Quick Review on Quick Communication

Last week I used my new iPhone-as-communiation-device quite heavily and thus now have a real review on how the device functioned for me "in the field."

Joel Smith wrote an article Top Ten "Most Wanted" AAC Features which lists his top 10 features. It's a great list, so here is the device reviewed vs. each feature.

1) Durability: See stress test information aboutiPhone or iTouch.

2) Reliability: From Joel Smith's article, "There is no excuse for a device to crash, emit squeals or whispers instead of the desired voice, needing to be "rebooted," etc." On the downside, the software did crash out, more than once, when I was programming it, as happened in the demo video. On the upside, the software comes back to life even faster than seen in the demo video. Also of note is that checking email or running other processor-intensive applications will impact the reliability of the speech software, noticeably, and significantly enough so that the device is no longer adequate for communication (e.g., a 10+ second pause before something is spoken is not acceptable). Avoid requesting email, a web page, or otherwise have anything else "running" on the device in the background if the communication software is to to respond quickly enough to be viable.

3) Portability: The freedom to walk around with the device, to put it in a pocket and have hands free and then pull it out again and speak--to not have to lug 6 pounds of equipment everywhere, be worried about where to set up, be worried about chairs and flat surfaces--fantastically liberating!

4) Battery Life: A full day of use and half battery power was left. Not as good as some dedicated devices but a zillion times better than a laptop that only gets about 2 hours before needing a recharge. Definitely on the good end!

5) Bluetooth: Device is capable, but feature is not (yet) capitalized on.

6) Wireless Networking: Yup, check!

7) User Upgradeable Software: Also, check.

8) Customizable Appearance: Indeed, check. Also of note, the software gives the user a choice of background and text color, and size of the text and icons. For anyone who has difficulty reading certain color combinations or contrasts (*raises hand*) this is an excellent accessibility feature.

9) Inductive Charging: There are a wide variety of charging options available, including cradle-types and converters for international use.

10) Speech Quality: Acapela is about as good as it gets right now. However, a good quality portable speaker is a necessity; the built-in speakers are in no way adequate.

Additional Plus #1: Not having a screen or large piece of equipment between me and my communication partner changed the dynamic of interaction for the way better. People adapted to me using the device much more quickly and naturally, and were better able to ignore the device and focus on me the person and what I had to say.

Additional Plus #2: Awesome and active user community.

Additional Minus: I type 80-90 words per minute on a regular keyboard, fast enough (along with some programmed shortcuts) to keep up pretty well with slow-end-of-typical conversational speed. I type significantly slower than that on the iPhone keypad, even with the word prediction. However, it's a little hard to really complain about this considering the trade-off in portability and mobility. Looking forward to a portable bluetooth keyboard--then I can have the best of both worlds!

There are features I'd like to see in the future, and nitpicks I could make, but overall I couldn't be happier.

Is anyone else here using Proloquo2Go? If so, what do you think?