The must have accessible apps for blind android users

Just new to android or looking for a few new apps for your phone? Below, I have put together a list of the 30 apps I use the most or find I miss when I'm on another device. How about you, what are your must have android apps? Please leave your favourite accessible android apps in the comments below.

  1. Plume for twitter– A fully featured twitter client for keeping up with my peeps
  2. Canadian Weather– Got to know what the weather is going to be like before you leave the house. This app has a ton of information and a great widget
  3. Audible– Need access to my audible books for the long bus trip in to work
  4. Quick Calendar– See where I am going and what's on the agenda for the day with a quick look at my notification area
  5. Lookout Security & Anti Virus– Anti Virus and other featurs including a Great phone recovery system
  6. Talking Location– Verbally lets me know where I am with periodic announcements of nearest addresses andstreet names
  7. Text Talk— This app is optimised for dictating text
  8. Smart Audio Book Player– Set a folder for your audio books and smart audio book player will keep track of where you were last in the book, new books and even allow you to speed up the audio when listeing to books
  9. Tune-In Radio– The king of streaming radio apps
  10. Deadbeef Player– play music how you want to and the formats you want to play
  11. Walkie Talkie– great gps navigation app
  12. IDEAL Web Reader– one of several accessible web browsers
  13. Nova Launcher– way better desktop than the stock 1 that comes with android
  14. Easy aUninstaller– uninstall multiple apps at once
  15. Zello– Multiplatform walky talky app with group audio chat
  16. Sticher– News, Radio and podcasts
  17. Talking Compass– Figure out which way you are pointed
  18. Look Ahead Locator
  19. Scanner Radio– Listen in on police, fire, air traffic controller and other scanner audio from around the world
  20. I Blink Radio– Great app from the Serotek crew. lists many blindness related audio content.
  21. BS Plaer– Plays videos and handles even corrupted files fairly well
  22. Genieor Voice Actions Plus– Great app that works like siri. Ask it questions, get it to look up information or call someone (and much more)
  23. DogCatcher Podcast Podcatcher– best podcatcher around and allows you to play podcasts at faster speeds
  24. ePistol– Note taking app that stores it's files in dropbox in .txt format
  25. The Weather Network– Get weather conditions for many locations
  26. Google Drive– Store content, share content and access material in the cloud.
  27. DropBox– Got to be able to access my dropbox storage and an easy way to transfer apk files to the phone. Pair this with e-Pistol and you have a great note taking solution.
  28. Skype– Make audio calls from your phone
  29. IM+– Connect to any and all instant messaging platforms in 1 app
  30. Lightflow LED & Sound Control– set custom sounds, vibration alerts, vibration patterns and LED patterns/colors for all the different notifications you recieve.

So now it’s your turn, what do you use or find useful? Leave your favourite screen reader accessible android apps in the comments below.

Update: Since writing this article, I have added 2 new applications to my toolbox. Both of which are extremely compelling in my oppinion.

  • Scanthing OCR which is an extremely useful OCR application with complete talkback support. Use it to take a photo of menus, reciepts or other printed material and have it read back to you
  • AquaMail is a fantastic email client that supports multiple email accounts. I have completely switched over to this from the native gmail app. It supports reading mail, your mail list and the actual email using white text and a black background.

By Jeffrey

Developer, teacher, techie, Twit Jeffrey Is A Firm believer in the 3 Ts to happiness: 1) Tools 2) Toys 3) Tech. Interests: IT, mobile devices, assistive/adaptive technology, accessibility and inclusive technology.

49 comments

  1. one app I am not sure if you know about, that I find even better than nova is Apex launcher.  green power is also very useful, and better than juice defender for accessibility.  ES file explorer is nice, especally because you can have it act as an ftp server to transfer files between computer, and phone.  these are just a few that I can think of off the top of my head.

  2. Thanks, keep them coming.   Last time i looked at Apex, it had buttons that were not labelled; if this is no longer the case, that would be fantastic.  

  3. Checked out apex, and still has a few deficiencies.  My main issue is that the main interface does  not notify of scrolling with audio feedback when scrolling from page to page.  Nor does it announce the current page or item on my phone.   There also appears to be a lot of unlabelled buttons once you get into trying to  customise the interfaice.  However, with that said, it’s a slick and clean interface.  I personally will stick with Nova Launcher

    Now, on the other hand I have switched to Green Power and even bought the premium version because I found it was superior to Juice Defender   Thanks a ton for the suggestion.

  4. I use Darwin Wallet for money identification, worked out great on a recent trip.

    I also use an app called UpSoundDown which allows me to use my speaker phone without having to touch anything.

    I am looking for an OCR app that’ll do computer screen scanning, if you find one I’d definitely like to know.

  5. sorry about the apex thing. I know when I had an ICS phone, I really didn’t have issues with it for the adjustments I wanted to make to it.  if you listen to the podcast I did about it, on the phone I had at the time, it did tell me what screen I was on, but maybe that can vary phone to phone.  upsounddown is a very good program, and seems to work on most phones. another good internet radio app would be resco.  I like the author, as when the program wasn’t very accessible, I did email them about it, and 2 weeks later, they made all the buttons to wair you could errow to them.  for audio recording, I love Hi-q mp3 recorder. works great, and is very accessible, and has worked on every phone I have used it on. once I can get a better phone that is better than the Kyocera Malano that I am using now, I will work on suggesting more apps. this phone is just down right offle.

  6. I use Google Goggles on my phone. It is great for identifying objects such as food cans and boxes. It’s particularly nice because you don’t need to scan the bar codes of items. You just point your phone’s camera at things and Goggles will identify them in real time. Talkback reads the results to you as they’re found. In a pinch Goggles can also perform OCR and the text of the document is fully readable.

    Another app I’d recommend is iHeart radio even though the latest versions have accessibility problems. My main reason for mentioning this app is that it is your only choice for listening to a fair number of radio stations that have no available feeds on other programs.

  7. Hello, I’ve had great luck with Runkeeper as a fitness app. I have also tried Nike+ but found the interface horribly inaccessible even under ICS. 

     

     

  8. hello i find the app non as alll in one tool .it  it is use for to cleane the internal and the memory card  and i find it is accessable with talkback also. if their is any other app for to clean it so mention here. and one nore thing  how to transfare the inbound message to the memory card .

     

    1. I think ivona is great; especially if you speak non-english languages where google or acapela doesn’t have a voice availble for those languages.  I’ve found the new google tts engine very good and if you have a real meaty processor, acapela works really well for TTS.

       

  9. If you are a member of Bookshare there is a great Android app called ‘Go Read’ for accessing and reading your downloaded books. Its free compared to the one on iOS

  10. Scanthing is a great app but requires a internet connection but ABB Text Grabber is just as good as scanthing with out the need for internet connection.  In some test I did I found that ABB Text Grabber worked better then scanthing.

  11. Could you share some of your tricks or process for using Abbyy Text Grabber with Talkback ?  I just purchased it from the app store and it appears to have many unlabelled buttons.  With a cursory inspection, I couldn’t figure out how to use it.

    ?

  12. Okay A,B,B Text Grabber has two buttons, the top one is for your device camra and the second one is for your galary.  You want to double tap the top one, wait for the camra and find your shutter button if your phone does not have a physical camra button.  Second, double tap shutter wait for the picture to be taken and then find save close to the bottom of your screen.  Third,  after your done with the camra your going to be dropped into A,B,B Text grabber with a few options: navagate up, crop and read.  To start OCR tap read and wait for it to start OCRing the document.  If no text is found the app will say “no text found”.  Hope this helps someone who wants to try this app.

  13. this is a great thred for me and very useful info for me and i had just bought micromax hd canvas A116 , were the phone dialer is not having the number labeled , so kindly let me know any accessible dialer ? i had try using talking dialer ,however i am finding diffecult . so request your help for the same.

  14. Hi,  I like the andr-ocr app for scanning.  They have been good to us with talkback improvements and it’s nice to have the processing done all on the phone.  I have also been testing the my gluco health diabetes management system which works great on android.  I don’t have a need for this myself, but I have clients who do.  One of the vendors who I seem to recall you aren’t particularly fond of Jeff, is working very hard to get it funded in various parts of Canada.  Then there is brltty which I have just recently discovered.  It even supports usb only displays if bluetooth doesn’t intrigue you for some reason.

  15. Hi:
    thanks for your very informative posts.
    I wanted to ask you if there is a way to subscribe to your blog via email? meaning so that I can receive an email whenever you post something?
    thanks

  16. Hi, I’m looking for an accessible camera app that will also allow me to navigate through my pictures after I take them and send them or upload them to Facebook.  I know IOS has tap tap see but does Android have anything similar.  I also like Darwin Wallet.  I use AT&T Mobile Accessibility from Code Factory so the apps need to work with it.  Does anyone who uses Ideal Web reader use AT&T Mobile Accessibility as well?

    1. I’ve used The built in camera app for android  and had a great deal of success.  Pictures are stored in the file system of the phone.  So you can use any accessible file browser to manage pictures.  I myself use Total Commander, a very fantastic file manager. 

      I have not used mobile accessibility in years as I’ve found Talkback to provide a better experience.  If you want the shell that you get with MA, try equal eyes.

      I use firefox as a browser.  The “nightly alphas” are fantastic.

      Tap Tap See is coming to Android in future, it is my understanding that the developers have started work on an android version.

      Hope this points you in the right direction.

  17. Hi, you may find worthy to explore and try a new navigation app for Android, published on GooglePlay as DotWalker. Features dot by dot travel, announces distance and direction. Includes compass, can record route, add voice descriptions, just for example. I invite any comments and suggestions for further functions or usability.

  18. Hey,

     

    Thinking about finally getting an Android phone, but something that’s bugged me about switching is being able to navigate customer service interactive menus that require you to press a button while you’re on the phone.  Is there an app to allow this from the touch screen or does this work with an external keyboard or phone including a sliding physical QWERTY keyboard using the dedicated number row?  Really, this is my last hesitation to take the plunge so if someone could help, thanks.

    1. You can bring up the dialpad when dialing a # and after dialing that number in order to navigate the automated phone systems.   When you move the phone away from your head the proximity sensor will trigger the display of a button that will allow you to bring up the keypad.

      I would also imagine that a physical keyboard would also allow you to do this.

       

  19. i find the voice on mobile accessibility better to listen to and the explore by touch function on talk back really slow on my galaxy s3, but may return to it to explore.  However we need to email google maps to get them to incorperate more voice input in to their gps service

  20. I am frustrated with the recent update to google maps. I use the navigation system regularly, but can no longerr access this feature. Any suggestions or alternatives? Other aps I use regularly, the Ideal money Identifier and  my local transit companies transit ap.

    1. Personally, I would grab Nearby Explorer from APH, it’s the best money you will ever spend.  It’s by far the superior GPS solution on any platform to date.

       

  21. I use waze locater app. it’s the best I’ve seen. gives you traphic reports, day/night mode, and all sorts of other stuff. you can also chat with your friends as well as other stuff..

  22. hi there, is there a good color identifier app, i’ve been looking for one, i tried color ID free, but that doesn’t seem to work very well? thanks

  23. Nice blog here! Also your web site loads up fast!
    What host are you using? Can I get your affiliate link to your host?
    I wish my site loaded up as quickly as yours lol

  24. Any apps for downloading and listening to music? All the ones that I have tried, were not blind friendly.

  25. Love Nearby Explorer but since I had to get a new phone that only has 8gb, it won’t install the maps because it says I don’t have enough space even though I’ve put in a 32gb sd card. Nearby Explorer doesn’t seem to recognize the card. Any ideas? Love the program and want to use it.

    1. If you go to APH’s website, there is a mailing list for Nearby Explorer.  I have worked with the devs on there to get other bugs fixed.  This 1 would probably be pretty straightforward.

      Discusses Nearby Explorer, the Android GPS app for blind users.

  26. anyone know of a good file explorer or file manager for the new version of kitcat that came out? or can i still reliabley use es exploere? last version i found on googla play asys it’s for cupcake? blast the luck.  any advice would be apreshated. thanks. neo

  27. Also, Does talk back have any other voices? if I have to buy them are they expensive? feel free to email me or whatever..

    1. Talkback can use any text to speech engine installed in the operating system. This means you can choose from PICO, Google TTS, eSpeak, Eloquence, Acapela, Ivona to name a few. Some work better than others. Some are free and some cost per voice.

  28. Hi, i am Alvaro, i am legally blind and run a podcast about low vision and blindness, i want to raise awareness in my show ANDROID FOR THE VI. AND BLIND, my show is called LVB SHOW, if YOU JEFFREY STARKS or any of you would like to be on my show to discuss ANDROID, please email me.

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *