Dear Fedi, advice and suggestions please! My father is losing his eyesight due to age-related macular degeneration; he has some peripheral and distance vision left, but almost no near vision, and is for example unable to read either screens or print. Might anyone have any ideas for making his life easier, either with assistive technologies (which is the best screen reader?) or general tips for navigating daily life?
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@mothninja Re screen-reader, what computer/phone is he currently using? That will change the response. I am a screen-reader user myself.
@FreakyFwoof aaah yes, excellent point, thank you - iPhone and iPad
@mothninja In that case there's only one option and it's already built-in. VoiceOver.
Settings >Accessibility >VoiceOver.
Or ask Siri to 'Enable VoiceOver'
@FreakyFwoof great, thank you!
Do you think there are better tech providers than Apple for accessibility, that might be worth looking into?
@mothninja Well unless you want to upend his entirely life and make him switch to Android when he's already comfortable with Apple and has not one, but two devices, no. I wouldn't recommend that.
I can use both platforms and daily drive an iPhone. Android is pretty much there in terms of parity but if you're losing your sight, the last thing you want to do is A, learn a new phone/tablet, and B, learn a new screen-reader on top of all that. it's a bit much.
@FreakyFwoof yes you're absolutely right, changing would not be a good idea. He was a die-hard PC fan back in the day, but switched to Apple about a decade ago, and switching again at this point would not help matters at all.
@mothninja @FreakyFwoof I can second how good apple devices are. there are many levels of visual aid before full use of the voiceover screenreader, and voiceover often works in conjunction with other visual aids to afaik. https://support.apple.com/en-us/111779