Braille display differences between iOS and iPadOS

By Holy Diver, 9 March, 2022

Forum
Braille on Apple Products

I’ve been looking for a device to sort of fill the niche which used to be handled by my old braille notetakers. I thought maybe an iPhone could do the trick but I’m still finding a few persistent braille bugs in iOS, particularly with eratic cursor movement when I’m working with more than a paragraph or so of text. Is the experience of using a braille display with an iPad any better or would it be the same?

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Comments

By Maldalain on Monday, March 28, 2022 - 08:29

I use braille displays on both my iPad and iPhone and I am not aware of any differences
even the bugs are the same

By Holy Diver on Monday, March 28, 2022 - 08:29

That's unfortunate but understandable. Thank you.

By Scott Davert on Monday, March 28, 2022 - 08:29

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

Hi.
In some ways, there are added steps. This is because the lay-out for Settings and Mail, for example, are set up as columns. SO, for example, if you want to use the Mail app on iPad effectively, the quickest way I've found to do this is to use the containers option within VoiceOver to jump between the Messages List and the selected message. There don't appear to be any advantages that I can find, and the bugs from iOS are all there. Erratic cursor, panning issues etc all happen iPad OS as well. Sorry to bring the bad news!

By Holy Diver on Monday, March 28, 2022 - 08:29

As much as I hated the old hardware that thing filled a niche I’m really missing right now. It seems like iOS is great for consuming braille content and android … well, yeah.

By the grumpy apple on Monday, March 28, 2022 - 08:29

I used to love using a braille display with my ipad until about IOS 13. Braille support has gone down hill. I am involved with assistive tech at a school and I will never recommend braille displays with ipads to the blind student I work with. The experience is so frustrating and unreliable. There is no hope of apple’s braille support getting better from now on. I’ve completely given up on using my display with my IOS device and I’d encourage others to do the same. I wish I would have invested in a note taker instead.

By Holy Diver on Monday, March 28, 2022 - 08:29

I personally found my Touch Plus to be more trouble than it was worth and, while I miss some features especially from the older notetakers I have no doubt that I’m well rid of that thing. I don’t need another tablet phone type device that's half as fast as the tablet phone thing I’m writing this message on and cost 6 times as much. I think what you’ll find if you try and use a notetaker outside of a carefully controlled classroom is that the real efficiency boost you get from first letter navigation in menus doesn’t quite make up for the efficiency loss you deal with from running old hardware that often can't keep up with some of the very programs it's advertised to support. And good luck connecting a Touch Plus to a corporate network with even a halfway built security policy, no play store security updates for years is a huge problem in an android device so most workplaces probably won’t let you connect to the internet on their networks. Maybe you just use the word processor but in that case why not save 2 thirds of the cash and get basically the same functionality in a braille display? That's just my take.

By the grumpy apple on Monday, March 28, 2022 - 08:29

I see where you're coming from. Today's note takers run on 10-year-old hardware. However, if you if you rely on braille for productivity, a note taker I think will better fit the bill. Sadly, we will never have the best of both worlds. WE will have to decide between moddern hardware and software or productivity and efficiency of braille. It depends which is most important to you. A note taker will be best for my student who is in a classroom setting. Giving him an ipad with a braille display will be a complete disservice. I myself utilize both a note taker and an ipad. I use the ipad for work and online stuff, while I use a note taker for heavy writing. If apple would step up to the plate and overhall braille support, that will be a good middle ground. I know they won’t, so what’s the point in hoping anymore. Time to climb off the soapbox.