I’m considering creating a screen reader for Android. My questions are as follows. One how much of the internals of Android are exposed through the Java API? I’m looking for things such as system wide notification when text is displayed, notification of a new application being launched, etc. I’d rather not have to modify the kernel source and only allow my app to run on a developer phone. Two, how much processor and memory are left over on the G1 assuming no applications running? Three assuming average use of applications on the phone how much processor and memory are left?
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I’m aware that applications should not be designed to work on a specific phone. I picked the G1 because it’s the most popular phone currently running Android that I know of. I am looking for lower end system specs that my program would have to fit in, it may run great on a netbook with Android installed but use to much memory and processor to run on most Android handsets.
Update:
There are now two screen reader projects that use Android 1.6, they can be found at
http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2009/10/talkback-open-source-screenreader-for.html
http://spiel.thewordnerd.info/
I’m considering creating a screen reader for Android. My questions are as follows. One
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AFAIK, screen content (text, graphics) of other apps will for security reasons not be exposed in Android. Otherwise one could grab contact info or whatever personal information gets displayed and harvest that for malicious purposes. So developers currently cannot create an Android app that speaks the text displayed by another application, nor capture the screen. This situation is different from Microsoft Windows on the PC, where applications can do pretty much anything they like, such that the user must decide for himself whether the source of any given application is trusted.
Sadly, there is still no screen reader for Android on the market, so it would be great if you or someone else could create it, but it looks like only a direct arrangement with Google could provide the level of trust needed in view of the above security limitations. Since Google is actively working on improving the TTS and integrating it into Donut, it would seem a fairly simple extra step for them to create a basic Narrator-like (as in Windows) screen reader, or offer a similar touch-based accessibility solution as with VoiceOver on the iPhone 3G S.
Best regards,
Peter Meijer
The vOICe for Android
http://www.seeingwithsound.com/android.htm