Sun 25 Jul 2010, 10:52 am
Hi all,
I suppose this could be in the general discussions, but I just got an HTC Legend, which is my introduction to Android, so that is the only experience I can comment on.
A little side remark first. I almost didn't buy this phone because of the little curled or bent bottom edge. On that basis alone, I would have gotten the Desire except that it was significantly more expensive. In any event, I like that little bend now as it allows you to set the handset screen-side down while keeping the screen completely off the surface of the table. Pretty cool even though it looks funny and adds some width at the bottom.
But that's now what I am writing about!
TEENY-TINY DEFAULT FONT !!! 
I was
very disappointed a the teeny-tiny, itty-bitty default font
which I have since learned is native to Android. I should have researched it, but assumed that in something as cutting-edge as Android, the issue would have been addressed. It is an industry-wide problem. Nokia deals with it. LG does it even better. On the Android, there is no way to scale the font which is
painful and insulting to tens of millions of people who may not be exactly disabled, but are probably past 50 years of age, who cannot comfortably read the default font size. Even the ebook reader that came with the phone does not have scalable font or pinch-to-zoom.
I get it. It's a programming challenge and a design issue. But "Boomers" are more likely to be able to afford these high-end phones than some other demographics, and it is alienating to a large group of potential customers. Then there are all the people who have low-vision which is not age-related. And I am not talking about severe disability where text-to-speech and other accessibility solutions become necessary. There is just a bunch of people who cannot read the phone.
If you have "normal" vision, take your phone, hold it at arms length, or further, until you cannot comfortable read the text. Try using it like that for awhile, and you can get a sense of how frustrating it is for literally tens-of-millions of people!
A universal pinch-to-zoom would be as good (better in some cases) as scalable fonts. Android got it right in IE and for photos. Surely they or a third party developer can expand this feature and make it applicable to every screen ??? !!!
End of Rant!
Aloha,
Rex
Linear Mode
