Coke vs pepsi, chocolate vs vanilla, iOS vs android. We all know the debates and, for the most part, we’ve all picked a side. That doesn’t mean we’re all mindless droids or zombie fruit fiends, however, so I wanted to share my favorite things about the other side along with my reasons for giving them up. I’ve switched back and forth a couple times now and, while I’m not ruling out another flip at some point, I find myself much more on team android for now. Still, I have fond memories, many frustrations, and maybe I can shed some light for anyone who is just curious or considering your options. We all have choices and there isn’t one right answer for everyone. So, in the interest of playing fair, here’s what I regret most about mine and why I’m glad I made it anyhow.
I Miss iMessages
You know those massive group texts where you can all see each others’ reactions, can send voice messages that sound great and show off your great photos and videos to all the people with a single tap? Do you have that one family member or friend who’s always making your text conversations blow up with a notification for every single emoji reaction because they’re using regular text? It’s annoying. Even with google’s recent updates to make it slightly less awkward. There are workarounds, I can use Samsung quick share or google photos to share things, but that’s so much more cumbersome and time consuming for me and my friends. It doesn’t get any better with face time, though at least I can get invited to a call and use a web browser now. Apple built a sleek, easy solution here and it’s beautiful. I’m reminded how nice it is every time I’m stuck using one of google’s few stock message reactions … not a big deal each time but believe me it adds up to some frustration when it happens multiple times a week. Thanks apple. Oh, and if you’re switching from iPhone to android, please for the love of everything holy turn off iMessages in your apple account before you give up that shiny fruit phone! Just do it, you’ll thank me later.
Messages for Web
Call me old school but there’s nothing quite so satisfying, , or efficient, as a good old Qwerty keyboard for texting. Braille screen input is a good enough workaround on the go but, for typing fast and accurately, nothing beats the tried and true keyboard. If you’re an iPhone user with a windows computer this isn’t an option, unless you want to carry yet another device around and deal with a sometimes janky Bluetooth connection. Those of you with MACS often tell me how nice it is to get a text on your phone and reply on your MacBook. With google’s Messages for Web I have that same luxury, on all my devices, all it takes is scanning a QR code on my phone camera and I’m good to go. If I’m out and about with my chromebook I can use that. If I’m working on my windows machine and want to respond to someone without interrupting my routine to grab my phone it’s just an open tab away, no pocket rummaging or phone unlocking necessary. This may not matter to everybody but it sure makes my life easier.
iOS has better Braille support, especially for reading
I swear by Braille, the difference between listening to a thing and reading it is, for me, life changing. It’s no secret Apple got to Braille first, more Braille displays work over Bluetooth with iOS and for the most part the experience is better. Android Braille has come a long way, it mostly does what I need it to (more on that in a minute) but so far IOS Braille support is much more powerful and, ironically, customizable.
On iOS I can use the voiceover gesture commander to create pretty much whatever Braille commands I want. I can jump to the next level 4 heading on a web site with a custom shortcut, make a keystroke to navigate by row or column in a table etc. I also know right away when there’s a swipe down action, which again I can easily emulate from the display, without having to guess if that’s available for whatever item has focus on the screen. It’s powerful, easily configurable and I really do miss that.
IOS also, as of now, wipes the floor with android in terms of reading Braille books on your phone. Do you live in the states and use the Bard Mobile app? How about iBooks? They work, it’s relatively straightforward, you just might need to switch your Braille table to Computer Braille depending on the app you’re using to read … Looking at you, Bard Mobile. On my android phone all the braille books in that Bard app might as well be Greek or Javascript, though I’ve heard that’s likely changing soon. Perhaps more frustrating google play books and books from the Kindle store either won’t read at all or else the focus moves around so much they might as well be unreadable. Luckily my qBraille can store and read bookshare and Bard offerings without my phone or else I’d really be up the proverbial creek.
Android Braille is much better for writing
Yes, android Braille actually gets a win and not a small one. Anybody who’s used Braille on iOS for serious writing work doubtless knows just how frustrating it is to have the cursor move to a totally different place in the document, sometimes without even showing you this on the display. It’s a serious glitch in otherwise solid iPhone Braille support and, given that it’s been a problem for years without any resolution, I’m betting it always will be. So, with all its limitations, I actually prefer Braille on android just because I can write with the peace of mind that my cursor will stay put. I can actually draft papers, longer e-mails and the like without having to use the terminal clipboard or a purpose built app like Voice Dream writer. For me that makes the reading difficulties worth it, though it wouldn’t if my display had no on board storage.
Blindness specific apps are better on the iPhone
It’s no secret that most developers in our small community focus more on iOS and only get around to android as an afterthought, if they get around to it at all. Financially this makes sense, especially in America. There are very few blind people actually paying for these specialized apps and almost all of those people have been on the Apple side of the fence for years. I love NFB newsline and it has a great iOS app, no such luck on android. I really want to try the BE My Eyes virtual volunteer but the waiting list didn’t even open up on android for almost a month after iPhone users got the chance to register. The oko app for detecting when street lights change is not on the play store, promises notwithstanding, and I’m doubtful it ever will be. Goodmaps on android is at best a mess, at worst totally unusable unless you like your GPS giving you wildly inaccurate information about things several blocks away from where you actually are. If you like Blindsquare or Seeing AI, they aren’t even on android. While I find Google Lookout generally works as well or better than Seeing AI I do miss some of the extra features, like the indoor navigation with breadcrumbs. IN short, android users are second class citizens in the blindness app world and that’s not changing any time soon.
Most apps on android are more accessible by default
Do you like turning on and off screen detection in the telegram app? How about the voiceover bugs with facebook that inevitably crop up with major app updates? Did your Uber app ever break after getting auto updated from the app store? For reasons too technical to go much into here, mostly talkback requiring less optimizations than voiceover on the app developer side, I rarely have this problem. It’s true I don’t have screen detection but I also rarely need it… and, for the odd app where that would come in handy I can at least get sighted help to label the inaccessible icons and I never have to worry about that app again. In my three years on android I don’t think I’ve ever had an update from the play store break accessibility in any app and I can’t say the same about iOS. Maybe that tradeoff isn’t worth it for you but I definitely chose the less frustrating pain for myself.
Voiceover works better for flicking through the screen
Believe it or not, voiceover doesn’t usually show you exactly what’s on the screen. In the youtube app, for example, the options by every video to go to channel and open the menu to share, save to playlist etc are only accessible with a one finger swipe down. For sighted iPhone users all of those options are on the screen but apple decided to minimize the number of swipes required with voiceover. While this can make it more efficient if you only swipe through your screen it also makes life a little harder for app developers and, more to the point, doesn’t actually show you how everything’s laid out. This is good and bad depending on your philosophy and use case but my experience providing tech support for sighted and blind users alike really made me appreciate google’s approach here. I can walk my sighted girlfriend through an app we both use with confidence that we’re actually looking at the same thing in the same way and, when I google a tutorial for an app, I can just follow it without any modifications. Still, I do sometimes miss Apple’s more streamlined approach. I don’t think there’s only one right strategy for everyone here, pick what matters more to you.
The good side of apple optimization
Lastly, Apple makes it easier to just buy a phone and be confident accessibility will just work the way it’s supposed to. All new I devices run the same software, go through the same testing process, and voiceover is basically the same whichever flavor of fruit you end up buying. You can get your phone and be pretty confident it will mostly work like every other iPhone you’ve ever used. While android has made progress here the fragmentation between manufacturers means you really have to do more research to find your ideal fit. Get a google phone and you run the best version of talkback, with worse hardware. Get a Samsung phone and your talkback will always be about a year out of date unless you know how to get google’s version on your phone with the ADB terminal. Get a Xiaomi or Oneplus and there’s really no telling how accessibility works before you actually use the darn thing. It’s more of an open market and with that comes fragmentation and less controlled accessibility. You’ll never have that problem with Apple.
The good side of fragmentation
Do you miss a headphone jack on your phone? Do you want the chance to run multiple screen readers for redundancy, like you can on Windows? Do you want to use TTS from anywhere other than Apple? With android you have all those options precisely because things aren’t optimized like Apple. On my phone I have two versions of talkback, one with the latest features and one that’s designed for Samsung’s software, and I can switch between them in less time than it takes to turn off Jaws and activate NVDA. If you’re comfortable with less secure software you can use Commentary screen reader, which gives many more features and customization than talkback, then switch back to talkback with a simple volume key shortcut. More choices, more risk, more potential to break things or make them better for you. The choice, as always, is yours.
Comments
Yeah, wish I'd looked in to that
The Chuwi tablet has great build quality. Feels so much like an iPad pro it's not even funny. But, while it does handle multiple finger gestures, apparently not enough for the Braille keyboard. Rather annoying! But, it's mostly a media consumption device to not drain my phone battery so fast. Can I just watch stuff on my fire stick? Why yes, but sometimes it's nice to have something else laying around. But typing on the thing was a pain getting it all set up. It was under $100 so I guess you really do get what you pay for. It seems snappy and responsive enough, but knowing now that the Braille keyboard wasn't going to work, I may not have gone through with it. But I will still keep around. Still works good enough for youtube and mindless scrolling on facebook. lol
Ah well
Live and learn right? I have two very cheap android tablets that the Biden administration handed out with their affordable connectivity thing, one of which a friend wanted me to train them on as like an entry into android and they don't have any multifinger gesture support, none whatsoever. Well, I take that back the slightly newer one maybe did but still, I've no idea what I'll do with them now. How are you finding the s22 ultra, and android in general, so far?
Give them to a charity shop.
Or sell them but you're probably better off just given them to a charity shop.
Regular Keyboard
How do these low-end, Android devices do with regular bluetooth keyboards? Might be a way to use them. I have an old, Amazon Fire tablet just for watching Prime videos and reading a few books, but that has their own spin on the screen reader. If the keyboard commands aren't too whacked out and cumbersome, I could see turning a cheap Android into a single use device.
Keyboard commands
There are talkback keyboard commands, to view them go to talkback settings then advanst settings then the option is there
I don’t know why google put them there but it’s where they are
Thanks
I will make note of that.
Looks like there are ways to set up Android to be locked to one app, assuming any of those ways are accessible.
What I had in mind is there was a discussion here of stand-alone talking tech. I have a few off-the-shelf, bluetooth devices, and even a couple of blind tech apps, that could be set up as stand-alone devices, if the tablet end of things is cheap enough. Having almost everything accessibility related dependent and entangled with a fragile and expensive iPhone bothers me in the back of my mind. If you can pair a cheap, bluetooth keyboard--heck, use a wired keyboard--to a cheap tablet and get around limitations from not having multi-finger gestures, you could set up something like a calculator to receive and speak caliper readings, and not worry about it getting scratched up out in the concrete wilderness. I use Linux, so not having a touch screen is fine, if the key commands are good.
I hadn't thought of that
That's really creative Old Bear, no reason it shouldn't work in theory. I wonder if these methods you're talking about require root access?
Oops
**I guess I didn't read down in the article enough. LOL Yes it does and I don't think that would be accessible. You could, however just have the app you want as the only app showing to be tapped on to achieve the same thing, like what ever you call the home screen in Android.
Never mind:
It sounds like it's part of the Android settings. Here's the article I read:
https://www.42gears.com/blog/single-application-mode/
I also saw something about an app that will do it, but I didn't look into it.
Pin app
Samsung calls this pin app, to turn it on go to settings and sertch for pin app and turn it on, after doing this go to recent apps, tap the icon above the app and tap pin app, a message will come up explaining how to get out of the app, tap ok and your done
That's what I saw
Thanks. I was probably thinking of that from the Google search I was looking through, and got it mixed up.
Would you need any multi-finger gestures to start up the screen reader and connect a keyboard?
You shouldn't
All of the old angle gestures still exist so yeah it should work. This is really cool, I've skimmed past it in my settings and never given it much thought.
Galaxy s22 ultra
The Galaxy has been amazing. I'm quite happy with it. Also the tablet is working okay so far. Quite happy to have made the switch.
Hid braille support is finally hear
Hid braille display support is finally hear in android 15 beta 1
Hopefully it will be included in talkback 15 when that is released
Re: Hid
Yeah I’ve heard it was in the works, I’m cautiously optimistic but I think a lot will come down to the individual braille display companies, humanware in particular. Probably the displays will have to be updated too.
Yeah
Yeah probly but we will see
Would be stupid of them not to at this point though
Imagine all the bad PR if google rolls this out and people start calling Humanware because their displays won’t work still. I don’t think even Jonathan Mosen could spin that one to Humanware’s advantage.
Oh yeah
That would not be good
This might be the wrong place
I’m going to be using android for the first time pretty soon just wondered would I need cited assistance to initially set it up or like Apple has the three taps on the wake button? Does android have a similar thing? Many thanks.
As I understand it
You can enable TalkBack during setup by either holding down both volume keys together, or by holding 2 fingers on the screen, until TalkBack starts talking. This is likely device dependent of course.
HTH.
independence
you can set up android independently. Hold volume up and volume down for a few seconds, after waiting a good 30 seconds after turning on the phone, you'll feel a vibration when the phone starts booting up, and TalkBack will tell you to press and hold again or something like that and you'll be good.
Yes, it is just as easy to…
Yes, it is just as easy to set up independently. Talkback has also come quite far, and is really pretty good. I lasted several months on Android, but ended up going back to iOS for certain apps that worked better for me, and a few Voiceover specific things, like the ability to switch Braille keyboard language with just a gesture instead of having to do it in a menu. But, if I had to, I could absolutely use an Android and be mostly productive. At this point, I don't think it is fair to say one is better than the other. It's just a matter of preference, and whether or not you like the Android or iPhone way of doing things.
Is it true that even now…
Is it true that even now with the ios 18 voiceover tutorial it wouldn't launch automatically during setup like macos does?
I didn't experience that…
I didn't experience that when I got my iPhone 16 a few months back. Was able to set up just fine.
Like I mean the tutorial won…
Like I mean the tutorial won't auto launch during setup like on macos and android?
I remain unimpressed by pixel 9 pro and android
I’m glad you’re happy with android, I’m not.
I have both the iPhone 16 Pro and the Google pixel 9 Pro so I have experience with both flagship phones and the latest operating systems.
Yes, iOS has a few bugs here and there, the stop speaking one is annoying but you can just turn off VoiceOver and turn it back on With double tap or with action button and everything runs smoothly again.
With android is different, the phone feels really sluggish, even my iPhone XR runs better than the pixel.
I am happy that I can set up the pixel by myself and that most things work as intended, but when it comes to accessibility for the blind it leaves a lot to be desired, especially apps. This is just my personal opinion after two weeks with the pixel, maybe things will change in the future, but for now since both phones usually cost about the same I highly recommend the iPhone.
I mentioned in a previous post that I have purchased the pixel because I need to learn talk back as I teach other students how to use screen readers, so I use VoiceOver since the beginning and I am certified both jaws and NVDA. I like the pixel as a device, it feels great, but it runs really slow. Another thing that bothers me is the fact that it does not support Dolby Atmos, today when I wanted to download an audiobook from audible it says the device is not compatible which shouldn’t be the case for a 2024 phone.
Not enough time for a fair comparison
You've been an iOS user for how many years and expect to know a whole new phone's way of doing things after two weeks? That's just not realistic. I go back to iOS for the odd task now and then or training people and I'm much slower than on android, even having years of experience just because I've been conditioned to a different thing now. What specifically is your old 10r doing better and how much of that is just muscle memory?
It is for me.
I can't say how long it took me to figure out IOS, it was years ago, but I figured out how to use android in about a day or so and still prefer IOS.
VoiceOver just works
I see that a lot of people here live under the belief that I expected android to work with swiping.
No, I do not do that. Even on iPhone I explore the entire screen and just swipe when I need to.
As I said many times already, I like the pixel, I think it is a decent phone, I love the build quality, but I expected to be more responsive by default.
I will keep the phone, I will not send it back to the store, but I will not recommend it to my Blind students. I will have it with me if they want to try it out, but iPhone is my first choice and recommendation.
This has nothing to do with how complex or not the operating system is. This is simply about universal design and universal access.
I’m happy for those who prefer android and I’m also happy for those who prefer iOS, the most important thing is that we are happy with what we have.
Responsiveness
A lot of Android users don't seem to understand the whole responsiveness thing. I felt it a lot with my Pixel 8. Then, I switched to ESpeak NG, and that cleared a ton of it up. I recently got a OnePlus 13, and even Google TTS is responsive on it. It's a real shame that Google's flagship with Google's screen reader isn't responsive, but meh, it's like getting a Surface phone and using Narrator on it. You won't get far before you want to use NVDA, and Android lets you do that kind of stuff. Whereas on iOS, once VoiceOver can't handle something, that's all you get, there are no other options.
iOS and iPhone
When I got my first iPhone 4, I just listened to a podcast on VO from Thomas. I think it was him. It was easy to use, turn on and play with it. I am not an expert but did not need to take classes or get someone that knows about adapted tech. Yes, it bugs and Apple does not address them ASAP but like the security and privacy of a close system. Now it someone wants to let me play with a google phone, my birthday is coming on June.
Ease of Use
iOS has always had more tutorials and such than Android, but Android has always had the TalkBack tutorial. Every single OS is about give and take, and each user is going to have the things they care about, like openenss, ability to customize, ability to install apps outside the App Store, and so on, whereas others want an appliance to use and get done what they want to get done. It's a bit like audio editors. Some people love editing audio and getting the best sound, while others just want to make a ringtone and that's all they'll use out of their editor.
For me, I've always leaned towards Android, because I love the freedom and openness. So now that TalkBack is advanced enough for *me*, I jumped in. One thing I've had to teach myself, though, is that just because I'm using Android as my main device now, doesn't mean I can't use iOS also for the few things that it works better for, like reading Kindle books if there is no Audible version.
I don’t need other options on iOS
To be honest with you I do not need other options on iOS, I’m just happy with VoiceOver and has been improved over and over again over the years. Now with Apple Intelligence I can even have my screen described and probably from next week with 18.4 preview Siri can take actions.
Coming back to android, I don’t like TTS voices that sound robotic, I want natural voices which I do not have on android for now and your suggestion that different vocalizer could make talk back work better doesn’t interest me for now.
Narrator on Windows doesn’t work as intended, but that one has also been improved recently and you can do some stuff with it. The natural voice is on narrator are awesome. Usually I use NVDA when playing hearthstone and Jaws when doing stuff on the PC. With android I do not have enough Trust to allow other screen readers to access my phone.
I am also not very happy…
I am also not very happy with the default sluggishness of talkback, but I think I saw the worst of accessibility with macos ventura and sonoma, and as long as I have perfectly working workaround to eliminate that issue... You really, really should try chromeos. I don't have one with android apps as I run flex but I guess that the result for someone with 100% android and comfortable with its accessibility, would be uncomparable in terms of overall accessibility of both desktop and mobile. Very very tempting for me honestly.
Somebody get that guy ...
Somebody get that guy a Chromebook, and Pixel Tablet.
Stat!
While we're discussing the make-believe world of giftgiving, somebody be my valentine and get me a Pixel 9 Pro.
Double stat !!! 😃😆🤣
ChromeBooks
I really don't like ChromeBooks. I used one as my primary computer for months and hated it. Just a web browser with Android apps and basic Linux isn't enough for me. Especially when Linux VM's are, well, meant to be treated as cattle instead of pets.
Re: chromebooks
Devin, I totally hear you, I tried chromebook as my main computer for a while with similar results. It was great for a while then I hated it. Now I have one as a secondary machine I use more than my windows beast precisely because it's mostly a web browser. I love not having to toggle cursors or browse modes in web apps, it's a silly little thing but I can just turn on sticky mode for reading an article or whatever but by default it's off and I can just use all those keyboard shortcuts without having to make sure Jaws or NVDA gets its hand held just the right way every 2 minutes. I would never live without jaws and windows but I find myself prefering the chromebook for most things on the web, especially the google apps. I imagine we both work with folks who really struggle with gmail standard view for example. What if they don't need to learn virtual pc cursor in addition to all the other new keyboard shortcuts, they can just arrow through their inbox like outlook, press c to compose without jumping to a combo box, the shortcuts just work like they're supposed to … I think just that could be worth a couple hundred bucks for a lot of people if they only knew it was there. BTW I also use iPhone for a few things and, yeah, I get voiceover is less laggy, I feel it every time I use the SE and it's just not much of a much to me. I get how it could be for others though, I really do.
What's the status of these Android quirks...
I've bought Android devices a couple of times and tossed them out after a while, but it was years ago. Sorry if the following have been mentioned already here, but it's quite a beefy all-purpose thread y'all got going here...
1) Do the sound effects still sound like a pinball arcade? Drove me nuts.
2) One of the things I really couldn't get used to is having to manually scroll the screen down for lists that were longer than would fit. As someone mentioned, IOS lets you keep flicking without regard to what's visually present, which seems like the more sensible non-sight-centric way to do it.
3) Do devices still only get one or two updates before they're EOL?
4) There seemed to be less fuzzy logic helping out on Android with imprecise gestures. I would do things like accidentally start phone calls when it was in my shirt pocket.
I'm just curious. I spent a deal of money on the Play store while I had my phone, and liked some things. However, I don't experience most of the problems folks on this thread seem to be having with their IOS phones, and Windows Phone Link is pretty good with my iPhone, though bluetooth is never an entirely smooth thing. Mac, of course, is another story. That's where I keep feeling like Apple is Lucy moving the football again and again. Stick a fork in me on that front.
Brian
Not interested in Chrome. Just want the Pitsal. Pro. Do not see many women here that will want to get you something for St V.
re: Quirks
Man I need to get a life. But in the meantime I'll try and answer these.
1. Sound effects are the same as they've been for a while, I disabled them. I find voiceover sounds to be less irritating than talkback's 80s arcade vibes. That said TalkBack has much more robust haptics that, at least on my pixel almost feel like sounds. I don't know how to explain it but as someone who used to just disable them for a snappier experience I've changed my tune a lot and can't really explain why.
2. Lists and such auto scroll almost always. I've had the odd app where I had to do it manually but it's quite rare. And even then I don't always know if it's necessary or just easier.
3. Update cycles are much better now although it does depend on the manufacturer somewhat. Samsung and Google are sitting around the five year mark, my Pixel 7 pro is set for at least Android 17 and maybe 18. Even the worst offenders like Motorola will give you around 3 now.
4. I think this just depends on the phone but most have the boxy builds like iPhone and that helps. The newer android phones seem way better with this than my first experiments although some like my two year old Pixel have curved displays which can occasionally get tripped up by other parts of my hand touching the edge in weird ways. It didn't happen at all on my more iphone looking galaxy s22.
It's a bit off topic but…
It's a bit off topic but although I haven't tried chromeos with android apps on the google groups I heard that it's not perfect but decently usable. For linux I am really curious when you tried a cb last as now we can even run desktop apps and arch wiki has a page about how to run full archlinux in chrome os, which by all means isn't the most limited distro. For me honestly for my own project it's almost the dreem os as web browsing works and I do most of my stuff in terminal anyway, and vim actually works there better than VO and I have the choice of more than one terminal screen reader if I need one. Maybe you are talking about hardware acceleration or stuff like that? In which case I'd say... I don't know and haven't tinkered enough with it yet.
I really like that on some android phone we can load custom rom but again, I haven't seen one single post of a blind user running one, let alone the accessibility nightmare this should be. As much as open source is cool just look at how wayland screwed up everything for accessibility...
I just love how google…
I just love how google updates talkback as a separate software.
Holger
Pffft, everybody likes me. I am just that kind of awesome.
True story. 😉✌️
TheBlindGuy07
Oh man. If you think chromeOS is good now. Just wait for ARM.
It's coming!
Not to mention, chromeOS has VM and Pen support already.
Also, and this may be old news, but I just learned that it is possible to stream certain steam games through ChromeOS.
PixelBook Go
This is starting to look more and more interesting every day. :-)
Typing
I’m a long-time iOS user and am very comfortable with the onscreen keyboard. I switched to Android for around 6 months and the sole feature which eventually dragged me back to iPhone was direct touch typing. If Talkback introduces it, I’ll go back in a heartbeat.
Prudence Screen Reader
No, I haven't forgotten about Commentary...
, which also lets you direct touch type if ya suspend its browse fucntion.