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Level 4

1,345 points

Answering calls if you are blind? Can Siri help?

I've been trying to help an elderly friend who is quickly losing what is left of his sight with his Mac, iPad and iPhone. We had hoped that the assistive features and Siri would be of great use, but assistive touch is way way too cumbersome for him to understand (I can barely understand it and I can see and have lots of Apple product experience) and Siri is often less than helpful. A disappointment.

But the most frustrating thing right now is that his vision has gotten so bad that he can't make out the green answer button to touch when a call comes in and he is missing all his calls. He can call me with Siri by saying "Call Doug" but he is so frustrated by not being able to answer calls he is practically in tears.

Apple didn't help with the latest upgrade by turning the slide to answer (which he was able to do) into a small green button which he can't find.

Note to Apple (and yes, I will give "feedback" on this) - please think about your senior citizen users before you go switching the UI on them!

Anyway, what I wanted to know is if there are any Siri ways of answering a call when it comes in. Or alternative ways of answering the phone which don't require being able to see the screen. He knows how to find and press the Home button and wait for the "ping" sound before giving a Siri command.

Thanks,

Doug

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013), i5, 512 GB SSD, 16 GB RAM

Posted on May 6, 2014 5:58 PM

Best reply

randers4

Level 9

63,519 points

Posted on May 6, 2014 6:44 PM

If you enable VoiceOver in Settings>General>Accessibility>VoiceOver, double-tapping the screen with two fingers answers an incoming call. Doble-tapping again hangs it up. You can enable tripple-clicking the home button to turn VoiceOver on and off by going to Settings>Ganeral>Accessibility>Accessibility Shortcut and setting it to VoiceOver.

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29 replies

Dec 28, 2014 10:48 PM in response to randers4

but what if you have 0 vision? This does not help at all.

Doug Lerner2 Author

Level 4

1,345 points

Dec 28, 2014 11:27 PM in response to jordanmirander

A timely response!

I actually met with a blind person yesterday, who uses an iPhone, and he showed me how he does it. It's quite easy. I'm surprised there is not clearer better documentation on this.

First, to turn VoiceOver on and off it is a thousand times easier to use Siri and use the voice commands: "VoiceOver On" and "VoiceOver Off".

If VoiceOver is on, and a phone call comes in, just double tap the screen with two fingers and you can answer.

To hang up, also double tap the screen with two fingers.

Voila. Done. Even my 87 year old friend who is near blind and had a stroke was able to do it yesterday.

Also, another convenience when VoiceOver is on is this. If you answer and hold the phone by your ear at first and then move the phone away from your ear the speaker automatically is turned on, which he really really wanted.

doug

HKQ

Level 2

151 points

Dec 29, 2014 12:28 AM in response to Doug Lerner2

Hi,

I might suggest you to attach Apple earpods with Your friend's iPhone so if call comes he can simply answer it by pressing the button on the earpods

Overall i pray for his health and fast recovery

Cheers,

HKQ 🙂

Doug Lerner2 Author

Level 4

1,345 points

Dec 29, 2014 12:36 AM in response to HKQ

I'm afraid that is too much for him to handle since his stroke just left one hand working well, and his "good" hand is very shaky. He prefers the speaker. He says he can just put the phone down and he hears best that way.

doug

Doug Lerner2 Author

Level 4

1,345 points

Dec 29, 2014 12:37 AM in response to HKQ

Also, he can't wear earpods all the time. 🙂

doug

HKQ

Level 2

151 points

Dec 29, 2014 12:40 AM in response to Doug Lerner2

Im not pressurizing you there can be a possibility that for call he can wear th

Cheers,

HKQ 🙂

Doug Lerner2 Author

Level 4

1,345 points

Dec 29, 2014 12:44 AM in response to HKQ

He actually likes the solution I found yesterday using VoiceOver. So he is satisfied for now.

doug

HKQ

Level 2

151 points

Dec 29, 2014 12:48 AM in response to Doug Lerner2

Thats Good 🙂

Cheers,

HKQ 🙂

Jul 19, 2015 11:23 AM in response to Doug Lerner2

Doug, my friend James is quadriplegic so he cannot Touch the phone at all. I solved this problem by pairing his iPhone 5 with a BlueAnt S4. This works so well! I really think you should try this. I shopped for weeks before finding this solution. I paid $34 for the BlueAnt on eBay. So happy I did. The BlueAnt talks to Siri and Siri talks back to the phone owner. Blue ant voice commands will "except or reject" the incoming call at your command. The call ends when the caller hangs up. Also, Siri will wake up and except voice commands hands-free when the iPhone 5 is plugged into a wall charger, no BlueAnt required!

Doug Lerner2 Author

Level 4

1,345 points

Jul 19, 2015 5:09 PM in response to michaelpaints

Michael,

That's useful to know, and I will remember that for the future. Unfortunately the friend I was trying to help passed away on April 28 at age 88.

doug

winstonz

Level 1

9 points

Nov 8, 2015 7:52 AM in response to Doug Lerner2

A friend has MS and we are setting up an iPhone 6s for him since he can now use Siri hands-free, this is life-changing stuff, to put him back in touch with the rest of us!

Its a real shame though that Siri does not allow accepting calls, hopefully this comes soon would be much appreciated Apple!

EdTakken

Level 1

13 points

Feb 7, 2016 5:50 PM in response to ChrisJ4203

I Tried to find the BlueAnt headset you metion, but there are many models, and the specs do not specify whether or not there is a voice answer capability that you mention. What is the model number of your BlueAnt headset?

Feb 7, 2016 5:53 PM in response to EdTakken

EdTakken wrote:

I Tried to find the BlueAnt headset you metion, but there are many models, and the specs do not specify whether or not there is a voice answer capability that you mention. What is the model number of your BlueAnt headset?

The BlueAnt Q3i should do the trick.

Sep 10, 2016 3:02 PM in response to randers4

This worked for us! The person using this iPhone is totally blind and we were getting so frustrated with the buttons, double tap, etc.

The two finger tap to answer and hang up is just the thing we needed. I hope we can find other shortcuts like this to make the phone more accessible.

Thanks!

Answering calls if you are blind? Can Siri help?