocketBraille Reference without paying anything extra for it.

PocketBraille Reference 1.2 is now Live!

I am excited to announce that latest update to PocketBraille Reference is now available on the app store. This update contains some minor interface updates and the addition of one letter word contractions. Some of these include the words but, can, do, from, and it. This update is the first of many updates to introduce grade 2 contractions into PocketBraille. I hope everyone can use and learn from this update, and please leave feedback as ratings in the app store.