Talk to me honestly about what I'll be losing and what I'll be gaining from an accessibility standpoint with an android phone?

Hey, can one of y'all who are still on the telegram for blind android users possibly hook me up with some resources available on there? I don't really use telegram, don't really want to download it just to get at a few things there on that chat, but could use them nonetheless. Please contact me off list and I'll let you know what I'm needing. Have my eye on a tablet I plan on picking up soon.
Also, any info about the current state of some apps like facebook and youtube would be much appreciated. Last I remember, neither of these had TB actions.

I'm starting to notice a trend here, where a lot of us iPhone users, are leaning towards Android for our tablet needs. 🤔
I'll be just as guilty, once I get my Moto G stylus. 😇

For all the ways to keep up with Blind Android Users (including Telegram, email list, and FB Group), visit

https://www.blindandroidusers.com/

You can still get Eloquence for Android, though since its now in a "gray" area on the Android side of things (and no longer is being sold for that matter), best to web search for the APK on your own.

Using the Klatt voices from ESpeak Next Generation, is the closest to that Eloquence sound:

https://github.com/espeak-ng/espeak-ng

Don't get said voices from the Play Store, they are "Out Of Date!"

Ah, Can't forget:

https://rhvoice.com/google

, though thre's more than 11 voices now...

I really want to have the proper easpeak ng in apple ecosystem, the one we have is quite useless and very very out of date. Even linux has better choices.

Do folks prefer E speak over eloquence for iOS, if so why? Also, is there anything necessarily wrong with eloquence on iOS?
Seriously asking here.

So um...

If you go for an Alpha line version of their tablets, stay "far far away!"

They are definitely nice for what they are...

But if you're expecting "their" latest version of Talkback (which is not even Talkback 15.0 mind ya...)

Android Fifteen (OneUI 7)
March 1st 2025 security patch
April 1st 2025 Play System Update
Talkback ...... 13.5

Yeah, wish I was joking there...

Can't say with their Alpha line of phones, but I have a feeling they would be similar in scope.

I mean hey, I wouldn't be surprised if their A10 tablet line came with Talkback 14.1. (Will definitely be sideloading Google's talkback on my A9+ Tablet for the time being.)

Yeah, definitely switching to the pixel family once I get the chance to, and replacing everything Samsung. Truely not pleased!

The more I read posts like the one above, the more I see why people are really starting to dislike Samsung.

Forgot to mention I updated my A9+ tablet like, 90 minutes ago! (At around 1:20 AM Mountain Daylight Time.)

At least my S23+ is on the May 1st security patch...

This is a TTS I wish I could appreciate, but I just can't. To me, it's nothing like Eloquence, I've always struggled to understand it no matter the speaking rate. I think it's just the quality.

Oh my! I can definitely see why folks are not liking samsung for tabs and phones. I will say though, the Watch 5 pro I had for a bit was pretty nice. I actually liked it better than the apple watch, with that round design, so looks more like a regular watch. And the Galaxy Buds II Pro were clutch! I actually like the design of those better than airpods. But I got rid of the watch and buds when I jumped back in to the walled garden.
I find myself in a bit of an odd spot right now. I have my iPhone, Apple Watch, and a few Apple TVS, which all work well, but then I've moved away from the mac, am using a cheap windows laptop that doesn't have much in the way of specs, but with all the debloating I've done, I have it handling like a lite weight linux distro instead of normal bloated Windows. About to grab up an Android tablet.
The combo of Windows and Android works quite well together. The phone link app seems to have gotten a ton better as of late, even with iPhone, but on Android, I remember the phone link app being even more flushed out, and also I remember really really liking Google's web messaging, and had that set up as an app via Edge. Every bit as good as iMessage on the Mac.
On one hand, I kinda like the idea of not jumping back and forth between multiple platforms, which makes an Android phone appealing too. When I have tried using both iOS and Android, I always forget which platform I'm on and end up performing voiceover gestures on Talkback, or the other way around. With recent advances in talkback, and a pretty dramatic change in how I do things, I think my experience on an android phone would actually be a lot better now. I'm not having to switch languages near as much as I did before, which was a major annoyance with the TB Braille keyboard. But on the other hand, I'm not done paying off my iPhone, won't be for a while, and am in just deep enough with homekit automation that switching over to something like Alexa would not be a quick or comfortable switch.

As someone with no experience of android, I've followed this discussion with interest and would be keen to hear comments on whether the Google Pixel 9a would or would not be a good choice for learning about android and TalkBack. Note that my iPhone would still be my primary device and the Pixel would essentially be something to play with for now.

, especially if you wish to not break the bank

And since Android 16 will be getting Samsung Dex features built-in to the OS later on as a Pixel Feature Drop, plus customizable hardware keyboard shortcus throughout the system (talking non-Talkback ones), you should feel right a home.

The only reason you may wish to wait for the Pixel 10 lineup, is if you would prefer to use TSMC chips and not Samsung ones.

A friend of mine just got a pixel 9a, and honestly I heard it on a phone call and the latency is really not that bad. I think it's just on my old s20 ultra even with google tts it's horrible, he's using nuance voices and it seems very very fluid honestly. Pixel launcher.

I'm thinking about taking a trip to my Cellular provider, and seeing if I can't play around with a display model for some of these newer Androids, just to get a feel for them. 😇

So samsungs are not all bad, I switched away but I did lose some good hardware. My couple year old Pixel isn't bad hardware per se, it just overheats too fast and cell service is not up to par with the latest from the competition. Yeah, some of these issues are better with newer Pixels, yeah most people may not care or notice ... or at least might not notice what they're noticing. Still if you're primarily a hardware person Samsung, even oneplus or Moto will be better. I suspect that will still be true with the upcoming pixel 10 line although the gap might narrow. It's not a dealbreaker for me, I prefer the newest talkback working natively without hacky workarounds (which I know aren't that hard, the blind android users folks made it pretty easy) but still, just more janky stuff on an already kinda janky OS. That may be the biggest drawback to android, everything works, you can set it up to your liking kind of but it's not going to be as seemless as iOS. Things will break a little more ... not talking about screen reader bugs, just random little things here and there. Youtube just made it harder to reply to comments accessibly in their youtube app for example, it keeps getting fixed and broken and fixed again. You have that extra little thing to deal with. For some reason the checkout screen for a few restaurants on uber eats is totally broken with talkback... maybe google did that, maybe uber, maybe the restaurants I don't know. Of course that sort of thing happens on iOS but I've seen it more on android lately.

The more I read about the issues with talkback and android, glad I use iPhone. There are many android phones that when I listened to Flossy Carter, makes me want one but the issues with talkback gives me a head ache.

That is because there are too many choices and when you are coming from Apple's ecosystem, choices are hard.
Just ask anyone who switched from macOS to Windows for the first time. Deciding on which version of Windows, which version of whatever computer brand you want; i.e. Samsung, Acer, HP, Lenovo, Asus, and so on.

It is the same if you are considering, even for a moment, switching from iOS to Android; again choices are hard.

I think those of us who are considering the switch, even if it is just regarding a tablet/media consumption device, are just frustrated with Apple to the point of temporary insanity.

Or temporary sanity?

You can decide ... 😇

Holger,
I don't want to pick on you too hard but this is a fundamental misunderstanding of android. There are indeed issues, there are issues with any OS and I'm glad you like what you like. Thing is most android issues, even most accessibility issues can't really be blamed on talkback. Talkback itself isn't usually the problem, rather android has a ton of moving parts that don't always play nice with each other. You've got sysstem web views, device policies, all sorts of frameworks built into the OS ... HIiD braille displays are a great example. It's convenient to blame the talkback people for that but guess what, android is built on top of linux and those same problems exist for anyone using linux and braille ... check out their mailing lists, you'll hear it better than I could say. I think with apple products there are less separate pieces, like the parts exist but iOS just handles them with updates every year or six months for minor fixes. On android you've got so many separate pieces that get updated separately and, yeah, a rogue update to the webview or private compute services or whatever can accientally break accessibility somewhere. Apple bundles it all together into one convenient package that gets updated less regularly and, sure, there are advantages. I'm not even saying move to android or it's so much better or anything like that, it's just a lot harder to know who to blame when something breaks over here.

, is at least you can use the Be My Eyes app to connect with Google directly, and get one-on-one support with the team. NB. Link above takes ya to Be My Eyes on the "Play Store", as it should. :-)

One of the two guys at double tap made it very clear how separate update policies can be an advantage for us, as on his pixel 5 running android 14 he can have the latest accessibility features with talkback 16 as long as it keeps working.
Linux and accessibility.......... it can work, let's just put it that way :) but you have to be diligent, it's accessibility battle on top of the usual linux stuff battle IMO.

Another thing with Android, your hardware specs can either make or break the experience. Junky E-waste hardware will perform about as well as you'd expect, yet people often blame Talkback and say it's terrible, bad, etc. But honestly, with good hardware, it's actually quite nice. Try throwing Windows on to the minimum supported processor and 4 gb of ram, and tell me how well NVDA does once you've opened litterally anything else. Yet we seem to get this with desktop operating systems, but with our phones, not so much.
I've been on both sides of the android hardware spectrum.
Now, there are or at least were some things about talkback that drove me nuts before, as I've already discussed, such as having to switch languages in the Braille keyboard via menu instead of quick gesture. When you do it 30 times a day, yeah, gets kinda old. But now that I don't have to do that nearly as much, not such a problem. Has there been better implementation of talkback actions across apps? No idea, but will find out soon enough. At heart I'm a tinkerer even if my primary devices are still in the walled garden. Excited to see how this goes. Went for a Chuwi AuPad, which has a Snapdragon 685 and 8 gb ram. Not the best chip, but not half bad from what I've been able to find out from reviews.

I was gonna make an entire separate thread on the matter...
But since this particular thread (you're reading now) has rounded up the pros and cons of Android accessibility so well with specific devices & price points (and it wouldn't be fair to make an entire thread just to bash a beta like that), I'll just put the article here so ya can read it for yourself:

https://accessibleandroid.com/one-ui-8-0-beta-1-on-galaxy-s25-devices-an-early-look-at-accessibility-and-samsung-talkback-16/

What's my take?

Glad I'll be switching to a pixel for my next phone!

Samsung's omitting Gemini integration, either because they don't want completely step ontop of Google's own Talkback & they're designing their own stuf, or they are wanting you to use Bixby Vision to have the screen be read?

For those who have an S25 series phone, definitely share your thoughts in the Samsung Members app.

I've never understood the appeal for a Samsung smart phone. Ever since I learned about the split, between Google and Samsung, I just never felt the appeal to own one.
Yet, I know quite a few who owned Samsung devices. Not a single one of them need TalkBack, as their eyesight works perfectly well.
So there is that…

I think I will stick with my plan of getting myself a Moto G stylus, probably will just go with the 2024, as I can get it for pretty cheap, play around with it for a year or so, then get the next Pixel Pro that comes out at that time. I was so very impressed with the Pixel 8 Pro that I would even be willing to go with one of those, when it comes time to do that.

Honor 400 - The Midrange Beast
Flossy Carter