August 17, 2012: Verizon Wireless today announced a suite of services for Verizon Wireless Android™ smartphones running Android 2.2 or higher to help customers who are blind or have low vision perform ordinary wireless tasks in a simple, intuitive way.  Mobile Accessibility is a suite of 10 accessibility apps, from speech recognition to text-to-speech technology, and offers customers who are visually impaired an innovative way to use their smartphones.

The Mobile Accessibility suite was developed by Code Factory, and features intuitive touch screen navigation, speech recognition and voice synthesis powered by Nuance’s Vocalizer® text-to-speech technology, as well as Braille output.  Customers get automatic access to all of the features once the app is downloaded and do not have to launch each app individually from within the suite. 

To experience the full functionality of their Android smartphones, customers can use the touch QWERTY keyboard with voice synthesis or the voice recognition technology to perform a variety of tasks, including:

• Phone: Make calls, answer calls, hear the caller ID and manage call log
• Contacts: Manage contacts, even those from social networks
• SMS: Compose and read text messages
• Alarms: Set alarms
• Web: Full Web-browsing experience with the ability to navigate faster to content of choice (links, paragraphs, headings, forms, etc.) and bookmark favorite webpages
• Calendar: Create, edit and delete a calendar entry
• Email: Compose and send emails
• Where am I?: GPS app that gives updates on current location
• Settings: Change ringtone; configure feedback and notifications (vibration or audio); configure keyboard echo, punctuation verbosity, speech pitch and rate, etc.
• Quick access: Locate date and time, phone status information such as battery level and network coverage, number of missed calls and unread messages, etc.

Customers can download Mobile Accessibility in Verizon Apps under Productivity and Tools > Utilities on Android smartphones with operating systems Android 2.2 or higher.  There is no charge to download the app, but a Verizon Wireless data plan is required and usage may count towards a customer’s data allowance.

More information about Mobile Accessibility, is available on the Accessibility section of the Verizon Wireless website.