iChildren ...

With regards to the feminine hygiene connotations of the name "iPad" ... so far, all the women that I have spoken to about the device have remarked once, with a giggle, about the name, and then dismissed it. But blokes seem to be obsessed with making it a running joke, and actually state the name as being an issue hindering the device's appeal to them, for example ; "I would rather have a new amp / guitar / pair of pants / whatever right now. And of course, there's the name ..."

Grow up lads. You won't suddenly become all limp in the trouser vegetables department if you buy one. ;)

iPad, iPad, on the iShore

Well, it is finally here - at the end of January, Apple revealed their long long long awaited tablet to the world. Let's forget all the jokes about the name. I reckon Apple knew what they were doing on that one anyway - there's no such things as bad publicity, right ?

I followed the event on the web, and was pleased to see that according to the official Apple website page, VoiceOver is included. As is white on black, mono audio, and full screen zoom. "Ooooh," sez me.

At the moment my everyday computing machine for email, blogging, arsebook sorry facebook, and the like is a much abused MSI Wind U100 with Snow Leopard shoehorned onto it. This poor little beast has really got the crap kicked out of it by me over the last (nearly) year. It was last year's Valentines Day present from my fiance, and it's had Otto the guide dog chuck a huge solid rubber dog toy onto it - which caused a kernel panic of epic proportions and knocked the RAM out of it's slot, it's been knocked off the arm of the sofa twice - the result was weird screen issue which causes blue lines on the screen up near where the volume control on the menu bar is, and sometimes the w and space keys don't work due to the toast and Marmite debris caught under them. I wanted a netbook, but I didn't want Windows. Or any variant of Linux like Ubuntu, or Jolicloud (my opinion is that screen readers for Linux are arse gravy of the stinkiest sort, namely because I've had no success with them and distrust them as a result). I wanted a netbook with a Mac OS on it. My other computers are macs - the Mac Mini media server, the iMac Garageband machine in the studio, and the Macbook Pro that does dual duty as a bedroom media player linked to an lcd, and my performance machine for one of the bands I'm in. Also, I want my MobileMe files to be shared between my machines. I've got an iPhone 3GS too.

I've tried using my netbook as a performance machine but it just can't cope, despite the fact that all it does is play out pre made backing tracks through itunes or very occasionally Garageband. And much as it is cute to run Snow Leopard on it, the machine is not exactly happy about it, and often using VoiceOver on it is painfully slow in the extreme. The advantages of this machine over the Macbook Pro however are a very bright screen, and a small form factor. I've already got enough shite in my bag on a rehearsal night without adding a 15" Macbook to it. And said macbook is starting to show worrying signs of getting old - it's a 2006 model and it's already had to have a new battery, and a new charger as the last one melted. Sometimes now it refuses to charge, reports vague untrue battery levels and will die without warning (despite many PRAM resets). I'm not thrilled but it's been run hard and often put away wet, to coin a phrase.

So I'm looking for a Mac solution to replace the netbook and back me up in a pinch if the macbook pro throws a wobbler. So is the iPad it ?

Well, potentially. It's small, accessible to me, simple to use and the lack of multitasking could actually be a bonus if all you're doing is playing out backings. No background processes to hog memory. I am finding that the "touch it to select it" idea of the iPhone OS appeals to me more and more as a visually impaired person. I imagine this could have alot to do with the fact that my useful remaining vision works best at a short distance from the object I am looking at, too short a distance to comfortably use a conventional keyboard at the same time. I prefer to get closer than to zoom, as on the iPhone at least, if one were to zoom in enough for me to see the content at a distance, you'd only get one letter on the screen at a time. But the iPad with its bigger screen, well, that's a different matter.

The only sticking point for me is currently no Garageband on the iPad. But there are 140,000 apps for the iphone, and if Apple don't make an iPad version of GB, a third party will come up with a solution that does just as well. There are a few iphone accessories for musicians that may transfer well to the pad, and make me part with even more money.

The only real dilemma is 3g or not 3g ? I know I don't need more than 16GB because all my media (other than performance stuff, which 16GB would be fine for) lives on a mac mini running the Orb server. The iphone version of Orb Live will work on the ipad, and I anticipate an ipad centric version anyway. I have very little media on the iphone 3gs itself - it's all streamed if I want it. So there is no question of whether I need the 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB ipad (or "light, regular or heavy" as the jokers titter).

I have an unlimited data plan with O2 for my iphone, which I use now and again. Mostly it's used during car journeys when I either don't want to talk to my travel companions or am sat in the back of a car and can't hear what they're talking about in the front, or can't get a word in edgeways (which is every time I get in the car with Darryl and his mum). One the one hand I could tether my iphone to my ipad (so far there's nothing to indicate this couldn't be done) for £10 a month - but that does rather feel like a bit of a black eye considering I'm paying for unlimited data already on the iphone itself. I don't imagine O2 will let iphone 3gs owners suddenly tether their ipads to their iphones for free - nice idea, never gonna happen. And if I did tether I doubt I'll find a data plan for the ipad - or indeed a mifi like device - from anyone else which is less than £10 for 3GB and on only a 30 day contract. But you never know.

I've also considered becoming a Fon member (http://www.fon.com/en/info/whatsFon), which is something I may do anyway, but Fon won't help me whilst I'm speeding along in a car, needing some web action.

But for those times, the iphone would suffice just as it does now. The other option is to jailbreak my iphone and do some tethering trickery there, because the word seems to be that unless you're taking the piss with how much data you're sucking down with an illicitly tethered iphone, O2 are unlikely to even notice you. But I'm not keen on jailbreaking on many levels. I like actually Apple's closed app store system for the iphone and ipad. It means the potentially malicious or troublesome crap is filtered out before one gets a chance to install it.

What I'd really like is an iphone compatible tethering option (or a mifi third device option) which is genuinely pay as you go, i.e. you get one, and you put credit on it which lasts until you use it up, and then if you want some more you buy some. I would take an age to use up, say, 3GB - certainly longer than a month. From what I can tell, 3's mifi device is near it. If you buy the version with 3GB added in from the start, it states the data is only valid for three months. I can't seem to find anything yet that says how any of the other top ups are valid for.

However I've got a while to decide whether I'm going for a 3g ipad or not, and to be honest the decision may be more down the price of the ipad itself than anything else.

Before I knew the ipad was about to be born, I was saving up to put a bath in the en suite bathroom upstairs. Oh well. I'd rather have glass and aluminium than white acrylic. :)

VoiceOver in OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard

Just installed 10.6 today, after nearly mugging the postman for my copy which arrived this morning. I recovered about nine gigs of disk space, and my macbook pro (2006 model) is much more spritely.

One of the new features I have been playing with is the ability to label items that are not labelled in applications, or indeed relabel items that already are. Not being able to find any evidence of how to do this - most of the reviews I've seen so far from so-called accessibility experts have basically just rehashed what Apple say on their website, with very little evidence that they've used 10.6 at all - plus the fact that there is no VO 3.0 manual available (that I can find) yet, I had to delve into the VO help (VO+H) to find out how to do this.

Basically, find an item that you want to label or relabel. Press VO and / (foward slash). A dialogue box will appear asking you to enter a label for the current item. Enter one and navigate down to "ok". This works on dock icons too, but it seems system icons in the menu bar for example can't be relabelled. You'll hear the "not available" ding in this case.

This also works for some items on webpages (but not all, seems trial and error right now but there's probably a rule to it) - for example now my online banking customer number input field invites me to "input number here to see how much money you've squandered this month..."

I'm sure I'll get tired of relabelling buttons with witty (to me anyway) ditties, but for now is it not only useful but can add a touch of personality to your mac - for those of us who are still children at heart anyway.

The Windows of the Soul, aka Why I love my iPhone.

Here I am, lazing about in bed, with Jalen the German Shepherd Dog lying beside me - well, in reality the leggy bugger is taking up three quarters of the bed and I'm left with a strip about a foot wide right on the edge. And he's shedding like a thistle down too. But he is an affectionate, if a tad slobbery with his dog snogs, companion for a weekday lazy morning. And he doesn't complain if I tip tap away on my iPhone 3GS like a blue tit with a milk bottle.

I've got the most advanced acessible little computer literally in the palm of hand. It's playing me "Lost In Your Eyes" by the late, great and extremely lamented (in this house anyway) Jeff Healey, and allowing me to have the wierd and wonderful of the web available at any time for my immediate perusal. It is a shiney, smooth, beautiful little thing. It feels like an expensive polished stone. Yet it is warm to the touch and oddly enough, smells - close up as i am - a bit like a car my dad used to have when it had been used for the supper run down to the local chippy and then stood in the evening sun for a while. Why this should be I have no idea.  It's strange but true. That or the fibro is giving me phantom smells again. And it speaks to me. Not just aesthetically but literally.

I gesture to it and like a good little computer it does as it is bid, telling me all I need to know of its actions and processes in a polite and business-like voice.

Sometimes it may sit there and wonder what it is I want from it, but that is because, like a small but eager to please animal, it needs gentle and consistent handling. And although I am gentle, I am too brain addled thanks to fibromyalgia to always remember how many fingers to use to do what. But it's a game beast and usually forgiving.

My Nokia E90, on the other hand, was not such a willing beast. I had it in the six months before I got my 3GS. It needed the Frankenstein modifications that are Talks or Mobile Speak to be of use to me, add on screen readers which hit me in the pocket to the tune of what I paid for the actual hardware of the iPhone 3GS. I also had an O2 Mini SDA or whatever it was, which ran on WIndows Mobile. Oh, the horror. It was a coupla years ago but I still remember the utter refusal for the damn thing to be consistently accessible to me however hard I tried and whatever Code Factory spells I cast on it.

The E90 itself, whilst having a full qwerty keyboard hidden inside, can only be described as a brick. It is neither shiny nor beautiful.  The expression "candy bar" when applied to such mobile phones surely must be the kindest way to describe them - "brick" is what they really are. Mobile Speak made my E90 pretty accessible, but I never did get the hang of web browsing with it. Everything just took sooooo looooong. Except actual typing on it of course. The minature keyboard fairly flew to the tune of my frenzied clatterings.

I think that is my only real hurdle with the iPhone - typing. With VoiceOver on the phone one has to double tap each letter as you select it - or split tap, selecting the letter with one finger, then tapping with another whilst holding down the first. This was my first method of typing, as when gotten right it seemed quicker. But as I have long(ish) fingernails, I was tending towards rolling the pad of my selection finger as I tapped with the other finger, which was causing me to actually type the letter either side of the one I wanted. I have now figured that if I'm going to have nails, I have to type differently. I now choose the letter with one finger, wait for it to be announced, then lift that finger and double tap somewhere entirely different with the other finger to enter the character. This seems better for me, although possibly slower - but I'm making less mistakes, which surely must make the whole text inputting thing quicker overall. This will become a moot point when I go ten pin bowling next however, as all the fingernails on my right hand are bound to be ripped off during the first frame, and thus the left ones will have to come off for the sake of symmetry also.

Other than that small pebble in the road to a happy relationship between me and my iPhone, there has been nothing else to marr the honeymoon period. The bloom is very much still on the rose for me and it - well, I'm not sure what it thinks of me, but I know I am very pleased with it. I am about to take delivery of a dock cum speaker arrangement for it, to put on my bedside cabinet, which surely must be the most definite sign of acceptance - only the very loved things go there: 

My Harmony 525 remote - still going strong despite being cracked and injured after being turfed unceremoniously off the sofa by my fiance when he wasn't paying attention to its whereabouts. 

A picture of my beloved GSD, Bindi, who I lost last year to cancer.  

A little card from my mum telling me how glad she was that I was back in town. I can't read it but that's not the point.

And that's the end of the list.

You get the idea - this is where Important Things live when I am asleep. 

Although I obviously use the 3GS at all times of the day, I especially like using it when I wake in the mornings and the day is hardly begun - when I should really be trying to go back to sleep. It is small enough to let me dip into Twitter or the news headlines or whatever I want, without meaning I have to either sit up as I would with my netbook or even get out of bed - shudder ! hell no - as I would if I wanted to use my iMac. I can see what's going on with the world (which helps focus my mind on less personal thoughts that might otherwise prevent me from continuing my slumber), then drift off back to sleep again. Or I can listen to some music until I start snoring again. And that's another great personal joy of mine too - the ipod aspect of the iPhone.

At home, all my media and music lives on a mac mini connected to the plasma tv and surround sound system downstairs. If I - or my fiance - play anything on it, everyone, well me and he,  has to want to listen to it. Same with my imac or the macbook in the bedroom which serves as a media player. They involve everyone else in the house in your music. I could use headphones with any of these of course, but they hurt my ears. And despite the ratbag nature of my neighbors who plainly couldn't give a rat's bum about they affect my life (see earlier posts) listening to music at half four in the morning could be seen as being a tad unsociable, and I am basically a nice considerate person. So here's where the iPhone comes in - it's my personal little song box, for me and me only. I guess with the dock and speaker arrangement, it will be everyone in earshot's little song box too - but it doesn't have to be. I can snatch it off the dock and it's all mine again.

I wonder if this is an aspect that the (primarily) kids who blast their mp3s out on buses and trains and in Maccy Doo's and so on are missing. Having been a club and radio dj for a living some years ago, I don't feel a need to broadcast my tunes to everyone. And if I did, I've got a band who can make as much noise as one likes. So I value the privacy of the iPhone - it's for me only. I have no great desire to hide anything from anyone, but I don't want to literally broadcast it either. And I can enjoy my tunes without doing that. And I don't have to worry that anyone else around might not like them because they very likely are not going to hear. In my iPhone, they're all mine mine mine.

Of course, the privacy aspect is true of any mp3 / music player if we so desire - but my iPhone has everything I need to define me inside it too, and I don't need to stick that in the faces - or ears - of anyone else. Tunes, podcasts, Torchwood radio plays and dramatisations of Watership down, the names and numbers of people I care for, those who I need to speak to, my calendar which keeps me where I need to be and not wandering off doing something else (essential when one has such a crappy memory as I do). Pictures of my dogs, my fiance, my mum and her cat, of flowers and random animals. Apps that I find useful, like Navigon or fun, like Simon Sings and iPity.

All that stuff defines me, and I have somehow found great pleasure in having it all in one place, on hand at all times. If I meet someone on the bus and get talking, I can show them a picture of my dog. If I need to explain what I have in mind for a particular arrangement of a song to the rest of the reprobates in the band, I can whip out the iPhone and play them the ideas I put together in Garageband. And if I were to be knocked flat by a bus, whoever were to find my iPhone would at least be able to vaguely know me - before they called my next of kin, or stole my lovely 3GS for themselves of course. 

There is a saying that tells us that "The eyes are the windows of the soul." They may well be, but the iPhone is the windows of this woman's soul. And even better, there's no evidence of the computer variety of Windows anywhere. How do you like them Apples, Bill ? ;)

Twitter on the iPhone...

Many native apps exist for Twitter on the iphone, and it seems that Tweetero takes the prize for accessibility for VoiceOver users. But in the rush to get to the App Store and get our dose of appy goodness for our new blind friendly toy, we sometimes forget that there are web apps - i.e. apps for the iphone and other mobile phones - that live on the internet and are accessible through the Safari browser on the phone. These may well afford an even better accessible experience for those of us using VoiceOver, because they are basically webpages.

One I have stumbled upon that ticks boxes for me is called Logpost. It is essentially a front end for Twitter designed for the mobile phone web browser. Just visit the url, sign in with your Twitter details, and off you go. It's designed to be viewed on a mobile screen, so is not cluttered or confusing, which makes it all the better for a screen reader. And so far, from what I have tested, all of it is accessible with VO. You can do most anything from it that you would do on the usual Twitter site on your desktop or laptop, including searching for trends, which is a feature that seems lacking from the accessible apps I tried on the iphone. It can be used in the landscape format too - better for typing in my opinion.

 Of course, it is not as quick to respond as a dedicated native app as web pages have to physically load from links for Twittering tasks, but it is very functional none the less. Result.

Voice guided turn by turn for the iphone from Navigon.

Well, I said I didn't have the cash to try out any of the voice guided turn by turn software for the iphone 3gs just yet. However then I saw the British Isles version of the new Navigon app  for £37.99. The app can be used in portrait or landscape mode, and without an active data connection, which is pretty handy as you don't incur any more sneaky charges once you've bought the thing. Navigon say they will be updating the app with more features in the future, and there is an American version on the way. 

A session of googling the likely forums revealed this app has a pedestrian mode (as well as car, bicycle, motorbike, lorry - but no public transit yet). The price goes up on the 30th of June to sixty quid (all bar a penny) so I bought it on a whim, because I don't own any gps software or hardware already. And guess what ? The app is ninety nine percent (in my experience) accessible with VoiceOver. 

If I were to go through every nuance of the app I'd be here all night, and dear reader, you would die of boredom. The highlights include being able to set your home address and having the app take you home with a handy Take Me Home button right on the main menu. The ability to look up contacts from your address book and navigate to them by car, bike, lorry (heh !) or pedestrian modes. Let's be honest - the Shank's Pony mode is the one we're interested in as visually impaired people afterall. And being able to browse for Points of Interest such as atms and restaurants nearby.

The only unlabeled buttons I've found so far are in the search for point of interest section. However I expect I haven't explored all the in and outs quite yet so don't quote me on that being the absolutely only unlabeled buttons. There are three direct access buttons at the bottom of the search for p.o.i. screen which VO reports as "button", which one can customise in the options to search for your choice of p.o.i., such as atm, train station, shopping, whatever, for quick access. It becomes obvious that they are for this purpose when you fiddle with the options on this screen because you can set them up yourself. You'd just have to remember what you set them at.

As I expected, VO will not read street names when you pass your finger over the map. You can show a map rather than have to put in a route if you want to see what is round you, but VO isn't going to tell you any of the visual info sadly. This is going to be down to the map rather than VO - basically the map in this case is just a big picture afterall I guess. And we all know how screen readers treat pictures. 

But putting in routes via an address is ok once you get the hang of it - it requires a town or city first, then a road, then the number. Below the text field for inputting the info are choices it thinks you might want, for example if you put an N in the field when putting a city or town in, a selectable list of towns and cities beginning with N will appear below the text field. There's a Next button down on the bottom right of the keyboard to advance through this process, or picking one of the list choices advances you automatically.

Picking contacts to navigate to is a matter of choosing the contacts button from the main menu, and picking one out of your address book. 

Once the app accepts the address to navigate to there will be a More button at the bottom of the screen where you can pick what the app calls a Route Profile. A screen asking for a Speed Profile will appear - this is where you choose pedestrian, car, whatever (you have to do this to get the right mode, so to speak, if you're walking it). There's also a save as a favourite button for the address you've put in - a sort of customisable point of interest if you like. Once you've picked your route profile (you will only have to do it once unless you want to change it in the future, the choice sticks if it's not changed), go back to the previous screen and press Start Navigation (top right of screen). Then get going !

The polite female voice gives you accurate directions - in my test from my house to my fiance's anyway. She piped up to tell me to turn right and left as I was on the corner of roads (very useful), told me how many meters to walk and then turn, what roads I was turning onto, when I was on the road featuring my destination, and when I was approaching my destination, and when I'd gotten there. "You have reached your destination" rang out within about ten feet of my fiance's garden gate I'd say.

And when I had reached home again on the return, she informed me pretty much within two feet of the turn to my gate, as my fiance's guide dog indicated the turn. 

Unlike Trekker you can't browse the route beforehand (so far), and it won't tell you the roads coming up on the left or right unless they are on your route (so far). However in the map screen (Show Map from the main menu), the name of the road is displayed at the bottom of the screen - and this is read by VO. It's alot bigger an area to tap in too, than the current location button in Google Maps. So if you were to make a turn and wonder what road you were on, tapping there would cause VO to tell you.

Whether it's for you or not will depend on your own individual perceptions, but what I can say is that the app is accessible in all the right areas. There are no nasty blank areas that are vital to putting in routes or making choices. Once you figure your way around the app, I reckon it's a winner for the money personally when faced with other accessible choices. 

Your mileage, as ever, may vary - if you'll pardon the pun !

OcrNow ! Lite for iphone 3GS

Whilst trip trapping through the app store yesterday, I happened upon a free trial of an OCR program for the iphone 3gs called OcrNow ! Lite. There are others, but this one had a free version which gives you ten goes to see if it works for you. "I'll have some of that", I thought.

OCR, for those who may not know, stands for "optical character recognition", or reading words, to put it simply. Us visually impaired types might have more experience with this than most because it's software which allows us to read printed letters and the like which we maybe wouldn't normally be able to read. You pop your letter on a scanner, scan it, and the software takes a picture of the letter and converts the words in the image into plain text, which you can then read with a screen reader, edit, or whatever else you like - put straight into the trash bin (as is the case for me with junk mail) or run around the place screaming in horror (as is the case for me with household bills).

The iphone 3gs has an improved camera over the previous models (although the app does work on the previous iphones too) and finding this app gave me a thought about what use I could put it to, being a nearly blind bint and all.

Basically, the software takes a picture of your real world item containing the text you want to convert, uploads it to an online server, and then emails it back to you as an attached file in whatever format you choose - options being, pdf, plain text or rich text. You can also have the image itself included if you want. There are similar things floating about for Symbian phones, so I gather, though I've not played with them. Obviously to use this you need an active data connection.

The ocrNow ! app is very accessible via VoiceOver on the iphone 3gs. Hooray !

On opening the app, flicking from the top gets you the app title, an "add" button (this is where you go when you want to get started), and then a set of instructions which tell you what happens and how to do it.

At the bottom we have an "ocrnow" button (the "go" button for when you're taken your picture, basically), a delete button, and an options button.

The options button takes you to a screen with a "using ocr now tab", a "connection details" button, and a "jobs" button.

The using ocr now section gives you some tips about how to get the best results out of the program, more on that later. The connection settings department is where you will find the nominated email address for converted text to be sent, and the ocr server address (I advise not to fiddle with this bit, lol). The jobs button shows you a list of your jobs, how they were interpreted - for example how many characters and words the program recognised, and how many words of those were in the dictionary, plus any "suspicious characters", lol, the program detected. This doesn't mean how many dodgy reprobate types the program might have scanned your surroundings for (though wouldn't that be a triumph of an app ? heh heh) but how many characters the program couldn't quite suss. More about this section in a bit.

Now, here's where I have to point something out. When I started to fiddle with this app, I didn't have the idea of actually reviewing such things. It only occurred to me that my messing about with such things could possibly benefit others when I'd fiddled with a couple of programs and found my way around them already. So when you start this app for the very first time, you may well get a setup screen that tells you what to do and asks you for an email address to send the output to. I can't remember - it was yesterday when I first met the app and I have serious memory problems much of the time. I will try to remember to document the next program I "review" right from the off though.

So, to the meat of the matter.

On the first screen of the app, you have your add button as I said. Press this to get started scanning your text. The camera opens and tells you "viewfinder, image". Here is where the tips the program gives you in the using ocr now section really help. It recommends keeping the item flat, for example on a desk or on a wall. It recommends good light (well, we'll have to chance it on that one I guess). It recommends holding the phone about 13 inches away from the paper if you're doing an a4 letter, for a3 about 20 inches. Try to keep the border of the picture in line with the border of the paper, it says. Well, those of us who can see abit might have better success with this one - but it is worth remembering something that caught me out a few times - the camera on the iphone is on very top right corner of the rear of the phone if you hold it facing you with the home button at the bottom. I guess most of us would imagine it was in the middle of the phone, but it isn't. This makes lining stuff up abit less instinctive but there you go.

Once you think you've lined up your paper, gently double tap the screen somewhere in the middle. This focuses the camera on the item below it. You'll hear a sound when it focuses. I say do it gently because whatever movement you put on the phone will likely mess with the position of it and thus the focus. Double tap the take picture button to take a picture (or use the split tap method if you prefer - I reckon this is better for taking pictures, as it moves the phone less). It's probably worth messing about with the camera if you're so inclined beforehand to find your way around it.

When you've done this, you will get a preview of the image and a "retake" button at the bottom of the screen, and a "use" button. Double tap the use button to use the image (or retake if you've loused it up).

Then you're taken back to the previous screen, which will be showing a preview of your image, and giving you the magic "ocrNow!" button at the bottom left of the screen. Activate it !

You're now taken to a screen which allows you to set the options for your output. From top to bottom, you got the subject text field where you will likely want to put the subject of your email.

Then flicking past that gets you a choice of pdf, text or rtf buttons - then you're told this is the output format you're choosing. Ass backwards I know but you can't have it all. Your previous choice of format is remembered and indicates as selected.

Flicking by gets you a yes button and a no button, then a "return image" description - again backwards. Check yes if you want to have the image emailed to you to.

Then you have your ocr now button, which is where the magic happens (or a cancel button next to it if you have given up all hope by this point).

Activating the ocrnow button sends the image to the server. The screen changes to a progress bar but doesn't say anything when it's done so, give it a wee while. If you've got push notification for your email (assuming you're sending it to yourself and want to get the result on your iphone) you'll know when it's done as an email will come in. If not, about thirty seconds should do it. There's a button at the bottom of the screen which changes from "cancel" to "continue" when it's finished, so if you're light of touch this is a good way to find out when the magic's happened. Double tapping continue takes you back to the screen with the add button for further excitement (or boredom, depending on your point of view.)

Fire up your email on the iphone if you want instant gratification and you're not near your pooter, and look for an attachment right at the bottom of the blurb that the company who make the app write you when they send you your output. Flicking through this take a while. Double tap the attached file to get your outputted text, where you can read it at your leisure.

I have to admit I totally missed the attachment hiding at the end of the blurb to begin with and even emailed the company asking if the text could be sent inline with the email as opposed to attached, as I couldn't read attachments using my iphone (though in the back of my mind I recalled that you could - I just couldn't find them). What a silly cow I am ! They were very kind and said they would definitely consider this option in future version of the app, by the way. They must have thought I was a right eejit though.

If you don't want to wait for email, in the jobs section of the ocr now app you get a list of the jobs you've done (in the program, not in real life, heh) and options to delete them or download them. Choosing download gets you an option to view the output - which will then go to a screen which will read it all to you, but is not interactive so it will read it in one big lump (keep up at the back there, lol) or to email the output, and you can choose where to email it this time as opposed to having a default address set up.

So - does it work and how well ?

Well, yes, it does work. I snapped a letter I had been sent on a4 paper, and after a few tries of lining it up I managed to get an output that sent the entire letter back to me in a format I could actually read, with very few mistakes or missed characters. Anyone familiar with ocr will know that sometimes you do get a few letters wrong here and there, but you know what the word is supposed to be by context and common sense. I tried a book cover - pretty successful but not quite as easy to line up as the letter. I got real words out of it though, and they even made sense ! And a miniscule chocolate wrapper than even sighted folks might struggle to read I'd wager. I got enough to know that it was 54 percent cocoa solids and made by Kraft Foods. I have no idea where I had lined it up in the viewfinder though.

I suspect this concept might be more successful for those with some remaining vision than those without. I have some left so I was able to line the letter up ok with a good light and contrasting background, but not the smaller things I tried. All of this will depend on one's level of sight and perseverance. I imagine some enterprising and inventive types could make a frame for the iphone and the items to be scanned which makes the process of lining up and focusing a snap, but that would rather destroy the on the go nature of the app. Still, if you don't have a solution already, that would be an idea worth considering I reckon - because compared to scanning software and a camera for your computer, or a flatbed scanner and software, or a standalone solution (that's my credit card I hear screaming in the background at the mention of such things !), the app is dirt cheap.

The beauty of it is that there is a trial version which will do you ten goes, and the program is fully accessible with VoiceOver on the iphone, so you can try it yourself and see if it works for you. To buy the full version is £7.99.

I'm going to give it a go tonight at the pub and see how it copes with menus and the like.

If you've got some residual vision and don't want to spring for a mobile magnifier, or don't want to carry one around in addition to your iphone, ocrNow ! may well be what you are looking for ... pun intended.