iOS devices that come with the VoiceOver screen reader are changing the lives of visually impaired people who were formerly limited to bulky and/or very expensi

iOS devices that come with the VoiceOver screen reader are changing the lives of visually impaired people who were formerly limited to bulky and/or very expensive devices with a limited selection of apps for mobile use. Nowadays, any iPhone or iPad sold in stores works out of the box to do everything from making phone calls to email, browsing, gps, games, productivity apps, facebook, and more spoken in dozens of languages, displayed with different zoom levels and higher contrast, and even in conjunction with bluetooth braille displays. I also remember back when Apple introduced easy to use videochat in iChat with the iSight in ~2003 and again with FaceTime in iOS devices, and my deaf/hard of hearing friends thought this was an awesome alternative way to communicate. They are cool to develop for, and I feel incredibly lucky to be working on an iPad app for visually impaired people right now and to help said people learn how to use the screenreader. It's amazing how I've watched some people go from technophobia caused by progressive vision loss to being inseparable from their newly purchased iPad/iPhone and doing more than they ever learned to do on traditional computers. The Apple Accessibility team is made up of incredibly cool people that always seem to be open to suggestions to better improve their products. Your friend should shoot them an email at accessibility@apple.com instead of just grumbling about how iOS devices are out of his reach. I remember a lot of blind folks I knew that grumbled a lot when the iPhone first came out, because they thought an all-touch interface meant that the device was doomed for use for the blind. That turned out to be very, very wrong. You never know what they might have in mind, and maybe your friend has some cool ideas to pass on.