Hi all
I have been using iphones since they first came out but since IOS7 I have really struggled to see many of my day to day apps such as facebook or youtube. i have my text size set to as large as it will go but this only enlarges apple apps like mail and text messaging. I have got partial sight so I don't like using voiceover and i find the "zoom" feature (3 finger tap) to be difficult and annoying to navigate. I have taken to using an android phone because when you select extra large on the phone it makes EVERYTHING on the phone extra large, and i mean everything. Is there no way to do this on the phone?
Has anyone else had issues using the zoom feature? I love using it on my mac but i think i have a problem with using it on the iphone because its such a small screen real estate to work with. And every time i do the three finger tap to activate it i end up hitting links and going places I dont want to go.
I do love my iphone but I feel like I can't use it.
Comments
Maybe call Apple accessibility
Hey,
Unfortunately, I don't personally use Zoom. however, if nobody else can provide usuable info, maybe you can directly call Apple accessibility and they could possibly help. the number is 1877-2043930.
I know that it can be frustrating when you want to use something like everyone else and there seems to be no solution. But try to keep an open mind. If there is no accessibility like what you are looking for, perhaps reaching out to Apple Accessibility and talking with them can help you attain more information and even encourage them to work on features that may not be currently available.
I can sympathize with you
I have partial vision myself, and for the longest time, I preferred to avoid using screen readers because I liked to do things with my eyes, even if it meant magnifying the screen several times in order to read it. I will admit that, being exposed to a screen reader in the 1990s that, to me, sounded horrible and was difficult to use, I was reluctant to even try out using VoiceOver on my Mac. I never even considered getting a mobile device, of any kind, out of fear that I wouldn't be able to use the screen, and I didn't want to have the device talk to me. Yes, I went most of my life without a cell phone, or tablet, or anything like that.
Several months ago, I finally broke down and checked out VoiceOver on the Mac for the first time. It was nothing like my bad experience with a screen reader 20 years ago, and to this day I am thankful I finally made the decision to let my computer talk to me. I don't use VoiceOver all the time, and I generally have it turned off until I find something I want to use it with, but I am using it more often than I ever expected to.
With my screen reader phobia finally conquered, I actually got myself an iPad back in December. This is the first device of this class I ever got, and I am loving it. Though I can use the zoom feature, I much prefer using VoiceOver for pretty much everything, as it is much more efficient for me. I still don't have a cell phone, mainly because I have no current need for one, but I no longer have any reservations about getting one in the future.
Long story short, even if you have some vision, and I suspect your vision is better than mine, I would still suggest you at least try out VoiceOver, if you still have access to an iOS device. You don't have to like it, but you should at least give it a chance. You might find that it works well enough for you to use the device comfortably. You can set up VoiceOver so that you can turn it on or off at any time by triple-clicking the Home button, so you can leave it off until you need to read something that's too small, at which point you can turn it on, have the phone tell you what you're looking at, then turn it off again.
As for enlarging the text on the screen, you are right that increasing the font size only affects the text in certain apps. Specifically, an app needs to support what I think is called dynamic typing, or something like that, and many apps do not, even though Apple encourages developers to make use of it. I have gotten the impression over the years that developers don't like to be told what to do, and will do things the way they want to do them, even if it means making life difficult for those of us that rely on the device's accessibility features.