I thought I would deviate from my series on launcher options today to post two things about Talkback, the screen reader on Android for those who use it.
Firstly Google released an update to Talkback on the Play store yesterday with a couple of nice new features. Here is the list from the “What’s new” section:
-Earcons and TTS pitch changes to indicate text formatting
-Automatic scrolling of lists during linear navigation
-Spells text replacements after speaking them
-Moved granularity selection to the local context menu
-Gestures previously used for cycling reading granularity can be used to jump to the first or last item on screen
-Stability improvements to the explore by touch tutorial
-Bug fixes
One I quite like there is the automatic scrolling of lists, which has seemed a little disjointed previously. Now as you swipe through a list it will automatically scroll the page once you reach the last visible item.
Talkback support for last week’s list of simplified launcher.
Also potentially of interest to any Talkback users reading this, I did make some brief notes on the Talkback accessibility of the simplified launchers I reviewed last week and then completely forgot to include it in the post! So for you, here is a little bit on each one. For a full review of the launchers themselves from a large print point of view, see last week’s post: “Launchers Part 2: – Simplified Launchers”:
EqualEyes – As mentioned, EqualEyes works very well with Talkback (including implementing explore by touch on older phones)
Odinhome – text labels (calendar and applications) read but other buttons are unlabelled
Fontrillo – works well in many areas, but not all buttons are labelled
Phonotto simple phone – Buttons are listed twice when swiping with Talkback (once as simply “button” and once named correctly), otherwise seemed to work ok.
Seniors phone by mobile – most buttons have visual text labels and work well although several image only like the ‘back’ button read simply as button)
Phone for Elderly people – main buttons read, battery status etc don’t read.
Coming soon I’ll be posting part 3 of my series on launchers, which will look at a couple of ‘mainstream’ launchers not specifically designed for large print users, but which can be adapted.
22 Point Blog! 
hello, thank you very much for this page, all the info related to accessibility. now I surje one question that I find more accessible lansador with talkback?
I mean, you can access all phone functions and applications accessible way, one of them the wasap, facebook, music, I mean, that is accessible and in my
cel brings android 4.1 2.3, and found nothing but accessible thanks