Submitted by BrailleTouch on

Greetings and Happy Holidays!
My name is Caleb, and I'm one of the developers of a new iPhone app called BrailleTouch. BrailleTouch allows you to type using braille on your touchscreen, and is based on the standard six key braille keyboard. We are excited to announce that BrailleTouch will be on the App Store by the end of January! We hope that you will like BrailleTouch and find it useful. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have, and I've included some more information about the app below.
With BrailleTouch, you can send text messages, emails, and tweets from the touchscreen braille keyboard. You can also copy text you type in braille to the clipboard and paste it into other apps on your iPhone. There is a free version of BrailleTouch, so you can try it before you buy it. The free version lets you type in braille and hear the text you entered. Many braille instructors have told us that they would like to use BrailleTouch as a teaching tool, which the free version will support. Additional features are available as an In App Purchase. The upgrade allows you to send text messages, emails, and tweets from the touchscreen braille keyboard, and also allows you to copy text from the touchscreen braille keyboard and paste it into other apps on your iPhone.
BrailleTouch is based on research conducted at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, where I am a graduate student. My colleagues and I tested the software with eleven volunteers who are blind. We found that people who knew the standard Perkins braille keyboard were able to master BrailleTouch within an hour of practice and type at an average of 23 words per minute using Grade 1 braille. We received such positive feedback that we were inspired to take this research out of the laboratory and release BrailleTouch to the public. We hope this software will provide a helpful alternative to the VoiceOver split tap keyboard, and that it will help improve the mobile computing experience for people in the blind community who use an iPhone.
BrailleTouch is fully compatible with VoiceOver. It works on the iPhone 3GS through the iPhone 5, iPod touch models since the 3rd generation, and requires iOS 5.0 or a later operating system. BrailleTouch is only for the iPhone and iPod touch, and is not supported on the iPad. The first release is based on North American English Grade 1 Uncontracted Braille. You can choose to hear speech feedback for each character you type, each word you type, or both.
More information about BrailleTouch is available on our website:
http://brailletouchapp.com/
The website includes a User Guide and Frequently Asked Questions. You can also sign up for our email list, and we will notify you when we have an exact release date in January for the app.
We are also on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/brailletouch
With the free version of BrailleTouch, you can try out the touchscreen braille keyboard and hear the text that you typed read back to you. The Upgrade allows you to send text messages, emails, and tweets, and also allows you to copy text from the braille keyboard to paste into other apps. The upgrade costs US$19.99.
I am happy to answer any questions you may have. We are very excited about the upcoming release of BrailleTouch on the App Store. I hope that you will like BrailleTouch and find it useful.
Best wishes and happy holidays,
Caleb
The BrailleTouch Team
http://brailletouchapp.com/
[I have edited this post, based on a change to simplify the upgrade process to get the full set of features.]
#1 Exciting, but...
Submitted by Scottsdale on
#2 Sounds Great
Submitted by sockhopsinger on
#3 One more thing
Submitted by sockhopsinger on
#4 Grade 2 braille
Submitted by BrailleTouch on
#5 No grade 2??
Submitted by Paul H on
#6 Still very fast - even before Grade 2
Submitted by BrailleTouch on
#7 Pending launch and grade 2 implimentation
Submitted by Paul H on
#8 Re: Pending launch and grade 2 implementation
Submitted by BrailleTouch on
#9 ipad be more beneficial?
Submitted by Will on
#10 no free version yet?
Submitted by Will on
#11 Thanks for letting us know
Submitted by banana on
#12 Comparason with other technologies
Submitted by Paul H on
#13 My Two Cents
Submitted by Cherokee Eagle on
#14 turkish character
Submitted by muharrem on
#15 RE: Comparison with other technologies
Submitted by BrailleTouch on
#16 Language Support
Submitted by BrailleTouch on
#17 Hi, I must start off by
Submitted by alex wallis on
Hi, I must start off by saying like everyone else on this thread I think it is a massive shortcoming of this app that grade 2 isn't included in the app right from the start, OK maybe your testers said release the app now and finish grade 2 later. But to me at least the only advantage of using an app like this would be the ability to use grade 2, as an app like fleksy is fast, but at least for the moment if the app can only do grade 1 and is as fast as fleksy, what's the advantage of using it? regarding braille, does the app support UK braille? As I have no idea what the differences are between US and UK braille. I will be interested in trying the app, but given that the app has been in development for so long, why not take the time, wait a few months finish grade 2 then release?its not like there has been huge pressure from the public for a release, you could have taken as long as you wanted to get grade 2 sorted and then announced a release date.Oh well, I will give the free app a try but won't pay for any upgrades til grade 2 is supported and when UK braille is supported.
#18 Add-on Pricing
Submitted by jscholes on
#19 US vs. UK braille
Submitted by BrailleTouch on
#20 Exciting.
Submitted by KLove on
#21 I agree with you there.
Submitted by Shersey on
#22 iPads?!
Submitted by Kirsten Edmondson on
#23 Why BrailleTouch is not availble for iPads
Submitted by BrailleTouch on
#24 A question about supported Braille languages
Submitted by Paul H on
#25 Unified English Braille (UEB)
Submitted by BrailleTouch on
#26 Braille Encodings and the BrailleTouch app
Submitted by BrailleTouch on
#27 Thoughts on the Braille Touch
Submitted by AnonyMouse on
#28 Re: Thoughts on the Braille Touch
Submitted by BrailleTouch on
#29 face book integration?
Submitted by John Gassman on
#30 Re: face book integration?
Submitted by BrailleTouch on
#31 Re: Add-on Pricing
Submitted by BrailleTouch on
#32 business structure, in fact everything, seems wrong to me
Submitted by synthesizer101 on
#33 Braille Translation Tables
Submitted by BrailleTouch on
#34 Exciting and Innovative
Submitted by Jen on
#35 Caleb, Firstly I just want to
Submitted by Khafsa2015 on
#36 A Good Point
Submitted by Michael Hansen on
#37 Great Work
Submitted by Borostar on
#38 Take grade 2 seriously
Submitted by Weary Mouse on
#39 BrailleTouch - upgrading to full version
Submitted by BrailleTouch on
#40 When we think about Cost
Submitted by Roosterloop Drew on
#41 Congrats
Submitted by Maria Georgakarakou on
#42 Re: Congrats
Submitted by BrailleTouch on
#43 This app sounds great! a few questions though
Submitted by Tangela on
#44 Re: This app sounds great! a few questions though
Submitted by BrailleTouch on
#45 I've a strange question
Submitted by sockhopsinger on
#46
Submitted by sockhopsinger on
#47 Re: An interesting question
Submitted by BrailleTouch on
#48 Ahh, now I see
Submitted by sockhopsinger on
#49 Contracted braille
Submitted by Oliver Kennett on
#50 Re: Contracted braille
Submitted by BrailleTouch on