I have bed eyesight.

I think I might have an answer for you and I have to thank Alancito for it who just answered a similar question. I just read it and while I kept your question out and did some research – getting one for in-law’s birthday who has use of one eye only…

All ipads come equipped with VoiceOver. It sounds pretty amazing! It will read your ibooks to you as you read. It will also give you verbal directions as you use your ipad for different things.

Please check this out.

http://www.apple.com/accessibility/ipad/vision.html

If you can get to an Apple store (you can make a genius appointment) and have someone set it up for you, they can help you go through all that the ipad can do for you with your vision issue.

Books are not cheap, but if you have regular books or if friends have books they don’t need any more, you can have a store like Staples cut off the bindings and scan the book in with a scanner. If you have people close to you who can help with these things, that would be great. If someone has a document scanner, they could scan the book for you on their computer in minutes, download to a cd, upload it to your computer, and then connect your ipad and sync the book to your ipad.

I think Amazon has a lending library. I’ll check it out and get back to you on that.

I hope this helps.

jo4701 wrote:

I already own an Apple Safari desk model..

I think I might be able to get my desk model to read books to me, but I do not know how.

Jo ~ Your "Apple Safari desk model" is presumably a Mac running OS X which comes with a variety of assistive technologies to help those with vision disabilities, including a built-in screen reader, screen and cursor magnification, high-contrast settings, and more. To read about the Mac's VoiceOver, click HERE.

For some mobility with VoiceOver in your home, consider pairing a wireless headset with your Mac, e.g.

NuForce BT-860 Bluetooth headset: Wireless bliss

For travel, consider an iPod touch onto which you could put your books and use the iPod's VoiceOver screen reader. To read about iPod's VoiceOver, click HERE.

Hi Jo,

You had asked about an e-reader with print and voice over. An ipad or ipad mini will do that for you. There are simple e-readers out there, but I don't know if they have voice over. I checked at Barnes and Noble the other day and they were unaware if a nook would do that. I can never find a phone # for Amazon, and haven't had time to check out whether their e-readers have voice over or not.

If you have books already on your computer, they can be synced to your ipad or other reader. You plug your ipad into your imac, go into itunes (or if you don't have it, you can download the latest itunes for free.) Any or all of you books can then be sent to your ipad and you can read them there with VoiceOver enabled. However, I'm not sure if there's voice over for other readers.

VoiceOver will help with so many other things that are explained in the link I gave you earlier.

If you download one of your regular books that is not an audio book, to a cd, it will not help, as they will only play music. If they are audio books, they might play.

Many readers are more than simple readers. They started out small and many are now selling models closer in size to the ipad. (Meanwhile, Apple brought out the ipad mini, though if vision is a problem for you and you need to enlarge the size of the print, you won't get a lot on one page. I know I would find that frustrating.

I have been looking into this subject. We are buying my father-in law an ipad for his 91st birthday in two weeks. He had unsuccessful surgery for a detached retina a couple of years ago and so has vision in only one eye. When we were researching how and if he'd benefit from an ipad we weren't sure, but then I read about VoiceOver and we're all very excited about it. The thing is, too, with an ipad and some e-readers you can do a lot more. His mind is intact. He'll be able to read newspapers, books, etc., There are many games/apps that he'll buy that can exercise his brain. Some months ago there was a thread that went on and on about how nurses/family membes who were finding that their senior parents/patients (some with Alheimer's) became more alert when working with someone on the ipad. It was encouraging. IF you have netflix you can watch movies on it. Your music might be on your computers from cd's. If you have music cd's at home, you can quiclky upload them to your computer, put them in itunes, and sync them to your ipad, too.

If you are out a lot, maybe a smaller one would work for you. If I were you, I would go to an Apple or a store like Best Buy and try them all out. The big stores will have many brands. Also, google 'user reviews' of the various types of readers out there. That might help.

Just an fyi - Last year our sons wanted to get an e-reader for their dad for Christmas. I encouraged an ipad. He said he only wanted a $79.00 e-reader to read books - nothing else. Like you are saying, he thought it would be a waste of money. I finally talked him into it. He has used it pretty much every night since he got it for many things. And the kick is, he still has not downloaded a single ibook!!! He's found so many things he can do on it, and loves it! (He spends a good part of his days on finance related computers and has never borrowed my imac or our sons' laptops for anything, but he loves this Apple refurb store ipad2.

While you use your imac when you want, you might appreciate that you can use it while you watch tv from the comfort of your living room chair, or read your newspaper while eating breakfast. You can e-mail on it. You can listen to music while you watch tv (yes, many do that.) I'm not trying to push one particular reader at you, but I do suggest that you learn about all the many things you can do with an ipad or other reader before you decide. The Apple website will be helpful, as will this support site.

I don't know how old your grandchildren are or where they are, but perhaps they can show you how much it can do that, like my husband, you are not yet aware of.

If I find out anything else, I'll be happy to get back to you!

Decisions! Decisions!

Hi Jo,

I am happy to help! No trouble at all. And in my research I learned a lot and especially from Alancito about VoiceOver. If I'd known last Thursday, it would have saved me time, but I still learned from what I did.

I'd never heard of CNIB before. I'm guessing from that you're in Canada. I checked it out and that would be great for you. It would not only be cheaper, it would be free! We're in the USA Northeast, so we don't have that. It made me look into the libraries my father-in-law has acceess to. And there are libraries where he can, for free, take out e-books with and without audio. So thank you for mentioning CNIB!

If I were you, because though you are still undecided, you tend to continue to want something small for convenience. I suggest you check out Amazon (I hope I can write that, though why not, people mention Walmart and Best Buy all the time?) and read user reviews on any readers you might consider. You can check out the ipad and the Kindle (all versions) reviews. If you google 'independent and user reviews of ___________' you might come across some professional tech reviews where you might learn about features that each has and more importantly, what each does not have, that tend to come out only in user reviews, and not in product specs. The Kindle Paper White sounds good. I would love less stress on the eyes and the matte screen that it has. (Why won't Apple do this ???) And if you're reading in bed next to a lamp, you can aviod glare. It's smaller and lighter than the larger tablets. You could look for Amazon deals. (I'm not sure if the cheapest Kindle still has pop-up ads while you're reading, but that would make me nuts.)

If you do go ipad, you have full phone support for 90 days - not sure about other readers, though from what I've read Amazon has good return deals. I think Barnes and Noble and Nook have something going on about B&N not continuing to sell it or something so I would stay away from that.

Whatever you do, take some time and check reviews. You can learn a lot. And check with your family and maybe friends who have one or another of these and ask if they considered anything different before they made their decisions. (I tend to over research, but after we've made the decision, I've always been happy with the product we bought.)

Good luck in your research and decision. And again, I'm happy to help and you helped me, too, with your CNIB info. Let us know what you decide!