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Thread: New Browser for Cell Phones

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From: Michael R. Burks
Date: Tue, Jul 22 2008 12:40PM
Subject: New Browser for Cell Phones
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Does anyone know anything about these new browsers being created for phones,
whether they are accessible or not?
Eg. the new Opera Browser for Iphones? See at
http://telephonyonline.com/wireless/news/opera-mobile-95-beta-0717/

Mike Burks

919 870 8788 - Office

919-882-1884 - Fax

703-254-3881 - Cell

From: John Foliot - Stanford Online Accessibility Program
Date: Tue, Jul 22 2008 1:40PM
Subject: Re: New Browser for Cell Phones
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Mike Burks wrote:
> Does anyone know anything about these new browsers being
> created for phones, whether they are accessible or not?
> Eg. the new Opera Browser for Iphones? See at
> http://telephonyonline.com/wireless/news/opera-mobile-95-
> beta-0717/

Knowing a little about the Standards Chief at Opera (Chaals McCathieNevile -
http://my.opera.com/chaals/about/) who was a former W3C/WAI guru (he was
directly involved with the writing of WCAG 1) and generally a huge and well
informed accessibility advocate, I would be surprised if it wasn't...

As a small point of correction, I do not believe that the Opera Mini has
been ported to the iPhone (see: http://www.operamini.com/download/pc/all/),
although I did play with an earlier version on my former AT&T Nokia cell
phone, and was impressed. Since it's free, I highly recommend anyone
interested to point your cell phone browser to: http://operamini.com, or
fire up your desktop browser and go to: http://www.operamini.com/download/
NOTE: you will need to have a Data Plan with your service provider. Chaals
has previously mentioned to me that in many parts of Europe and Asia, the
Opera Mini is the #1 mobile browser for the market ("Used by more than 44
million people - Opera Mini just keeps getting better."), and that features
such as the ability to easily toggle images on or off is a key factor when
you pay for access by the minute.

Accessibility of these devices will likely always be tricky, since you are
dealing with some issues that are hardware/software specific: for example I
do not think that there is any text-to-speech software for cell phones today
(does anyone know differently?), and of course screen real estate
is/will-always-be an issue that rests with the appliance, not the software -
zooming in a 3 inch screen will only get you so far if you are a low-vision
user. Given the portability of these devices, and the need to keep them as
small as possible, key pads are considerably smaller than standard keyboards
(mobility impairments), and many of the phones rely on T9 keyboards as
opposed to QWERTY, which again can be an issue for both mobility impaired
users as well as some cognitively challenged users.

AFAIK, most of these mobile browsers do not as yet support Flash either, so
using *flash only* in a mission critical function is a doomed procedure
(hear that Pandora? (http://www.pandora.com)

Was there something else specifically that you were thinking of Mike?

JF
====================================John Foliot
Program Manager
Stanford Online Accessibility Program
http://soap.stanford.edu
Stanford University
Tel: 650-862-4603

SOAP is a program directed by the
Vice Provost for Student Affairs

====================================

From: Wendy Chisholm
Date: Tue, Jul 22 2008 1:50PM
Subject: Re: New Browser for Cell Phones
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From: Moore, Michael
Date: Tue, Jul 22 2008 2:00PM
Subject: Re: New Browser for Cell Phones
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John wrote:
> Accessibility of these devices will likely always be tricky, since you
are
> dealing with some issues that are hardware/software specific: for
example I
> do not think that there is any text-to-speech software for cell phones
today
> (does anyone know differently?),

There's MobileSpeak for Window's mobile.
http://www.codefactory.es/en/products.asp?id=24
I have it running on an htc shadow.

--wendy

Nuance has another for Symbian based phones called TALKS,
http://www.nuance.com/talks/

If you would like to learn more about visual impairments and cell phones
there is a email list for discussion of cell phone accessibility issues.

http://mosenexplosion.com/mailman/listinfo/blindphones_mosenexplosion.co
m

Mike

From: John Foliot - Stanford Online Accessibility Program
Date: Tue, Jul 22 2008 2:10PM
Subject: Re: New Browser for Cell Phones
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You learn something new every day! Thanks Wendy

JF

John Foliot
Stanford Online Accessibility Program
http://soap.stanford.edu

On Jul 22, 2008, at 12:43 PM, "Wendy Chisholm"
< = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> John wrote:
>> Accessibility of these devices will likely always be tricky, since
>> you are
>> dealing with some issues that are hardware/software specific: for
>> example I
>> do not think that there is any text-to-speech software for cell
>> phones today
>> (does anyone know differently?),
>
> There's MobileSpeak for Window's mobile.
> http://www.codefactory.es/en/products.asp?id=24
> I have it running on an htc shadow.
>
> --wendy
>
> --
> http://friendfeed.com/wendyc
>

From: Michael R. Burks
Date: Tue, Jul 22 2008 2:20PM
Subject: Re: New Browser for Cell Phones
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John,

Thank you! That looks like a good answer to me. And if Chaals is involved,
I agree I would be surprised if it was not accessible!

Sincerely,

Mike Burks

919 870 8788 - Office

919-882-1884 - Fax

703-254-3881 - Cell

From: Travis Smith
Date: Tue, Jul 22 2008 3:10PM
Subject: Re: New Browser for Cell Phones
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There is also Nuance Talks for Windows mobile and Symbian series 60 and 90 cell phones. I am running Talks version 3.52.6 on a Nokia N75. It works pretty well. It is significantly more expensive than it's rival Mobile Speak, but I feel it is worth it.

Travis Smith
Accessibility Analyst
Tenacity, Inc.
2020 W. Pinhook rd. suite 101
Lafayette, La. 70508

Phone: (866) 756-0321
Fax: (337) 735-9501
Direct: (337) 735-9527
337-735-9527

From: Jennifer Sutton
Date: Tue, Jul 22 2008 3:50PM
Subject: Re: New Browser for Cell Phones
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Hi:

At the risk of taking this topic too far down the accessible cell
phones road, I'd make a few quick points:

1. The Blind Phones list mentioned below has extraordinarily high
traffic as does any other cell phone list related to access for blind
folks that I've heard about or subscribed to.

2. Here are a couple of noteworthy Web sites in the accessible cell
phones for blind folks arena:

http://www.accessiblephones.com/

and

http://www.blindsea.com/

3. Finally, AFB's AccessWorld often has comparisons of accessible
cell phones and the like. These can be found via a search of the
magazine's archives. Start here:
http://www.afb.org/aw/main.asp

Jennifer

At 12:55 PM 7/22/2008, you wrote:

>John wrote:
> > Accessibility of these devices will likely always be tricky, since you
>are
> > dealing with some issues that are hardware/software specific: for
>example I
> > do not think that there is any text-to-speech software for cell phones
>today
> > (does anyone know differently?),
>
>There's MobileSpeak for Window's mobile.
>http://www.codefactory.es/en/products.asp?id=24
>I have it running on an htc shadow.
>
>--wendy
>
>Nuance has another for Symbian based phones called TALKS,
>http://www.nuance.com/talks/
>
>If you would like to learn more about visual impairments and cell phones
>there is a email list for discussion of cell phone accessibility issues.
>
>http://mosenexplosion.com/mailman/listinfo/blindphones_mosenexplosion.co
>m
>
>
>Mike
>