I’ve talked a lot about Android on this blog. I love the idea, and the operating
system is nice, but accessibility could be so much more. I’ve had my Galaxy S20 FE
(5G), for about a year and a half or so. I’ve seen the changes from Android 11,
to 12, and finally to 13. TalkBack has improved steadily over that year and a
half, adding Braille support, which I thought wouldn’t come for another five to
ten years. Spell checking was added in TalkBack 13. Text recognition in images
and unlabeled buttons was added in TalkBack 12.1. Icon descriptions were added
in TalkBack 13.
In this article, though, I’ll overview the changes in TalkBack 14, the ones I
have access to, that is. I’ll get to that later. I’ll also talk about the
problems facing Android that isn’t really about TalkBack, but is more about the
accessibility framework, and what apps can and can’t do. So this will be a sort
of continuation from my other Android articles, more than just a “what’s new in
TalkBack” style article.
TalkBack 14, Lots of Braille
TalkBack 14 is a good iteration of where TalkBack 13 started. TalkBack now has
many more commands, both for Braille displays and for its Braille keyboard. One
can now move around an edit field by words and lines, not just characters, using
the onscreen Braille keyboard. One can also select text, and copy and paste it
using the same keyboard. You don’t have to dismiss the keyboard just to do all
that. To be fair to iOS, you can do that with Braille Screen Input, but the
commands are not documented in either Apple’s documentation, or in the VoiceOver
settings. In TalkBack settings, those commands are clearly documented and
explained.
TalkBack 14 now supports the NLS EReader, which is being freely distributed to
NLS patrons. By the end of the year, all 50 states will have the EReader. You
do have to connect the display to your phone via USB C, and the cable I had on
hand shorted out, so I have to find another one. But I was able to use it with a
USB hub, which further made the setup less mobile, but it did work. The
commands, though, were rather more complicated than I expected. I had to press
Enter with dots 4-5 to move to the next object. Space with Dot 4 was used to
move to the next line, and Space with Dot 1 was used to move to the previous
line. So I quickly moved back to using the EReader with the iPhone. I’ll
practice with it more, but for now it just doesn’t feel as practical as using
the EReader, over Bluetooth, on the iPhone, with its simpler commands.
A window into Images
TalkBack 14 has a new screen of choices, where you can enable options regarding
image recognition. You have the usual text recognition, and icon recognition,
but the screen refers also to “image recognition,” similar to what VoiceOver can
do. This is something I’ve wanted for a long time. Some people have a third
option, “image descriptions,” but I don’t have that option. Google often rolls
out features to a small subset of users, and then rolls it out to everyone else
after weeks or months of testing. We’ll have to see how that works out.
Of note, though, is that whenever one gets an iOS update, one gets all the new
features right away. There is no rollout of features for VoiceOver, it’s just
there. TalkBack 14, as a public release, should have all the features available
to everyone at launch, in my oppinion. They could always label image
descriptions as “beta.”
The Accessibility Framework
As I’ve said before, the operating system is the root of all accessibility. If
the accessibility framework is limited, then apps are limited in what they can
do as far as accessibility is concerned. This is why I’ve been so critical of
Google, because Android’s accessibility framework, and what apps can communicate
to TalkBack, is limited. I’ll give a few examples.
Kindle
I love the books I can get on Kindle. I love that I can read them on just about
all of my devices. But not all Kindle apps are created equally. The app on the
iPhone is great. Using VoiceOver, I just swipe down with two fingers and the
book is read to me. I can move my finger up and down the screen to read by line.
I can use a Braille display and just scroll through the book, no turning pages
required since it happens automatically. On Android, however, the Kindle app is
more limited.
When you open a book in Kindle for Android, you find a page, with a “start
continuous reading” button. All this button does is pipe the text of the book
out to the Android speech engine. This distinction is important. On iOS, since
VoiceOver is controlling things, you can quickly speed up, slow down, pause and
resume, or change the voice quickly. On iOS, you can read by word or letter, and
most importantly, read easily with a Braille display.
On Android, you can move your finger down the page to hear lines of text, which
are sent to TalkBack as announcements. But if you try to have TalkBack read the
book, it won’t get passed the current page. The same is even more true with
Braille; you have to turn pages manually, using the touch screen because its not
actually TalkBack that’s turning the page. So you have to keep touching the
phone’s touch screen in order to continue interacting with the app. Braille
displays have keys for a reason. You shouldn’t have to use the touch screen to
do anything while using a Braille display with your phone. Most Braille display
users keep their phone in their pocket while they use it from their displays.
With a lot of other book-reading apps, you can just lock the screen, and just
listen to the book. Many blind Android users love that, and find it superior to
reading with a screen reader. However, the Kindle app doesn’t even satisfy that.
Whenever the screen times out and locks, after that page is finished, the page
is turned, but the speech stops. You have to unlock the screen, and then press
“start continuous reading” again.
Now, if TalkBack could read the book, and turn the page, the experience would be
much better. But Google’s accessibility framework has moved at a glacial pace,
throughout the ten or fifteen years of Android, and iOS, development. While
Apple opened up API’s to developers, so that VoiceOver could turn pages while
reading, Google has not even added that feature to their own reading app.
Instead, Play Books uses a web view, and just detects when the user has gone
beyond the last element on the page, and then just turns the page. At least,
that’s what I think is happening. I obviously don’t have access to the source
code of the Play Books app.
Mortal Kombat
Games are becoming more and more important in the mobile ecosystem. Mobile games
are, in some cases, more popular than console games. But mobile games are
sometimes very hard to make accessible. Take the Mortal Kombat game. You have an
interface where you choose a game mode, make a team of fighters, upgrade cards,
and change settings. Then, you have the fight mode, where you tap to attack,
swipe for a special attack, and hold two fingers on the screen to block. On iOS,
the developers have made the buttons visible to VoiceOver, and added labels to
them. They’ve shown the text elements, where you “tap to continue”, to
VoiceOver, and allowed the double tap to advance to the next screen. That part,
I believe, could be done on Android as well.
The real fun is in the battles, though. Once a fight starts, on iOS, VoiceOver
is pushed out of the way, so to speak, by a direct touch area. This allows taps
and swipes to be sent directly to the app, so that I can play the game. While
I’m fighting, though, the game sends text prompts to VoiceOver, like “swipe up,”
or “Tap when line is in the middle.” I’m not sure exactly what the last one
means, but “swipe up” is simple enough. This allows me to play, and win,
battles.
Unfortunately for Android users, though, this “direct touch area” is not
possible. Google has not added this feature for app developers to take advantage
of. They theoretically could, but they’d then have to make an accessibility
service for the app, and then make sure that the service is running when the app
runs. Users are not going to turn on an accessibility service for a game, and
developers are not going to spend time dealing with all that for the few blind
people, relatively speaking, on Android.
Catching the Apple
Google, for the last few years, has been trying hard to catch up to Apple. They
have a long way to go. Apple, however, hasn’t stayed still. They have a decade
worth of built-up experience, code, frameworks, and blind people who, each time
they try Android, find that it falls short and come back to iOS. I’m not saying
Apple is perfect. And each time a wave of blind people try Android, a few find
that it works for what they need a phone for.
As more and more blind people lean into using a phone as their primary computing
device, or even their secondary computing device, accessibility is going to be
more important than ever. We can’t afford half-baked solutions. We can’t afford
stopgap measures. Companies who build their services on top of these platforms
will do what they can to make their apps accessible, but they can only do so
much. In order to make better apps, developers need rich, robust API’s and
frameworks. And right now, that’s Apple. And I’ve gotten tired of holding my
breath for Google. I’m just going to let out that breath and move on. I’ll
probably keep my Android phone around, but I’m not going to use it as my primary
device until Google gets their act together.
Some Android users will say that I’m being too harsh, that I’m not giving Google
enough time, or that I’m being whiny, or radical, or militant. But it took Google ten or so years to add
commands that used more than one finger. It took them ten years to add Braille
support to their screen reader. It took them ten years to add spell checking.
I’m not going to wait another ten years for them to catch up to where Apple was
a good three years ago.
Over the years, I’ve owned a few Android devices. From the Samsung Stratosphere to the Pixel 1 to the Braille Note Touch, and now the Galaxy S20 FE 5G. I remember the eyes-free Google group, where TalkBack developers were among us mere mortals. I remember being in the old TalkBack beta program. I remember when anyone in the Eyes-free group could be in the beta. And now, that is no longer the case.
In this post, I’ll talk about the Accessibility Trusted Testers program, how it works in practice, in my own experience, and how this isn’t helpful for both TalkBack as a screen reader, and Google’s image as a responsive, responsible, and open provider of accessibility technology. In this article, I will not name names, because I don’t think the state of things results from individual members of the TalkBack or accessibility team. And as I’ve said before, these are my experiences. Someone who is more connected or famous in the blind community will most certainly have better results.
Participate in early product development and user research studies from select countries.
After signing up, you’ll get an email welcoming you to the program. Afterwards, you get emails about surveys and sessions you can do. This isn’t just for blind people, either. There are a lot of sessions done for people with visually impaired people, Deaf people, and wheelchair users. And yes, there are a lot more of them than blind people. A good many of them require that you be near a Google office, so require transportation. I won’t go into detail about what the sessions and surveys are about, but this overview should give you a good enough idea.
The Inner Ring
Now we get into the stuff that I take issue with. There is no way for someone not in the loop to know. If you contact someone in the accessibility team at Google, you can ask to be placed in the TalkBack and/or Lookout testing programs. Depending on who you ask, you may or may not get any response at all. Afterwards, the process may get stuck in a few places, either in searching for you in the program, calling out to another person, and so on. And no, I’m not in either private beta program. The last time I’ve heard from them is two months ago now.
The things I have issues with are many, and I’ll go over them. First, when someone signs up for these trusted tester programs, they think that, because it’s a “tester” program, you’ll gain access to beta versions of TalkBack and so on. You don’t.
Second, some of these sessions require you to travel to Google’s offices. There are blind people scattered across states and countries and provinces, and few Google offices. So, if a blind person wants to attend a session, they’ll have to travel to California to do so. And that means that only Californian blind people, who are in the program, will even know about the study and attend.
And third, the biggest, is this. When the program opened up after the demolition of the eyes-free group, the people using Android for the longest flooded in. So, throughout all these years, it’s been them, the people used to use Android, providing the feedback. People who haven’t used iOS in years, people who don’t care about images and who have found their preferred apps and stick with that. So, when new people come to Android, the older users have a bunch of third-party apps, for email, messaging, launchers, and so on. Sure, the new users can talk about how the first-party experience is on the Blind Android Users mailing list and Telegram group, but the older users always have some third-party way of doing things, or a workaround of “use headphones” or “mute TalkBack” or “use another screen reader” or “Go back to the iPhone”. And I’ve nearly had enough of that. Sighted people don’t have to download a whole other mail client, or mute TalkBack while talking to Google Assistant, or use a third-party Braille driver like BRLTTY, or use and iPhone to read Kindle books well in Braille or talk to the voice assistant without being talked over.
Also, the Trusted Testers program only covers the US and maybe Canada. Most blind Android users are from many other countries. So, their voices are, for all intents and purposes, muted. All those devices that they use, the TalkBack beta program will not catch. A great example of this is spell checking released in TalkBack 13.1. On Pixels, when you choose a correction, that word is spelled out. On Samsung and other phones, it’s not. It makes me wonder what else I’m missing by using a non-Google phone. And that’s not how Android is supposed to work. If we, now, have to buy Google phones to get the best accessibility, how is that better than Apple, where we have to buy Pro iPhones to get the most and best features?
How this can be Fixed
Google has a method by which, in the Play Store, one can get the beta version of an app. Google can use this for TalkBack and Lookout. There is absolutely nothing stopping them from doing this. Google could also release source code for the latest TalkBack builds, including beta and alpha builds, and just have users build at their own risk. Google could open the beta programs to everyone who wants to leave feedback and help. After all, it’s not just Google phones that people use. And the majority of blind people don’t use Pixel phones. blind people also have spaces for talking about Android accessibility, primarily the Blind Android users list and Telegram group. I’d love to see Google employees hanging out there, from the TalkBack team to the Assistant team, the Bard team, and the Gmail and YouTube teams. Then we could all collaborate together on things like using TalkBack actions in YouTube, moving throughout a thread of messages in Gmail, and having TalkBack not speak over someone talking to the assistant, with or without headphones in.
How can I help
If you’re working at Google, talk to people about this. Talk to your team, your manager, and so on. If you know people working at Google, talk to them. Ask them why all this is. Ask them to open up a little, for the benefit of users and their products, especially accessibility tools. If you’re an Android user, talk to the accessibility folks about it. If you’re at a convention where they are, ask them about this. If you’re not, they’ve listed their email addresses. I want anyone who wants to be able to make Android accessibility, and TalkBack, the best that it can be, to be able to use the latest software, use beta software, provide feedback directly to the people making it. Google doesn’t need to be another Apple. Even Apple provides beta access, through iOS betas, to any eligible iPhone. Since Samsung barely does any TalkBack updates until half a year or more later, it’s seriously up to Google to move this forward. I’ve known people who plug their phone into a docking station, and use it as a computer. I want blind people to be able to do that.
In order to move this forward, though, we need to push for it. We need to let Google know that a few people who have been using Android for the past 10 years isn’t enough. We need to let them know that there are more countries than the United States and Canada. We need to let them know that we want to work with them, to collaborate with them, not for them to tell us what we want through a loud minority.
TalkBack doesn’t have as many options and features as Voiceover, but it’s started out on solid ground. ChromeVox doesn’t have as many options and features as JAWS but has started out on a solid foundation. Together, though, the community and Google can make both of these platforms, with the openness of Android, on both phones and ChromeBooks, and Linux containers on chromeBooks, the best platforms they can be! All it takes is communication!
Over the past few years, I’ve seen something that kind of troubles me. While people on iPhones Write books on using the iPhone on their iPhones, clear out their Email on their Apple Watch and manage the rest on their iPhones, and use their iPhones as their primary computing devices, Android users feel like one cannot be productive on any mobile system. So, here’s the thing. When you are around sighted people, even at a job sometimes, what are they using? Their computer? No. They’re on their phone. Maybe it’s an iPhone, or perhaps it’s an Android; it doesn’t matter. Either way, people are doing all kinds of things on their phones. When you go to a center of blind people, what do you see? People on their computers? Sometimes, but for younger people, they’re on their iPhones.
I’ll talk about the differences between iPhone or Android later. But this cannot be understated. The phone is now, for the majority of sighted, and even blind, people, their main computing device. And even a few older blind people I’ve talked to, they would rather not use a computer now. They’re all over their iPhone. So, what does this kind of productivity look like?
Quick flicks are best
Fast access to information is important. But being able to act on that information is even more significant. If I can’t quickly archive an email, I may not mess with using a Mail app that much. I want to get through my inbox, quickly, able to read through threads of info. The iPhone does this well, allowing me to flick up or down, double tap, and the email is out of sight. Within a conversation, I can move to the previous or next message, and archive, reply, or flag an individual message in that conversation. On Android, in Gmail, I can act upon a conversation, but inside a conversation, there are no quick actions. One must navigate through the message, along with any quoted or signature text, find a button, and double tap. Yes, there are other mail clients. Aqua mail comes close to being like the iPhone mail app. But it has no actions, and if one can get an honestly great mail client out of an iPhone without needing to buy another app, why should someone consider Aqua mail and Android?
A Book on a phone on a phone
I can’t get over how good Ulysses for iOS and macOS is. While I’m using Ulysses for Mac right now, I still consider what a person was able to make with just an iPhone, an app, and a Bluetooth keyboard. You may then say, “Well, if you’ve got a keyboard, you might as well have a laptop.” To which I would show a marvelous invention, called the pocket. A phone in your pocket, headphones in your ears, a keyboard in your lap (particularly one of those slim Logitech keyboards), and you’ve got a nice writing environment that is much less bulky than a laptop. A laptop with its trackpad and screen adding weight and thickness, along with the CPU and hard drive.
Next is the app. I’ve tried a lot of writing apps on Android. From iA Writer to a lot of Markdown note apps, I looked for a replacement for Ulysses that would give me the power that allowed a blind person to write an entire, large book on his iPhone. And I couldn’t find it. From unlabeled buttons, to no way to navigate by heading or link inside the document, to no way to link chapters together and export as a book, none of the apps were viable. This is not to imply that no app will exist in the future. And this does not imply that Android will not have a good enough accessibility framework to allow the creation of such apps later on. But right now, the iPhone, the most locked down operating system in the mobile space, has allowed a level of creativity from a writer which was before only seen on Windows beforehand. Furthermore, it allows a far more accessible writing environment, enabled by Markdown.
Android, meanwhile, is still trying to get dictation without TalkBack speaking over the person dictating, or Google Assistant without TalkBack loudly talking over it, phone calls where you don’t hear “keypad button” at the start of each call, image descriptions, a pronunciation dictionary, and so on. This isn’t to imply that the iPhone and VoiceOver are perfect. They are not, and amass bug after bug with every release. But, as of now, the iPhone is still the most productive platform. Android is coming around, quickly speeding up over the last year or so. I really hope it gets to the point where we can not only write books on our phone, but can also create apps, music, edit audio and video efficiently and effectively. At least, I’d love to be able to do any office work a job may require, with our phones hooked up to USB-C docking stations and keyboards and external displays.
More than likely, though, VoiceOver on the iPhone will continue to decline. TalkBack will reach where VoiceOver is right now, and stop because they ran out of ideas. The blind community will continue having to come up with workarounds, like not using the Notification Center when a Braille display is connected, or using Speak Screen on older iPhones from 2020 because VoiceOver is so badly optimized that it runs out of memory while reading an online article. Meanwhile, TalkBack will gain image descriptions, and it’ll be more than “gift card,” “blue sky,” on an app where you clock in and out of work, which is what VoiceOver does. TalkBack already speaks the text of the button, rather than describing the button. Yes, the button is unlabeled.
But the thing that really holds the iPhone up is the apps. Lire for RSS, Overcast for podcasts, Ulysses for writing, Seeing AI for recognition, and so on. And there’s an actual website with lists of apps for iOS. Android has podcast apps, RSS apps, writing apps, and recognition apps. And some, like Podcast Addict and Feeder, are great apps. But they don’t approach the accessibility of their iOS counterparts. Podcast Addict, for example, has the following layout when viewing episodes of a podcast: “Episode name, episode name button, and contextual menu Botton. Overcast, on the other hand, simple has a list of episodes. Android pros get around this by saying one should just feel one’s way down the screen, and scroll forward. What if one is using a Braille display or Bluetooth keyboard? What if one is both blind and lacks dexterity in the hands, so they need to use switch access? This is the kind of thing that iOS already has: a good, clean user interface. Sure, right now, it’s fallen into disrepair. Sure, you’ve got bugs crawling out from the walls. Sure, it feels sluggish on iPhones from just two years ago. But it’s still the best we have.
And this is where a sighted person cannot understand. To them, an iPhone X R is as good as the latest Galaxy phone, or even the latest iPhone, not mentioning the camera. Developers plan for sighted use. They make sure things look good, and flow smoothly, from the CPU on up to the touch screen. And yet, things work so differently to blind people. Adding a podcast episode to the queue may take a simple swipe on Android, but takes several swipes and taps for a blind Android user. And that’s why productivity, a good accessibility framework, apps development tools that automatically make a view as accessible as possible, and a good, high-quality screen reader are so important. And it takes all of that for a blind person to be productive, and that’s why most blind people in developed countries choose iPhone, every time.