I've held back from posting this in fear its another notch on my Apple Fan boy status.... But.. well.. so be it.. I think this is worth sharing.
iOS 7 (Apples i Devices OS) is due for an update in October sometime ("Fall"). And of all the big announcements this "small" detail didn't make it in the headline news but it is buried in the WWDC videos on accessibility. If you have a Apple Developer account the entire video is worth a watch (you don't need to pay the $100 to get access - its free). Note everything in these (or most things) is pre-release and may change.. but fingers crossed...
See here https://developer.apple.com/wwdc/videos/ You will need to login then go to the accessibility for iOS. Please try that first.. (scroll to about 5 minutes in..)
If you really can't be bothered to get a developer account to view this - you can watch the clip at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZG1j6Kr0no but it may not be around for long...
So in short they have "baked in" (the presenters words - not mine) switch access to the iOS devices. This means you can switch scan across the entire device - without needing any specialist switch box (just the words "Many BLUETOOTH switch boxes already supported" (hint: Komodo have agreed it already supports iOS 7 switch access mode - my guess is that the Perrero will as well since its firmware upgradeable - the only question on that though is which devices iOS 7 will run fully on.. the old-style dock connector devices will be a couple of revisions behind come October)).
The devil is in the detail of course - but you can take a look at some of the settings and how it works. Some settings can be changed - visual highlight, auditory cues, and some scan selection methods.. Interesting how they give the user to all of the gestures in switch access too. Not sure how that will work in practice. VoiceOver, Guided Access and AssistiveTouch has had some pretty big changes since iOS 4 so we can only hope that this gets iterated upon in future releases.
Will
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Will Wade
ACE Centre
Hollinwood Business Centre
Oldham
OL8 3QL
Tel: 0161 358 0151
Fax: 0161 358 0152
www.acecentre.org.uk
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