That Android Show

Listen to That Android Show Episode 29: Ye Skeptical Bodies

Google i/o is just about to descend upon San Francisco. However, there is still a lot of news and info to cover before that event. Plus, our own Access Ana is on the gound at i/o and we’ll get a first hand account of the show next month on Episode 30. But we are getting ahead of our selves aren’t we? Episode 29 is here with talk of hardware, games and what’s new in access. Oh, and a really full Mailbag!

In the news:

Chrome 35 for Android now has native accessibility support

What Android 4.4.3 could mean about the future of Android updates

KitKat hits 13.6 percent of all Android devices, eclipses Ice Cream Sandwich

The Master Plan: Why Samsung Is Ditching Android

Google to sell Project Tango tablet dev kits for $1,024

Check out the new app Oculi

fleksy is trying to set up beta testing for Eyes-Free users in June.

Google Now can set an alarm to help remind you when it’s your stop on public transit

Hardware Demo: Galaxy S5

Steve and joe are now sporting the Galaxy S5. As we discovered last month, this phone has many access options not seen in stock versions of Android. Steve takes us on a small tour of what you might encounter when using the new phone. And find out how it got him to give up Nova launcher!

Developer Interview: Nick Barbato of Diceworld

Joe sits down with one of the developers of the game that has taken the blind iOS community, and probably your social media feed, by storm. Heark Nick and Joe discuss what challenges the team faced when making their app accessible with Talkback, ow much friendlier the development platform is on Android and how you can help make the DiceWorld experience even better with your feedback.

App Review: Quizup

Did you know our host JJ adores game shows? Well he does and he can’t wait to shae just how this new TalkBack friendly app is perfect for scratching that casual game itch. Leaderboards, experience points and all in the time span it takes to answer seven questions.

Mailbag

Wow did you all ever send in the iReports, er um A Reports thanks to Ana, this go around. Check out the show to hear those, however, take a gander at this from Jessica too.

“Long winded as usual (sigh). But if you read this I think it will please you and maybe be an encouragement to others to try android os out perhaps. Hello. First I would ask something. Why is android access.net and anna’s site out of date? People aren’t likely to try things out if info is out of date and hasn’t been updated for a while. Enough with the negative. I was an iphone person since iPhone 3gs. I guess you could say I was a pioneer in the touch screen accessibility field. I have a lot more computer experience but when I talk about it I fear people think I am bragging so I am going to leave it out of this message. I know nothing about programming however. Or very little. And if I had to administrate a system I probably would have a headache. I am more about showing people how to use their devices properly although I am not certified to do so. For years I told people stay away from android. Please bear with me. There is good news. I got my iPhone 5 in 2012 or 2013. Huge update from the 3gs. I also got the iPad mini first generation around this time. The iPad mini did not connect with me very well and just sat on my desk a majority of the time. And I got to thinking. My friend over here needs something he can use and he actually likes it now. He can download books from bard among other things and although he doesn’t have things down as well as I like he knows how to delete books and how to download ones from the recently added audio books and magazines and is having the time of his life. For him the bigger screen works. For me it does not. Around this time. I still told people to stay away from android. But I was becoming less anti android. I would read anything I could find and occasionally tuned in to your android show podcast. I also briefly would listen to other android related podcasts. And slowly my attitude changed. I still growled at google and amazon a bit from time to time. But things began to change at a much faster rate by then. This brings me up to about a few weeks ago and why I am emailing you now. I needed another device besides my iPhone for playing radio or books in the background. Not liking the iPad mini and not liking the iPad I figured ok maybe it is finally time to dip my feet into android. I was able to get a nexus 7. And although the size was better than the iPad mini I had had it was still slightly too big. But I got enough of a glimpse into android that I totally switched gears. Which I am sure shocked most of my friends who knew how anti android I was. As I told a friend of mine. I used to be all apple nothing else. But now I am almost all android. And some apple. I suppose balance is a good thing. And it taught me to not be so judgmental. I was able to find out that I could get a galaxy s5 if I wanted too. I had already had listened to podcasts talking about the galaxy s5 and said I may as well. It has to be smaller than the nexus 7 and it may just be that missing link. I do not have mine here yet. I will probably have it by the time you all read this however. A person in the house however got one and I was briefly able to play with it. And I knew as soon as my finger hit the screen that this is what I was looking for. A big phone. Bigger than i am used too. But small enough screen for me to not get lost on. And my gestures were actually behaving much much better on the smaller screen. I fell in love with it and can’t wait for my own. Although I have too. So. What about the nexus 7 I got. I gave it to a person in the house who really needed a tablet. What about my iPhone 5. It will be an iPod touch for those apps that will not work on the android one for some reason or that simply aren’t available on android os for some reason. So all that to say this. Thank you for being there. Thank you for not giving up. Listening to your show thank you for being truthful and honest and to the point. And don’t stop. Although I wish the information sites were more up to date. Some people don’t have time to listen to an hour long or longer podcast at times. And if info is out of date on the sites they think man so is the android really accessible or not. I will close by saying what some people on the show have already said. iOS works better in some areas. And android os in certain areas. I myself think the size of the device does matter. But it depends on the person. I work better with smaller screens. Many people I know however do much much better with the bigger screens. So it really does depend on the individual. But now I believe everyone who can anyway should have at least one android os device. And one iOS device. However I am pro android now. And not anti apple. But not as pro apple as I used to be. Apple started it all. And for me I will never forget that. And will be always grateful to them for that. But android works better with my brain than iOS does. And I haven’t a clue why. It just works.”

Next up, two comments from Mike Arigo from our SeroTalk Podcast network forum on SAMNet. What is SAMNet you say? Well just one of the coolest places to hang out and talk with like minded others while enjoying hundreds of hours of content. pick up a 14 day free trial by heading to the Serotek Downloads page at

“Hopefully the folks on the show read this forum, or, let me know if I should use the resources@serotalk.com email address instead. Regarding the article on bloatware, Steve has it right, custom rom. Once you try a rom like cyanogen, you will never go back to stock firmware. I just ordered an unlocked galaxy s 3, I may try the samsung software, but will probably install cyanogen pretty quickly. And, there is a program on windows and the mac that will automate the process, so it’s very simple now. This is another reason to avoid carrier phones, in particular, verizon and at&t lock the boot loader on all of their phones now.”

And here is comment number two….

“Got an idea for the next show. You should do a segment on the cyanogen installer. I got my galaxy s 3 and have tried it, it really works well and lets you easily replace your stock rom with cyanogen. The only thing is, cyanogen uses its own set up screen, so you can’t enable talkback on this screen. Aside from that, it works great. My galaxy s 3 is now running cyanogen 11, based on android 4.4.2 and it’s very fast. Now my next task is to get a galaxy s 4 and give that a try.”

You know its kind of tough enough for us to cover just stock apps and the stock experience. While platforms like amazon OS and the ones of which you speak are becoming more and more access friendly all the time, its just a portion of Android that would take a lot of time for us to cover on our current format. Maybe, one day, we could do a special? Until then, we’ve got i/o and tons more to dicuss in Episode 30 next month.

Contacting the Team

We’ve had our say, now its your turn. Drop us a line at or send us a tweet at our official Twitter page.

You can also follow our hosts by visiting

Ana’s Accessible Android blog or

JJ at AndroidAccess.net.

Finally, Check out Steve’s Twitter feed.

Thanks for listening!

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