Hello and welcome to Android Unmuted, the show where we talk about all things Android from a blindness and low vision perspective. I am Liz, one of your hosts. I also have Marty with me. Hello, Marty, how are you?
Hello. Good, how are you? Thank you.
I'm doing fine, thanks. In today's episode, we will first provide an overview of some of the Android accessibility features, followed by bringing you up to speed with where each of us is in our own journey and using Android. Full disclosure, both of us are primarily Apple users. Is that correct, Marty?
It is definitely.
Indeed. I myself started using an iPhone with the iPhone 3GS. When that first came out, I jumped from a Motorola HTC Tilt which ran Windows Mobile. I forget the version at the time, and I was using Mobile Speak as my screen reader of choice. Where are you coming from, Marty, with your Apple experience?
So I pretty much started on the 3G as well. As soon as I think it was a second model of iPhones when they came out. I was on board pretty much from the beginning. I think it was the second model. I want to say I don't, I don't think it was a 3G. I think there was one before that, but it could have been the 3G, and I never really looked back ever since I started doing accessibility stuff on an iPhone about 10 years ago. So really this is kind of my first endeavor into Android to see what it's like, kind of compare the differences in speech to text, text to speech, what the difference in experience is with an Android device opposed to an Apple device, just to see what the differences are, how it all goes and, you know, just kind of be well rounded and kind of have more knowledge in both experiences.
And so you were using an iPhone prior to even needing to use it with accessibility features, Correct, Correct.
So I kind of have the experience of using it from a sighted perspective as well as a not sighted perspective.
Okay. And the difference with that for me is that I, not having sight, did not, could not use the iPhone prior to the 3D, the 3GS model. So that is where I am with that. Last but most certainly not least, today we will bring everyone up to speed, including possibly ourselves, with the details of which Android devices we decided to use in bringing you this show, including a device unboxing with Liz, which would be yours truly.
That'll be fun and interesting indeed.
The first thing we would like to do is kind of give an overview of Android accessibility features. And full disclosure, not all models support all of the accessibility features that we will be mentioning. It is also helpful to Note possibly that Android in terms of an operating system is very fragmented, related to the many different manufacturers and devices that are out there. So that is another possible limitation in general of Android as a platform. I am truly not speaking to be biased at any point in any of this. I just I that is also I really feel that that there is a lot more fragmentation and can be so it is really helpful to know that the Android experience that you are getting, that is an accessible experience that you think you're getting, is the actual accessible Android experience that you are indeed getting.
If you want the best experience in terms of what the Android operating system has to offer, you want to try and get a RAW Android operating system. So what that means is a lot of these companies out there that are making Android phones throw their own spin on the operating system. So what that means is they change it around, they make it customized to suit their brand, and they take you kind of away from what the RAW operating system is. For example, Pixel is going to be the best raw unmessed with Android operating system. So that's what I would suggest.
So there are several accessibility features on Android. I will briefly describe some of them. First is the screen reader that is called Talkback. And so that is what you if you can't see the screen, you will use gestures and instead of looking at your screen, the phone will present to you in text to speech what is visually on the screen as long as the app is made accessibly in order for it to do so. The next feature I will mention is a screen magnification feature. It is on the Pixel phones. Pixel does have a magnifier feature. It is downloaded separately according to what I have researched and full disclosure, I do not know everything about all of these, so I am a beginning Android Journey person.
So we both are beginning Android Journey.
So yes, but the Magnifier app, according to my research, is available only on Pixel 5 on phones that are Pixel 5 or later. So that is a caveat potentially. The next feature is the Android Accessibility Suite, which includes the Accessibility Menu, the Select to Speak feature, Switch Access and Talkback all included in a bundle. And you can find this accessibility suite on devices with Android 9 and higher. Voice Access is another feature which allows users to control the user interface with voice commands. This feature is available on Android 5 and newer live Transcribe, which is an app that uses speech recognition to transcribe speech and sound in real time. It is designed for people who are deaf or hard of hearing, although anyone could potentially benefit from that. I Suppose. But those are some general accessibility features on the Android phones. Again, your mileage may vary depending on device slash manufacturer. Marty, do you have any comments that you want to make?
No, I would just say that, yeah, make sure that before you make your purchase, if the accessibility features are something that you really need to be able to use, then make sure that whatever phone you decide to get is going to happen. Because like we said, they're going to be different on every manufacturer due to them kind of tweaking the operating system to make it, you know, whatever they want to make it, instead of having the raw operating system. So make sure you stick with the raw operating system if you want to get the most out of your Android experience when it comes to accessibility.
All right, so now we have come to the point in the show where we will talk about our own Android purchases and why we came to choose them. Since I need to unbox mine, it might make sense for me to go second. So, Marty, would you tell us why you went with the Motorola 54.5G phone of your choice?
Sure. I went with this phone actually, because I wasn't sure what phone I was going to get. At some point we were going to get the same phone and so that we could kind of have the same experience then. And I decided maybe I should look around a little, maybe to see what it would be like to have something a little different. Then we could. We can compare and contrast to what you got. I won't spoil that. I'll let you do that when we come back around to your choice. But the phone I got and the reason why I got it, it was actually highly recommended from Stephen Scott from Double Tap. He had picked up one of these phones after doing some research. And this phone is really inexpensive. It came in at only $150, and it does have raw Android operating system on it. Like some of the other phones, they didn't really tweak the operating system hardly at all. They added a couple of Motorola features to it, but very, very little. So I was excited to be able to try a phone at a low price point and also having raw Android operating system. So that was a plus for me. He had used it and said he was having a really good experience with it. And the little bit that I played with it so far, navigating menus and kind of swiping around, doing stuff like that, just kind of testing the experience. One thing that I really like opposed to Apple devices, is that when you are using the gestures and you're swiping through all the different menus and the different screens, you still have a fluid experience. Everything glides really smoothly. Everything is very seamless. Where on an Apple device, when you're using the device without voiceover, for example, it's very fluid and everything is smooth, but then you turn on voiceover and the experience changes a lot. The phone screens kind of slow down a bit. It's not as fluid. It is a different experience when you have voiceover on or voiceover off. And I noticed that definitely when you have Google Talk back on. On an Android device, at least this one anyway, the menus and the screens, when you're scrolling and swiping and doing all that, still has that really cool, fluid, smooth swiping through. And I thought that was really awesome. I feel like when I'm on an Apple device with voiceover on, I would love to have that same experience. So that's one thing that I really noticed a lot.
Awesome. All right, so I decided to get a Pixel 8a. There are different versions of Pixels, so you really want to do your research and figure out which is the best device for you. If you need help with that, that is definitely something that we would be willing to attempt to assist with, but we are very new to this ourselves. So full disclosure. So in getting my Pixel 8a, actually, and the other reason I ended up getting this one was because I did not want to spend a lot of money as a primarily Apple device user, and that is still my primary device at this point. I don't foresee that changing. I did not want to spend a lot of money and feel like I owed the Android operating system more than I wanted to owe them at this time. So that is why I decided to get the 8A. I also purchased a Spigen Ultra Hybrid case, apparently especially designed for the Pixel 8a. The case name has a longer name than the phone. I don't know what that says about it, but yeah, that is what I purchased. Yeah, that is what I purchased. And I have both of them still in their boxes. So I will now live. Well, at least live right now recorded. By the time this goes out to all of you. Unbox my phone before I encase. Before I do any of that. Marty, do you have anything to add?
Nope. I'm just excited to hear your experience with feeling your phone and opening it the first time. And this will be fun. So.
All right, here we go. I have two boxes in front of me. The case box, which is significantly lighter, also wider than is the phone box, and my phone box, which is Heavier and skinnier. All right, I will open up my phone first, maybe if it comes apart. There we go. All right. Oh, I have lifted the phone out of its box. It has a protective screen overlay on definitely all of the front and most of maybe half. Well, like maybe one quarter up on either end of it. So I will take that off. It feels very smooth. There is a camera on the back and two buttons along the right side, the power button and the volume button. There is nothing on the very top end of it. On the front face is just the screen itself. I believe there's also a camera on the front. If I'm correct, on the bottom face of the device there is. Below the screen itself there are several ports. Does this have a headphone jack?
I don't know.
Anyway, it might not. It doesn't appear like it does. Interesting. All right, I will attempt to turn this on but it may be short lived because I have not taken this out of the box since I got it. So it might be dead.
There might be a headphone jack on top instead of the bottom. Maybe.
I don't know, I can't tell. Anyway, pressing and holding the power button.
If it doesn't have a headphone jack then it'd be interesting to see if you plug in USB C headphones if that would work. If that has a USB C charging port on the bottom. Right. It does have USB C. Yes.
I did press and hold the power button. I let it go and it did vibrate once. So in theory it's turning itself on.
Let there be light.
In my experience, very limited as it is with one Android device that I had. In setting it up, I turned it on and didn't do anything. And Talkback I believe ended up coming up automatically. But it may not be the case with this. All right, it's not at least talking or anything. So I'm going to put two fingers on the screen. I believe that's how you do it. When. And hold them there. I think that's one of the ways you can do it.
We're turning on Google Talk back. There you go. I hear your voice now.
I did press and hold.
Oh yeah, we can hear it definitely.
Welcome to Talkback, page 1 of 5. Talkback is a screen reader intended for situations or people who have difficulty seeing the screen. It gives you spoken feedback so that you can use your device without looking at the screen. You can turn Talkback on or off by holding both volume keys for several seconds. When Talkback is on, the focused item on the screen is Spoken out loud. Swiping right will move to the next item and swiping left will move to the previous item. Swipe right now to find the next button. Media volume controls. Music volume set to 84%.
All right, so I won't go through everything. I will at least get to the next screen to demonstrate that. But just for a recap, what I did is I pressed and held the power button and I let it go. And then it. The phone itself admitted a slight vibration and after, I don't know, 10, 15 seconds or so, I didn't hear speech and so I put two fingers on the screen and held them there and that made talkback come on. So I will.
And this is when you first take it out of the box. First boot up.
Yes, I will. With one finger, I will flick to the right as it has instructed me to do.
Next button, double tap to activate.
All right, interesting. It doesn't say how many fingers to use, but I know that it is one finger, so I will one finger, double tap on the screen. I don't think it said that in the instructions either. That's a potential issue. Anyway, I'm going to one finger, double tap.
Explore by touch. Page 2 of 5.
All right, so I won't go through the whole tutorial, but there are five pages of tutorial. So that gives you at least some of an idea, hopefully, of the raw Android experience as you unbox a Google Pixel.
And did you get any other goodies in the box or.
Oh, yeah, right. We hope so. A charging cord, because that's important.
Braided or not braided?
I'm sorry?
Braided or not braided?
No.
Okay.
I guess Apple has one up on Google for that. I don't know.
Well, maybe it's a different cable, maybe it's upgraded one. If you get a Pro or a regular opposed to an A. Yeah, I don't know.
What I do remember about the 8A is that it is not. It came out after the eight, I believe. So in reading about the different phones, I think the 8 is a better phone. This phone, for instance, does not have an SD card slot, so it does not have expandable storage.
I do believe that when it comes to the different models, whether it's an A regular or a Pro, they do release them at different times a lot of the time.
Why I have a box of printed papers, I don't know. That's weird. Literally, this came in the box, a box of like, there's nothing else in this box.
So the phone and the charging cable is all you get?
Yeah. And some papers. Of what? I don't know. I don't know what this is. It's a car. It's a round a card and a printed booklet. I don't know if it's a. I have no idea. I was not expecting that, though. Usually they have other things in it. Like, why put that in a box? I'm confused slightly.
Who knows?
Whatever. Anyway, that is in. That is the only. Those are the only things in my box. So fortunately I have. Oh, I. Just kidding. And a USB C to usb. A adapter. That's nice, actually. That's a good thing to have. So that is all I have in my box.
Cool. Pretty simple unboxing.
Yeah. No fighting with packaging.
Nope. And I don't believe it had any cellophane, so that's kind of good for the environment.
It did not. But it did have a box with papers in it. You could take the papers and take them out of the box and whatever. I don't. They don't ask me.
So they didn't consult with you before they did the packaging?
They did not.
Oh, okay. Well, maybe next time they will.
Probably not, but I appreciate the thought. Thanks for the credit.
Hey, no problem. I think that we're good and we're going to mess around with our devices and looking forward to sharing our Android journey with all of you.
Absolutely. And if any of you out there have any apps that you would like us to focus on or tips of things that you have tried that have worked well or not worked well or anything like that, please let us know. Share with us the wisdom. We would appreciate that. And Marty, how can they do that?
So if you want to drop us a line, you can email us at Feedback at Unmute show if you have any questions, comments or anything else. And you can also check our website at Unmute show for all things of what we got going on.
Awesome. Thank you for listening and join us next month.
Thanks to Andre Louis and his shorts collection. Watching for the music used today.