Hello everyone,
Right now I am a happy Android user. However with some of what I listened to during this last event, mainly research kit and some other rumors concerning Diabetes, I am thinking of switching back to an iPhone. I also will have a few questions at the end of this post. I am a diabetic and have been so for nearly 36 years. I actually used an iPhone 3GS for about three years. I switched over to Android because at the time I was getting really fed up with iTunes. I believe my 3GS had IOS version 4 and back then I could not even delete a contact off the phone. My Mom and Dad, who are both sighted, have an iPhone 5S. I figured I would activate Voiceover and give one of them a spin. Despite being off IOS for three years I was able to easily move around and look at the phone. If I get a new iPhone I am going to try for the 6+ because I want the bigger screen and battery. How important is iTunes anymore when using an iPhone? How easy is it to manage contacts in the newest versions of IOS? Finally, how accessible are the Google apps like play books and such on IOS?
Thank you,
Greg Wocher
Comments
Anwering a couple of your questions
Hi Greg. The only thing I can say with certainty is that deleting contact is pretty much the same as it was. find the contact, go in, and at the bottom of the screen click delete. I can't speak much on the access of the aps you mentioned. Also, windows and itunes to my knowledge are a pain in the ubtt still, Mac, however whichI use, it just works. :) Seriously it's pretty simple. Hope someone else can help more then I did. As for the six plus you'll also enjoy being able to use Alex's voice on it, if you find the female voice of the english not to your liking.
Yes, iTunes under windows is
Yes, iTunes under windows is a royal pain from what I've heard. However iTunes on the mac side just works. It's so easy, everything is just there.
I would get the new iPhone 6 plus, due to the larger screen and bigger battery and camera than the 6. Alex also works on the 6 as well.
Hi!
Hi!
The only thing I can think of that you'd need iTunes for is, say, if you don't like to purchase things on the phone itself, and prefer that your content be on the computer itself. iTunes is also how you'd be able to get content you already own onto the iPhone, short of actually purchasing it from the iTunes store on your phone, as I said before. As a recent switcher, I can definitely say that iTunes on the Mac is so much easier to use than iTunes on Windows. It's doable, but if you own a Mac, your experience will just be that much better. Plus, Apple products have a beautiful way of just playing very nicely with one another, so there's that. As for the apps you asked about, I'm not entirely sure, as I don't use them.
My Thoughts
Hello, First, I'd say that iTunes is far less important than it used to be. You no longer need it to activate or update iOS devices, and what apps, books, music, movies, etc you buy will sync through iCloud. You'll need iTunes to transfer and back up non-cloud purchases (specifically audio books and ringtones), or to put music on your phone that is on your computer but was not bought from iTunes. That last one is also doable through iTunes Match, a $25 per year service that removes one reason to use iTunes. Google Music is also an option, providing a very similar service for free. The iOS app for Google Music is quite accessible.
Google's apps have gotten much better recently, as far as their accessibility is concerned. I've not used their app for books, but I can tell you that Kindle is quite accessible, as is Nook (at least it was a couple years ago). If you're in the United States or Canada, you might also want to join Bookshare. It's a site that, for $50 per year (free for students) gives you all the books you want, with hundreds of thousands of titles to pick from. To read these books on iOS, I'd highly recommend Voice Dream Reader, which cost $10 but is worth every penny and more.
Finally, the Contacts app hasn't changed significantly. I'm not sure what problems you had with the 3GS, but as another person said, you simply open the contact, go to the bottom of the screen, and hit the Delete Contact button. Most of iOS is very intuitive and easy to use, but is also very powerful and customizable at the same time. No, it's nowhere near as customizable as Android--for instance, no third-party speech synthesizers or launchers--but it's also much more secure and (IMHO) accessible.
Windows and iTunes using JAWS
If you are a Windows and JAWS user like myself, despite iTunes having an attitude problem, I am quite successful in managing my content on the iPhone. Sure, I have had to essentially learn a new way of doing things a couple of times, when iTunes has been updated, but with patience, I have mastered the beast. So please don't let the attitude problems that the iTunes software has detour you from switching back to the iPhone as it is very much workable. I'd be glad to help you should the need arise.
Hi. I haven't used iTunes for
Hi. I haven't used iTunes for 5 years now because I hated using it and I just use cloud storrage like OneDrive or Dropbox to pull content like books, music and other audio content into the Voicedream app. I am a Android user to and the simplicity of dragging and dropping files on to the device made life alot easier. Google Play Books is accessible on the iPhone along with their music and News offering. I do have the iPhone 6 Plus because I use GPS apps and needed a device with a large battery and I like large screen phones because of Youtube and games.
Contacts on my 3GS
Hello,
At the time I had my 3GS there was no way to delete individual contacts and every time I connected my phone to iTunes on my PC it synced all my outlook contacts with my phone. This made it very difficult to find any of my contacts since outlook had a contact for any email I ever sent a reply to. At the time this was supposed to be fixed in a future update but I got so frustrated with it, among other things, that I switched over to Android. One of the hard things about android is the fact that there is no unified experience across devices. This can make it difficult at times to get help. If you stick with the Samsung devices on the android side your experience is a lot better because they have added a few features similar to ones found on IOS.
Saqib, if you haven't used
Saqib, if you haven't used itunes in 5 years please go back to it. it is a lot more accessible and it should be a better experience. to those saying itunes is a nightmare on windows its not. it is vary accessible. if a bit counter intuitive at times. you can get done what you want to get done. whether you'are using jaws or nvda. i can't speak to window eyes or narrator i've never tried those with itunes.
Outlook and iCloud
The other thing to remember is that iCloud can integrate with Outlook. This means that any changes you make to your contacts in Outlook will be synced to your phone, and any changes you make on your phone will show up in Outlook. This all happens wirelessly, with no need to think about it. I assume that feature of Outlook adding a contact overtime you send an email can be turned off, but I'm not an Outlook user. The same iCloud syncing can happen for calendars and other information, all without the need for iTunes, or wires of any kind.