So fellow #blind#Android folks. I'm not as impressed with my Google Pixel Watch as I thought I would be, and am contemplating switching to a Samsung one. How #accessible are they with #Talkback? I have a #Pixel phone, in case that matters. Thanks in advance!
@TRodick93 From my understanding more, the same set of accessibility issues samsung phones and tablets have vs pixel ones, samsung forks and bloat. @evilcookies98 has one I believe and was talking about getting CSR running on it.
@dhamlinmusic@TRodick93 that’s right. Not to mention if you have a smaller arm, the Samsung stuff is going to feel like a brick. I’ve never owned one, but I have seen them.
Ok so so far #talkback 14.2 is fine, nothing really major broken, except they somehow fucked proofreading up so it cannot find spelling/grammar errors in general a bunch of the time. @mastoblind
Re my last boost, looks like HID support for Braille displays via bluetooth is coming in Android 15. This should let devices like the Brailliant BI 20X, 40X, The Mantis, and the Humanware NLS EReaders connect to devices running Android 15 via bluetooth. Fantastic news.
Clarification: These devices can be connected to Android devices via USB cables right now. The new support is for HID over bluetooth, enabling us to use our displays wirelessly.
@ppatel About time. This has taken much longer than it ever should have. Also, I hope to see some fixes to support for the Mantis Q40. The bugs which showed up while using that display with TalkBack were bad enough that I gave up on Android altogether because I literally couldn't get what I needed done on my phone anymore.
@NoahCarver It's still going to take some time. Well I suppose it depends on your phone. If you're running Samsung or another manufacturer's device which takes some time to get Android 15, You may have a year or more before you get access to HID support.
Google seems to be fixing the Send button not appearing for TalkBack users. It seems to be server-side as some TalkBack users do have the Send buttons and some don't.
@accessibleandroid I saw some email threads on the eyes-free group. It's hard not to wonder if that group is the reason we can't have nice things.
Not that anything really excuses Google at this point. But I've said my piece on that.
Hello, fellow #blind people. Somebody asked me about resources for learning how to use #talkback on #android. I am not an android user and I have no idea about any of that. I am looking for guides, tutorials, videos, anything like that. any resources that anybody can offer are appreciated.
@JustGrist Somebody probably already mentioned @accessibleandroid to you, but if not, I recommend it. I've been playing with an Android device lately and have found their website pretty helpful. they also produce a podcast, and I'm pretty sure there's an email list out there too. hope that helps.
@JustGrist@accessibleandroid This might be over your budget, but I got my device from Unihertz, which makes unique and relatively inexpensive smartphones. https://www.unihertz.com/collections/smartphones Otherwise, I'd suggest checking the Blind Bargains classifieds or one of those tech sale/swap email lists. I'm sure plenty of people have devices they'd be happy to re-home.
@jsoref@jsoref_using_a_screen_reader hi, thank you for filling it in, we should check that, we are using a standard widget so hopefully it's not hard to fix!
Hey, I've talked before about the major thing slowing down Android screen readers: double taps! Just to recap: when you tap the screen, the screen reader waits for some time, just to see if you'll tap again to register a double tap. Only after that time does it register a single tap and tell you what's under your finger. This makes tapping slow! And in normal navigation, it's fine. But in typing, it slows us down a lot! Not only because we have to wait for a fraction of a second for it to register a single tap instead of a double tap, but we also can't touch type so fast because then it will start registering double taps!
The fix for that is really easy. Just make screen readers ignore the double-tap logic in the keyboard area when the keyboard is up (if you selected any typing mode other than double-tap typing). Because it doesn't need to handle double taps in that area; you just put your finger, and it instantly registers a single tap and tells you what's under your finger. When you lift, it types. That would be great, and I'm very sure it's easy to implement (Oh, how I wish I knew enough Java and Android API to implement that into TalkBack...)
Because Android itself is not slow at all! In fact, it's instant for all I can notice. And you can test that, even with your screen reader (just so you can notice the reader is artificially slowing itself down).
First, focus on an item. Now, double-tap. But you need to make your second tap pretty late, just before the timer ends but not much before it, nor after it. You will notice the double tap registers right after your second tap, instantly if you get the timing right, and this is frustrating. The screen reader is intentionally slowing itself down, without giving us an option to change the preset timer or implementing the easy fix for the keyboard to make touch typing possible and fast! #Android#AndroidAccessibility#ScreenReader#UserExperience#AccessibilityIssues#Accessibility#Talkback
@meatbag and your talkback settings, under advanced, then developer settings, there’s an option that says handle gestures in talkback or something similar. You’ll want to kill that if you want it to be more responsive.
@evilcookies98@meatbag Never thought of trying with that off, but yep definitely faster, also keep anything related to refresh rate on because that impacts how fast touch is registered. If you can handle the battery hit, which is minimal if you use curtain like I do forcing peak refresh in dev options really makes a difference.
You can now have images described, check spelling in Braille, have Braille automatically scroll at a set interval, and ... that's about all I got before Windows Subsystem for Android broke.
Spell check with Braille keyboards comes with its own tutorial. Image descriptions aren't out for me yet, can't download. But I did sideload this APK, so I'm not surprised. Autoscroll, to start it,press Space with dots 1-2-4-5-6, like on old Braille Note devices. Yes, Google actually binds its new stuff to commands, and tells you about them. What a novel UX paradyme. Or however you spell that. To slow down the autoscroll, press dot 4 while autoscroll is on. To speed it up, press dot 1 while auto-scroll is on. I don't even know how I'd connect a display so I can't use the spell checking tutorial.
Spell check
When you're typing or editing text, use 3 fingers to swipe left or right until you hear "spell check"
Move to previous misspelled word: Swipe up
Move to next misspelled word: Swipe down
Hear previous spelling suggestion: Swipe left
Hear next spelling suggestion: Swipe right
Confirm spelling suggestion: Swipe right with 2 fingers
Undo spelling suggestion: Swipe left with 2 fingers
@accessibleandroid This is excellent, I can add some specifics for you with regards to the gap in updates, as of the release of android 14 the samsung version was ~15 months behind the google one as they were still running off TB13.0 released in summer 2022. Meanwhile my child's Lenovo Tab M7 running android 11 Go was up to date the entire time running the same versions as my Pixel 7.