Finding apps that accomodate our needs can be difficult, even for those who tolerate closed source apps. This is especially true when your ability to use a phone is limited in the first place. I want make that easier by pooling our experiences with F-Droid apps.
If you can personally recommend apps that add functions, increase usability, or replace Google utilities like speech engines, please comment below. I can use my phone without alternate input methods like switches and I have no sight issues aside from light sensitivity, so input on these factors is especially appreciated
Dark Theme: forces apps to use dark mode for variants or older versions that don’t support automatic dark mode. Very useful for avoiding eye strain when apps don’t include a manual toggle.
QuickTiles: change various settings and add shortcuts using Android quick settings tiles. Useful for opening accessibility apps without backing out to your launcher. Since you can change a few accessibility settings like adjusting brightness. It’s not as advanced as the command centre accessibility shortcut on iOS, but to be fair, it isn’t really intended to. Chooses dark or light mode automatically.
TTS Util: uses system Text-To-Speech engine to read out text that’s written or pasted in. You can save this as a .wav file. It’s simple and lightweight. Chooses dark or light mode automatically, though an option to manually switch is being worked on.
Appreciate the heads up, but could this be moved to another thread? Bringing in a different topic of discussion makes it very difficult for some disabled people.
Using myself as an examole, when I’m on a bad day, I might have to re-read a single paragraph 3 times before it sticks. It’s a challenge to get any useful information out of forum threads with two or three conversations are happening at once on those days. It’s frustrating when you can’t access the help you need because it’s been unintentionally obfuscated.
I’d like to discuss Android’s approach to accessibility permissions in a separate thread, and it would make things a lot easier for people in my position.
Apologies if this sounds weird or doesn’t make total sense, it seems I’m not totally clear-headed.
Edit: If you post a screenshot without an image description, blind users don’t know what it means, because screen reader software can’t read it out.
I’m not asking for a site-wide policy change. I’d just really appreciate it if in this thread about apps for disabled people, we didn’t accidentally exclude some disabled people.
Edit: If you post a screenshot without an image description, blind users don’t know what it means, because screen reader software can’t read it out.
Defaults for this sucky discourse software were used. It should give you a file name alt text, which is descriptive in this case, Screenshot_2022_05_06_esper-io-damn-jscript. If there’s a better way, let me know.
I’d say don’t worry about the esper.io post linked by @Licaon_Kter, it’s only for sideloading and as far as I can tell won’t even affect Android. And apps can be useful for accessibility reasons without using the accessibility API.
Back on topic: I’ve been told by several blind people that Raise To Answer has been helpful to those with Android versions that don’t support picking up a call by putting the phone near your ear natively. After https://blindandroidusers.com/ picked up on the app I improved Talkback support and I try to keep Talkback support in a decent state for Catima (in case you need loyalty cards for stores) too.
Don’t really have any other suggestions as I don’t have accessibility needs myself, but I’m hoping this still helps given some blind users helped me improve its Talkback support
