I use an ipad for college - disability services "bought" it for me, along with a Bluetooth keyboard for taking notes in class.
It's actually pretty good for a lot of low-vision folks, and I know of at least a half-dozen who use them on my campus. It has a lot of built-in adaptability functions, which is the main reason I went with it instead of a netbook where I'd have to buy a whole set of programs to get the same level of accessibility.
The built-in screen-reader reads whatever is on the screen - there's no relying on whether iBooks or whatever app "allows" text-to-speech. It also can read back exactly what's under your finger on the screen, and when it's in that mode the buttons require a different gesture to activate rather than a simple touch. It doesn't take much to remember about where on the device things "should" be, then use the talk-back to fine-tune your placement.
As far as textbooks go, there's already quite a number of services that provide eTextbooks. There are a lot of folks I know using Kno, either on the iPad or on a "regular" computer. I've done their try-before-buy and may use them in the future. Right now I have pdfs of several of my texts, and use them more than the paper versions. (There's one that I can't find, even in bootleg, but it's one I have to have for *every* *class* *meeting* and is one of the giant floppy paper-back kind that's especially hard to manage if you've got hand issues.)
I love eTextbooks. I just don't think Apple's got even half a clue of what they're doing here.
no subject
It's actually pretty good for a lot of low-vision folks, and I know of at least a half-dozen who use them on my campus. It has a lot of built-in adaptability functions, which is the main reason I went with it instead of a netbook where I'd have to buy a whole set of programs to get the same level of accessibility.
The built-in screen-reader reads whatever is on the screen - there's no relying on whether iBooks or whatever app "allows" text-to-speech. It also can read back exactly what's under your finger on the screen, and when it's in that mode the buttons require a different gesture to activate rather than a simple touch. It doesn't take much to remember about where on the device things "should" be, then use the talk-back to fine-tune your placement.
As far as textbooks go, there's already quite a number of services that provide eTextbooks. There are a lot of folks I know using Kno, either on the iPad or on a "regular" computer. I've done their try-before-buy and may use them in the future. Right now I have pdfs of several of my texts, and use them more than the paper versions. (There's one that I can't find, even in bootleg, but it's one I have to have for *every* *class* *meeting* and is one of the giant floppy paper-back kind that's especially hard to manage if you've got hand issues.)
I love eTextbooks. I just don't think Apple's got even half a clue of what they're doing here.