Ipod Touch vs. Ipad -- Screen Size

By VI Michigander, 25 November, 2012

Forum
Apple Hardware and Compatible Accessories
Hello from a newbie. :) I'm considering getting either an Ipod Touch or Ipad. I was thinking the touch as it's pretty darn portable (hard to get more portable than something you can stick in your pocket). I'd been thinking the Touch because I'd like an Ipod as an mp3 player, but would like the "smartphone"-like capabilities of the Touch, but without the phone and thus without the data plan. I was at Thanksgiving dinner and was mentioning this, and my brother suggested I might prefer the ipad because of the larger screen and ability to enlarge stuff. I looked at his ipad and his stepdaughter's Iphone (which they said the ipod touch is other than not having the phone as part of it). Big difference in screen size. I know that IOS has different accessibility features, such as VoiceOver for reading what's on screen, as well as Zoom (I think is what they call it) for enlarging. Obviously, if I were going to use Zoom, I'd probably want the Ipad as with a bigger screen, more stuff would fit and there wouldn't be as much scrolling as there would be with the touch. If I use VoiceOver and have everything read to me, I'm not sure screen size particularly matters. So I guess I'm looking for opinions from visually impaired users of IOS devices. Does screen size matter when using VoiceOver? If you have vision to read print provided it's large enough, is it better to use Zoom vs. VoiceOver? Thanks. :)

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Comments

By J.P. on Wednesday, November 21, 2012 - 20:15

There are a couple things to consider. If you just want music and books with some web search, go with Touch. If you want games and some business apps, go with ipad. iPad has longer battery with more powerful processor. Not all business apps that are available for iPad are available for Touch. My personal recommendation would be new iPad mini. It is smaller than the large iPad, but slightly larger than Touch. You have access to more apps than touch. It still fits in a pocket. If you only purchase wi-fi only model, you don't pay monthly plan. This also means you can only use when near wi-fi.

By VI Michigander on Wednesday, November 21, 2012 - 20:15

Thanks. :) I can't see myself needing any business apps. Games, maybe, which would likely make Ipad make more sense, since most games I've seen tend to be pretty visual, so the larger screen would make more sense there (I could be wrong, but I doubt VoiceOver would be particularly useful for games that are more graphic based than text based). Though, I do have text based games on my Kindle, so if there are text based games for iDevices as well that would work with VoiceOver the screen size may not matter there. I would want some stuff that I could do when I don't have wi-fi access, which music and books should pretty much cover. Is the new Ipad mini similar in size to the Kindle 3rd gen/keyboard model? I have the aforementioned Kindle, and it kind of depends on what size pocket I'm trying to put it in whether or not it goes in without risk of falling out. Do you know about what the Ipad Mini costs? My understanding is the newest Touch is about $299, and that the Mini is at least a hundred dollars more or so. I will have to consider cost as well.

Last time I checked, I think the iPad Mini was $329 for the 16GB moddle. I don't think the price went up... but if it did and I gave you the wrong information, I'm sorry. There are text-based games that you can play with VoiceOver, as well as card games and audio games, depending on what you prefer. The games section on AppleVis has a lot of them, and most of them are at least somewhat accessible, or they sometimes don't even need VoiceOver to run. I don't have enough vision to read any print, so I wouldn't be able to tell you anything about graphics or text size or anything like that. I do know that last year, it was me that was trying to decide on an iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad. I ultimately went with the iPod Touch, because the Mini wasn't out at that time. My parents wouldn't let me get an iPhone. I used my Touch for a little over a year before finally getting an iPhone. Another thing to consider is processor speed. When I had my Touch, it would sometimes take longer for apps to load (it was a 4G). I've noticed that my iPhone 4S is a lot faster than my Touch was. But, if you have the money, I would suggest getting the iPad mini. I looked at one in Best Buy last week, and it's like seven inches, Vs. the original iPad which is like nine inches. The iPod Touch is 3.5 (unless you get the fifth generation Touch), which I'm pretty sure is four inches. It all depends on what exactly you want to do with it, and if you think you need the larger screen size.