Hi.

I'm looking for an MP3 player that is both reasonably low cost, and importantly easy to use by someone with restricted vision.

The issue is this - my father, who is 82 and a bit, is in hospital in Canada (PEI) where he has been for four months, and where he is likely to be for the foreseeable future. He's not had a very good time of it in the last few months, after two heart attacks, at least three strokes, an amputation of a toe, a diabetic coma, an MRSA infection, and any number of lesser issues. He did get better rather faster than the medical people expected, especially as at least four times we were told quite firmly that he had between hours and days to live.

However, he is quite weak and gets tired very easily, and his eyesight is not brilliant. He's pretty much blind in one eye from glaucoma, and the other one isn't great. His great pastime, reading, has become more and more difficult over time, and at the moment is more or less impossible.

We had the idea of sorting him out with various audiobooks, so the problem now becomes how to play them. Most are either available as MP3 files, or can easily be converted. However, what is needed is a portable MP3 player that can easily be used by someone who can't see it all that well. I thought of something like an ipod shuffle, which is certainly simple, but in some ways it's TOO simple, having no display.

Can anyone suggest something with nice big buttons and a decent if simple display? Ultimate audio quality isn't really an issue. It should ideally be fairly inexpensive, as unfortunately theft is always a possibility in a hospital, although not a high one in this particular case.

pca

Not a low cost option, but you could optimize a tablet PC for best viewing and run whatever player software you like...
Just a thought.


I hope your dad is through with this rough patch and starts on the mend quickly!

Dagnabbit! We just got back from PEI today!

Oh well.

Here's something I remember seeing a few years ago... It's definitely not cheap however. Over 200 pounds.

Milestone 311/312
http://www.afb.org/afbpress/pub.asp?DocID=aw070505


Also, the new Shuffles may not have a display, but that can be a good thing, since they do have VoiceOver for reading out track details. The issue I've seen with players using displays is that the text is either going to be too small or the UI too confusing. Such is the case with iPods featuring screens, including he iPod touch, IMO. I suppose if you had an alternative app for the iPod Touch and you could force the iPod to never escape from that app you might be OK. But I don't know of a single alternative music player for iOS that isn't terrible.

iPod Nano accessibility options (spoken menus, larger fonts)
http://www.apple.com/accessibility/itunes/vision.html

Similar options, as well as zoom on the iPod Touch:
http://www.apple.com/accessibility/itunes/ipodtouch.html

The issue with the wheel-based iPods is that navigation and control of them kind of stinks. They're awkward for a perfectly able person IMO.

With the iPod touch thre's such an easy possibility to accidentally exit the music player app, plus the player constantly goes into standby leaving you with no control over your music until you awkwardly unlock it by swiping the unlock button. The double-tap to reveal transport controls is really hit-or-miss even for an able person. And it doesn't allow you to get back to navigating playlists or anything like that.

In the end one of them might work for Patrick's dad though. I don't know what kind of gadget experience he already has.

SWMBO and I each have/use a Creative Zen, 1GB model. It has a tiny backlit LCD display, easy controls, FM radio, and runs off a single AAA (rechargeable) cell.

SWMBO likes it because she seldom has to look at a display to operate it.

Cheers

Patrick -- for audio books, these headphones in combination with a Gen. II iPod Shuffle make an unbeatable combination. The difficulty is finding the second generation shuffle, they are getting hard to come by.

The advantages of having no wires to get tangled up in and an extraordinarily simple interface make this a really good setup.

tanstaafl.