The Pixel 6 Makes Me Hopeful for More Accessible Smartphones

For a decade, me and lots of different disabled individuals have watched advertisements for smartphones that promised to enhance accessibility with slick, cutting-edge, and life-changing tech. Let’s be trustworthy: traditionally, there was a lack of knowledge on behalf of tech corporations towards these with disabilities. But prior to now 5 years, there have been regular—and vital—enhancements. (Perhaps as a result of these corporations need more cash.) I used to be particularly excited to attempt Google’s new Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro, which have unique accessibility options that construct on those included in Android 12, which simply rolled out to all Pixels.

I’ve a scratched cornea in a single eye, a deaf left ear, weakened and slurred speech, and dexterity points with my palms, so I wished to check the brand new Pixels’ accessibility options to see if they really labored. Spoiler alert: While the telephone nonetheless doesn’t really feel fairly the identical for me because it does for somebody with out disabilities, the hole is narrowing.

Faster, More Accurate Voice Recognition

The Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro are constructed on Google’s in-house Tensor chip, which guarantees sooner on-device machine studying and options powered by synthetic intelligence. One of the options that stands to learn from Tensor is voice recognition. I’ve been looking for a voice recognition program that works for me since 1997. A couple of years in the past, I labored with Google’s Project Euphonia, and after talking hundreds of reiterated phrases, they offered an app with a particular algorithm for me. The app augmented the dictation on my telephone in the whole lot from texts and feedback to Google Docs and Google Assistant.

But the voice recognition that comes with most smartphones has not been a viable possibility for me and many individuals with speech impairments. Our voices should not deciphered the best way voices with out speech impairments are, leading to unintended instructions like calling the fallacious particular person at midnight or misunderstanding “I love new paintings” for “Hi love, you painting?” Because my phrases are regularly misheard, my favourite characteristic of the brand new dictation mode was the flexibility to say “clear” and delete the textual content as a substitute of getting to the touch Gboard. When I used voice recognition with Google Assistant or mentioned brief, declarative sentences, the voice recognition was flawless. Google’s Voice Access, which lets you management your telephone hands-free, was a lot simpler to make use of due to this accuracy. However, if I didn’t clear my throat typically or used voice recognition at evening when my voice will get drained, it was much less correct.

Compared to previous Pixels, the voice recognition is far more exact—it’s simply not excellent. I examined the telephones with phrases like vexatious, vicissitude, and tough particular names like Megan thee Stallion in Google Docs. For me, the voice recognition received round two sentences out of each 4 proper. I ought to observe that I examined the Pixel 6 telephones proper out of the field. I spent two years with my Pixel 4a, with the Euphonia app and Google’s AI studying my voice and speech patterns. Google has mentioned that voice recognition improves as you utilize it, so I anticipate this to get higher.

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Android 12 Gains New Gesture Controls

Android 12’s most impressive accessibility feature, at least on paper, is called Camera Switches. It offers the user a hands-free alternative to navigating an Android phone: You can scroll, select, go to the home screen, etc. using gestures like looking in a certain direction, smiling, raising your eyebrows, or opening your mouth.

I’ll be honest: It’s incredibly complicated to set up. I won’t walk through each step here, but basically you can use a gesture to either start auto-scanning through multiple elements on a new page until the phone highlights your choice, or you can choose to use point scan, which triggers bars that go up/down and left/right across the screen until there is a fixed point to select (you can change the bars’ speed if you want). If that sounds complicated, it’s because it is.

The bottom line is that it can be a lengthy process to get to your desired task, but once you’re on the right spot, the feature works like a charm—for the most part.

Camera Switches worked best when I stuck to the facial expressions instead of eye movements to perform tasks. But because I’m limited to three switches and my left eye is 40% stitched shut, it’s still too time-consuming for me to adopt as my primary method of navigating around my phone.

One of the other features I was excited to try is Voice Access’s new Gaze Detection. This means Voice Access—which is listening whenever it is on—only works if the camera detects the user gazing at the camera. This is helpful to avoid accidental commands if you are multi-tasking, out with friends, or don’t want to skip a favorite song. Gaze Detection is a great idea but it was finicky for me. There’s a smiley face that appears at the top of the phone when the mode is turned on. It turns blue when it recognizes you looking at the camera and has a line through it when you are not. That line constantly flickered for me. However, Gaze Detection is in beta, and the glasses I wear may cause difficulty—and I’m sure the whole stitched eye thing doesn’t help.

A More Accessible Android Interface

Reviews of Android 12 have glossed over what the new design means for the disabled—and there’s a lot to be excited about. The on-screen volume slider is thicker, which makes it easier for a person’s finger to control it—and the same applies to the big buttons in the notification shade and your phone’s settings. Some may think these larger buttons are childish, but many people need those bigger buttons to have even an average smartphone experience.

The bigger visuals come at a price: a few extra seconds of scrolling or pulling down a window to see more options. That’s hardly a deal-breaker, but it’s worth noting the drawback. Essentially, Google has chosen a spread-out, ranch-style home instead of a stacked, multi-story building, which is a layout particularly good for the disabled. This is where the Pixel 6 Pro’s bigger 6.7-inch screen makes a difference by fitting more text on-screen. Also in the Pro’s favor is that the haptics seem stronger than the standard Pixel 6’s.

With past versions of Android, you could enlarge app labels and magnify text in apps, but it’s nice to see that Google is making the easier-to-read text the standard. Android 12’s much talked-about Material You feature also aids the visually impaired. Material You takes colors from your lock or home screen and makes them a theme throughout your phone, producing a natural aesthetic to complement Android’s contrast options. For example, I use my phone in dark mode, and the background photo on my lock screen is a Caribbean island, so my theme is turquoise and the text in my notification shade is gray. This contrast is easy on my eyes, and you can go into the settings to customize your Material You colors if you want.

Back in 2019, Google introduced a feature called Live Caption, which captions videos in real time. Live Caption is a boon for the d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing communities, but I think it’s being overlooked by the general public. Live Caption can easily be toggled on/off in settings, and it allows the user to read any video when the sound is turned all the way down, which is useful when you’re in a cafe, out shopping, or trying to avoid being glared at on the bus. Google should consider two things here: make the text box customizable so the user can make it thick or as wide as they want, and make it possible to choose any colors for the text and text box so they’re easy to see.

A Promising Work in Progress

Although neither the Pixel 6 or Pixel 6 Pro have the effortless, disability-friendly Face Unlock, and the Pixel 6 Pro’s tall body and curved edges might be unwieldy for some, the Pixel 6 phones are some of the most accessible Android phones today—and that’s entirely due to their software. The bigger, more efficient battery also prolongs a charge, which is often eaten up faster if you’re always using AI features like Live Caption.

But batteries will get higher and different Android telephones will finally achieve options much like Camera Switches or Gaze Detection. What actually units Google’s telephones aside is the voice recognition made potential by that Tensor chip. While it could not clear up each accessibility situation, or be as instantaneous as I had hoped, it’s probably the most substantial accessibility upgrades in a Pixel.