I recently took a trip to my local apple store and asked to see the 3GS with Voiceover on it. The store staff were well-informed and brought me over to a phone. Unfortunatley, the phone on display was running a demo version of the iPhone OS X software. This meant Voiceover started and I could run my finger over the display, but it did not let us switch applications so I could try Mail or Safari.

The Lead Creative at the store, a nice woman named Kristy, was very apologetic and offered to have a fully functional phone brought into the store so I could try it. She then proposed that once the phone was brought in, that we sit down for 30 minutes so I could learn how the phone worked. (Although, I think they wanted to see how Voiceover functioned for themselves alongside a blind user.) I will gladly report my experiences here and on my radio show.

I fully nominate Josh and Cara as the Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin of the accessibility features of the iPhone 3GS.

I’m so pleased to see Apple’s inginuity and creativity continue with the iPhone in addition to the other Apple products that are changing lives. I am anxiously awaiting my Mac Book Pro in two days and will have a homecoming ceremony for myself as I am finally repatriating myself back to mac after 12 years of swimming in shark-infested waters on the PC side. (wink, wink)

Again, great job and thank you for blazing the trail.

You don’t have to hold both the home and lock key down. Just hold the lock key down for a few seconds. Then there is a slider toward the top to power down the phone. You may need to practice until you can orient yourselves without VO in case of a crash like was mentioned. You know, practice with VO to get the muscle memory down.

You have to double tap the characters/edit text to enable cut copy paste. So if there is a pass through feature, you may be able to use that to access cut/copy and paste. Basically, get focus in the edit field then hit the pass through function, then double tap in the edit field. The cut/copy and paste appear sort of like bubbles with the text selected for operation. If you use more fingers you get more text.