Tuesday, November 15, 2005

iPods for visually impaired users

Helpful for audio book use by the visually or motor impaired:
MacInTouch: timely news and tips about the Apple Macintosh

We also received suggestions about making iPods friendlier for elderly users:

[Dan Frakes] Laurence Mettam was looking for a 'large size external remote-control for an iPod.' Of the remote controls currently on the market, the one with the largest buttons is Kensington's Stereo Dock, which also includes an AC-powered dock base for connecting your iPod to your home stereo. Although the remote is basic -- just play/pause, forward/back, and volume up/down buttons -- the buttons are fairly large, backlit, and easy to use. You can see a picture of the remote here.

[Joe Savelberg] Laurence Mettam asked about a remote control for the iPod. Griffin Technologies produces the AirClick, which is a remote control with large buttons. Hope this helps.

[MacInTouch Reader] Regarding the enquiry about remote controls for iPods, another alternative would be to buy the new Apple Universal Dock and Apple Remote, along with any suitably-sized universal learning remote control (for example, Sony [URL below] sells a few with fairly large buttons). Then duplicate the controls from the Apple Remote to the universal remote. I haven't tried this, but in theory it should work. For thorough reviews of universal remotes, Remote Central is a great place to go.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I wish I had found you when I was desperately trying to hack an iPod for my 95-year old sight-impaired Grandma so that I could get podcasts, music and other diversions to her in her last days.

I shouted out for ideas, too, even going as far as writing to Apple asking them whether they had suggestions for the sight impaired.

Ultimately I ended up adding voice tags to each audio file so that she could use the click wheel to navigate one by one, listening for voice tags to decide what to listen to. That idea came from one of Adam Curry's Daily source code podasts. Somewhat kludgy, but nevertheless effective.

Sadly, it was about 10 days after I came up with that workaround that she passed away, but at least she had something to occupy her amazing and formidable mind in those last days.