Questions for iPad Owners

I used to have an iPad mini. I’m completely blind and I have been since birth. I mostly used it as a media consumption device. I can’t pay for personal experience about the Braille screen, and put as I’ve never gotten a hang of that. The reason I don’t have an iPad anymore because I was getting kind of lost trying to navigate larger screen real estate. That may not be an issue for you but just something to keep in mind if you don’t plan on purchasing the keyboard. I didn’t have a keyboard either. I don’t know if that helps at all of it. Hope some of our limited experience I did have with an iPad. It helps a little bit. I’ve heard that Braille screening is actually sometimes easier for people on a larger screen so you actually might find that experience easier than iPhone. Hopefully people around here come and tell you more experiences than what I had. I actually ended up running in my iPad in order to get my iPhone 15 I’m currently running my prime device. My secondary device isn’t an iPad. It an iPhone SE for generation. I hope this helps you. If you get one, I hope you enjoy it.

I use it once in a whiled. I mostly use it for youtube but trying to skipt ads are a pain. Just use your MAC. It is not worth it.

Look for an app called, "Enhance YT". 😇

When I was looking into getting an ipad, 2 choices were best for my needs. I too wanted an Ipad as an Ereader and a media device for those times when I felt like watching shows. I Chose the Ipad air. It works well for me.

Well, even though nobody ever seems to think my workflow makes any sense, I'll say that I love my iPad - it's my main machine. multitasking on it is awesome. The thing is, it's not an iPhone. It's not a Macbook. Honestly, if you get one and try to use it exactly the same way as either of them you'll be disappointed - at least almost everyone seems to be. Honestly, if you get one, try to spend some time to learn it on its own terms. Learn to actually find things on the screen spacially - it's much much faster and you'll get very used to simply touching the screen where the thing you want is, or at least close enough to get to it with a couple of swipes. Braille screen input on the big screen is actually awesome - it actually feels like you're using a brailler, ☺️.

I have to admit that, although it has Voiceover style keyboard access, I find it really inefficient - my usual workflow if I'm doing serious work - writing, programming etc, is to use a bluetooth keyboard to type, but to do almost all navigating with the iPad screen - kind of feels like a giant trackpad. Particularly when you're multitasking being able to move your hand from one side of the screen to the other interacting with two apps can be really smooth. But as I said, it takes time and effort to do things that way, to use the iPad for what it's good at and in the way it's good at, and the Phone and the Mac the same. I'm actually doing things backwards - I've just upgraded from an ancient iPhone 7 to an iPhone 17 pro, and I'm trying to learn how to actually add the phone into my life as something really useful instead of just using it for pretty much only phonecalls, so I'm kind of doing things the other way round, working out the optimal way to actually use an iPhone when I'm used to having an 11 inch screen to work with.

Anyway, just some comments from someone who's basically been living on an iPad for a decade.

I had two iPads since going totally blind: a 9th generation iPad and an iPad Mini A17 Pro, and my answer to questions of whether it's worth owning an iPad as a totally blind individual, is and has always been a resounding no. The reasons why I bought both iPads are because I'm a developer and prefer to use iPads for testing as that allows me to keep developer mode disabled on my iPhone, and they also make excellent showcasing devices for a sighted audience, but for daily use, I consider them inferior to iPhones in every possible way. It's easy to get lost in the huge screen, VoiceOver on iPadOS is far from being polished for keyboard usage, there's no quick way to switch between the side bar and the main view in applications like Settings, no way to control VoiceOver with the keypad, and due to how accessibility behaves with text, it's also hard to find certain controls on the huge screen even if we are aware of their general location. As for Braille Screen Input, I cannot comment since I don't use that input method.

That was the mistake I made. I didn’t know anything about that being split on two different sides of the screen. Because when I was doing my research on the iPad, I was kind of just like ask Apple questions about it. I didn’t know anything about having a split screen like that. I actually got a mini because I figured I’d get lost on a bigger screen, but I got so lost on that thing I had it for a pretty short time and treated it back in and got my current iPhone. Whatever trace you make I hope that you’ll feel happy with it. It probably just takes some getting used to you, but I think it can be done if somebody has a time to learn it. That’s honestly what I would say. I would never say that somebody can’t it all depends on what time you have to learn something. Good luck with whatever you choose.

I’ve owned quite a few iPads over the years—I got my first one back in 2012. At one point, I even tried to make the iPad my primary device, but it just didn’t work for me.
My biggest issue has always been text editing. I find it pretty frustrating on the iPad. Scrivener is probably the only writing app I’ve used that comes close to giving me a decent experience, but even then, it’s not always particularly pleasant.
Over time, I’ve basically come to accept the iPad for what it does best for me: media consumption and reading books. For those things, it’s great. But beyond that, especially when it comes to serious writing, editing, or productivity, I’ve never really managed to make it work as my main device.

External keyboard do not work well all the time. Have a logitech slim folio and does not work well. Use it for typing but the commands do not work well.