Let me also say that I haven’t exactly been an Apple fan in the past. I’m a PC guy and have been for years. And one the biggest problems on a PC since the inception of the iPod is iTunes. To put it simply, iTunes on a PC just sucks! It has from the start and it still does. But now I have no choice but to use it if I want to put my music collection on my iPad or stay current on updates. I wish there was another option.

Then there’s the Safari browser. Yeah, that sucks too. I can’t believe the number of web sites I have trouble with because of Safari and they aren’t flash sites. I actually agree with Apple’s decision not to support flash because flash is a memory hog. No, I’m talking about simple things like scroll-bars on a web page that can’t be scrolled. On numerous sites I simply cannot see content “below the fold” and there appears to be nothing I can do about it.

Safari also doesn’t deal with the WordPress editor very well. Once I get beyond a couple of paragraphs I can’t convince Safari to keep the window where I’m typing which is pretty annoying since I can’t see what I’m writing. I can scroll back down but as soon as I type one character the window automatically scrolls back up on it’s own.

That’s enough of the bad for now, though I may have more to say in another post. For now let’s look at what works well for me.

Pinch zooming, which I believe has been around for some time on the iPhone and iPod, is a big plus. Many web pages wouldn’t be readable to me without it. But it’s important to note that pinch zoom doesn’t work everywhere. Primarily it works in Safari and in the email app. And sometimes, for reasons I’ve been unable to determine, pinch zoom doesn’t work in Safari. Also many web pages will only zoom so far and if you go farther it snaps back smaller when you lift a finger.

Fortunately there’s another option, the three finger tap. The three finger tap zooms the whole scree which means it no longer fit so you have to pan left and right as well as up and to see everything. This panning must also be done with three fingers. It is this feature, which is turned off by default, that really makes the iPad usable for me. The fact that it works everywhere means I can access menus and settings that would otherwise be out of reach for me.

Being a longtime PC guy means I’ve had to make some adjustments but they’ve been mostly painless. I’m looking forward to iOS 4.2 coming out next month which is supposed to add multitasking, folders and printing. Being able to print will make a big difference to me, as will being able to organize my apps into folders.

Apple has done a lot right in the iPad but there are real problems with Safari and Apple needs to address them. For most people the iPad is a convenience in addition to their computer. For people like me with major vision impairment it is a replacement that needs to work on the web.

Another example of the changing reality is trying to follow package directions on food.  I keep a large magnifier in the kitchen for reading package directions.  The problem is, so many food labels are printrf with very poor contrast.  Like whitr trxt on an orange background.  I can’t make that our no matter how much I magnify it.  So I end up calling my wife to the kitchen to read it to me.  It’s really very frustrating.  I know that food companies aren’t just messing with the vision impaired but they aren’t exactly thinking about us either.

I remember reading several years ago about standards for web design that make reading web pages much easier for the visually impaired. The problem is, no one thinks about it unless they or someone they are close to is actually visually impaired.  There have been moves to address the problem but so far as I can tell, none have met with much success.

So if you’re reading this and you have a web site or you are in any way involved in producing any kind of copy intended for wide consumption, please give so thought to those of us who struggle to read what you write.

Note: Please excuse any typos you may find in this post.