I am blind and currently use an iPhone. One of the things I like about the iPhone is its accessibility. In fact, I'm typing this question on my iPhone. I am able to do this because of VoiceOver, the built-in screen reader. If a blind person such as me wanted a Ubuntu phone, what accessibility would be available?
Ubuntu – Ubuntu phone accessibility
accessibilityubuntu-touch
Related Solutions
There is support for USB tethering, meaning you have to connect the phone to your PC with an USB cable to access the internet. You can enable USB tethering by entering
android-gadget-service enable rndis
in Terminal. This will disable MTP (USB file access). You can re-enable MTP by entering
android-gadget-service enable mtp
From what I've read, USB tethering should "Just Work" with Windows and Ubuntu machines.
There is no UI that I know of for controlling USB or WiFi tethering.
The installation of emacs is possible with the following commands:
sudo su
mount -o remount,rw /
apt-get install emacs
You need a passphrase or a number code for your phone and you need to install the com.ubuntu.terminal-app to input these commands.
Emacs is also started from com.ubuntu.terminal.
Specification of my phone: BQ Aquaris E5 Ubuntu-Edition
# uname -a
Linux ubuntu-phablet 3.4.67 #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri May 29 10:43:18 UTC 2015 8e13c5f armv7l armv7l armv7l GNU/Linux
Attention: As far as I understand what I read before, updating the phone via GUI is no longer possible after that.
Currently, I am asking here whether updating via apt-get is a full replacement.
I am using the following configuration file ~/.config/com.ubuntu.terminal/Layouts/emacs.json for working with emacs using the built-in virtual keyboard.
This configuration is far from ideal. I posted it here, since it is difficult to start without any emacs-adapted soft-keyboard on the console.
{
"name" : "GNU emacs",
"short_name" : "Emacs",
"buttons": [
{
"main_action" : {
"type": "key",
"text" : "E",
"key" : "Escape"
}
},
{
"main_action" : {
"type": "key",
"text" : "T",
"key" : "Tab"
}
},
{
"main_action" : {
"type": "key",
"text" : "Cg",
"key" : "G",
"mod" : "Control"
}
},
{
"main_action" : {
"type": "key",
"text" : "Cx",
"key" : "X",
"mod" : "Control"
}
},
{
"main_action" : {
"type": "key",
"text" : "Cc",
"key" : "C",
"mod" : "Control"
}
},
{
"main_action" : {
"type": "key",
"text" : "C_",
"key" : " ",
"mod" : "Control"
}
},
{
"main_action" : {
"type": "key",
"text" : "Cf",
"key" : "F",
"mod" : "Control"
}
},
{
"main_action" : {
"type": "key",
"text" : "Cs",
"key" : "S",
"mod" : "Control"
}
},
{
"main_action" : {
"type": "key",
"text" : "Mx",
"key" : "X",
"mod" : "Alt"
}
},
{
"main_action" : {
"type": "key",
"text" : "Cw",
"key" : "W",
"mod" : "Control"
}
},
{
"main_action" : {
"type": "key",
"text" : "Cy",
"key" : "Y",
"mod" : "Control"
}
},
{
"main_action" : {
"type": "key",
"text" : "Mw",
"key" : "W",
"mod" : "Alt"
}
},
{
"main_action" : {
"type": "key",
"text" : "Cv",
"key" : "V",
"mod" : "Control"
}
},
{
"main_action" : {
"type": "key",
"text" : "Cu",
"key" : "U",
"mod" : "Control"
}
},
{
"main_action" : {
"type": "key",
"text" : "Cw",
"key" : "W",
"mod" : "Control"
}
}
]
}
Best Answer
Ubuntu Touch is still in its infancy. There is really only 10 or so apps currently available for Ubuntu Touch at the moment providing some core features.
I havent heard of any plans to provide a screen reader to improve accessbility. I believe there will be one eventually however as I havent seen any design plans to implement one I imagine there won't be anything within the next 3 months.
At present Ubuntu Touch can't provide what you're looking for and I can't really even provide an estimate as to when one will be implemented.
If you are able, your best bet would be to contact the mailing list for the Ubuntu Phone developers: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-phone