A low vision user's view of iOS 7

By Unregistered User (not verified), 25 September, 2013

Forum
Low Vision Accessibility on Apple Products
Hi AppleVis, I Upgraded to iOS 7 and really wish I hadn't! Big issues for me are 1. The keyboard has been replaced by a very 'thin' text whereas it was bold previously. 2. Sent text messages are now white text on green or blue whereas it was black text before and much more visible. 3. The calendar, like the keyboard , appear smaller and in a plain text whereas before they were bold numbers. 4. Voice-over sounds like it's coming through cotton wool and muffled. Not like it was with iOS 6. Hope this doesn't sound like a knee-jerk reaction but I think I've done everything to try and get the best out of it. Have gone to settings to set the largest and boldest text but this only works in email and texts. It doesn't improve the text in calendar, the keyboard or alarm settings + possibly other things. Sorry to say that I can hardly recommend an iPhone to someone with some useful sight like I could yesterday! Any pointers to improving the iPhone visibility most welcome. I plan to go into an apple store tomorrow to see if anything can be done about the keyboard especially but also to make the point that I bought this phone because of its access ability features and now they simply don't work for me. Regards, Geoff

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Comments

By Sitkabob on Saturday, October 12, 2013 - 20:07

I too have low vision (AMD - legally blind) and have been wondering if I should make the change to ios 7. After listening to the many Apolevis Podcast, I would like to experience some of the new features. But I will wait awhile and see what the new version looks like on my wife's phone. I appreciate your willingness to put you expeience out there. Would love to hear what other low vision folks are having with ios7.

By Zivan Krisher on Saturday, October 12, 2013 - 20:07

I'm a low vision user, but I primarily use VO, using my vision just to locate the deferent elements on the screen while letting VO fo the reading. The IOS 7 interface is harder to see in many cases. For example if in IOS 6 a Delete button was very visible with a red background, now just the text is red and I can't make it out without launching Zoom. Apart from turning all the visual accessibility options on, bold text high contrast and so on, I've also downloaded very dark wallpapers for my lock and home screens. This helps with situations where IOS 7 just lays wight text on whatever the background is. It also eliminates the motion of the active wallpapers that are set as default. I couple of visual improvements in IOS 7 are the large cursor setting that makes the rectangle around VO's focus more visible when not zoomed in and the new keypad in the phone app. While the lines and numbers are very thin and hard to make out, the individual keys are larger very distinct and well separated. I find it much easier to use visually than the IOS 6 keypad. Another wonderful IOS 7 feature is the ability to turn on inverted colors via Siri. I don't like keeping more than one setting on the triple click home, and that is devoted to VO. Quick access to inverted colors is a boon. as I don't like keeping it on all the time. While IOS 7's black on white design is more suited for inverted colors, the lock and home screens are still white on black and many apps still use white on black in many areas of their interface, forcing you to constantly switch between regular and inverted colors. Shelly Brisbin has written a very good review of IOS 7 for low vision users: http://www.iosaccessbook.com/ For people that can still read text visually on their IOS 6 device, I would recommend seeing IOS 7 on someone else's device before deciding to upgrade. Regards, Zivan