Navigating With BlindSquare
Contributed by Joel Zimba, Special Projects Coordinator, MDTAP
Navigation apps are an important tool for blind iOS users. While mainstream GPS apps, like Google Maps or Apple Maps are accessible to varying degrees, there are many solutions designed specifically with the blind iOS user in mind.
One such app I have been testing recently is BlindSquare. This complicated, but highly useful tool, draws upon information from the popular FourSquare service to create a unique navigation solution. BlindSquare will query FourSquare for points of interest near your current location. By pointing your iPhone toward the various compass points, you can “look” in a specific direction to find out what is around you. If you select a destination from a list, the distance and direction of travel will continually be reported as you travel.
As BlindSquare connects to FourSquare for this information, information such as address, telephone, website and even menus can be had at the touch of a button. If specific travel directions are desired, the route can be generated via a GPS app of your choosing. This is one key to BlindSquare’s power. It bridges GPS programs with FourSquare and presents the information in a way which may be especially useful to a visually-impaired user.
Another interesting feature of BlindSquare is exploring an area virtually. This is great for planning a trip, or just figuring out where you might want to eat lunch after next week’s meeting downtown.
BlindSquare can be very chatty, so there is a filter setting for limiting the verbosity of the information BlindSquare provides as you travel. Spoken notifications can also increase as your proximity to a destination increases. As you can see, there are many customizable behaviors for BlindSquare which means it can be used in many different ways.
BlindSquare has been around for several years now, and it has received much favorable recognition. So far, I have only scratched the surface of what can be done with BlindSquare, and I look forward to using it in the future.
