Helping my mom configure her iPhone and I wanted to see if anyone here has suggestions.
She has extremely low vision + hand tremors and issues with fine motor skills.
Using the phone exclusively through Siri works well for her. Using individual apps through the "swipe + tap" navigation of VoiceOver is too complex, but she needs a few of the "bonus" features of VoiceOver (announcing notifications, extra verbose Siri reponses, double tap to answer / hang up, auto route between speakerphone / ear).
The problem is that she has tremors in her hands and is constantly accidentally activating the swipes + taps of VoiceOver navigation. Adding a large, chunky case and encouraging her to leave the phone on a table while using it does help. But when she picks it up for any reason, the tremor in her hands causes her fingers to tap repeatedly on the screen and speak and activate all sorts of things.
My ideal setup would be a "mobile homepod". Basically using the phone exclusively through Siri, with all the "bonus" functionality of VoiceOver, and a completely disabled screen (display and also taps) while still allowing answer/hangup.
Is there any way to configure iOS to get closer to this ideal state? Thanks, everybody!
Comments
Have you tried voice control?
Have you tried voice control?
switch control or assistive touch could work
You could try switch control or assistive touch. Voice control is another option of course, but keep in mind it might not work that reliably in noisy places.
I have a few clients who…
I have a few clients who struggle with this. I've tried using switch control with them with a small bluetooth numeric keypad as the switch. This works well. Here is some information.
Here is some information on how to create the switch. I followed this when I first started using this method:
http://atmakers.org/2016/10/ios-switch-control-on-a-budget-using-bluetooth-kbd/
The numeric keypad we use is:
https://www.amazon.com/Macally-Wireless-Bluetooth-Rechargeable-Numerical/dp/B07SQDJKTW/ref=asc_df_B07SQDJKTW/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=366315306136&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=2684263006580121232&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9002229&hvtargid=pla-840426299447&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=75347436639&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=366315306136&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=2684263006580121232&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9002229&hvtargid=pla-840426299447
Having her use a numeric keypad as a switch to perform swipes and taps removes the touch screen from the equasion. She can do almost all basic functions, although I haven't found a way to assign a multi-finger gesture to this such as the three finger swipes or the two finger double tap, so to answer and end calls she has to use the keys to swipe to the left or right to the end/answer buttons and use the double tap key. I hope this helps! Let me know if you have other questions.