"what he really liked was solving problems. The text of each chapter was just some advice about solving them. He said that as soon as he got a new textbook he'd immediately work out all the problemsto the slight annoyance of his teacher, since the class was supposed to work through the book gradually."
is literally me. I did that. Every year at my school I did exactly that. Once I actually turned in my solutions and my math teacher was quite upset because she didn't know what I'd do for the rest of the year in her class. She thought I was being arrogant and I should take in the material slowly, not swallow it all like a whale. But I wasn't arrogant or anything, because unfortunately this skill didn't transfer to the rest of my classes. I wasn't particularly good at history or physics or anything else, only math. Even now, I have tons of Schaums at my home. Like this one -... I work problems in it just because it is a craving - I simply have to solve it. Sadly, society doesn't pay for this sort of addiction. I have been a professional programmer for the past 2 decades to pay the bills, but I secretly hate programming, debugging, programmers, git, the whole enterprise - just seems so stupid & futile. But hey, atleast I can spend my salary on Schaums.
Addendum: Lest anyone think I'm talking out of my ass, here's a blog post from a blind programmer who previously had the idea of doing something like this as a business. Unfortunately, it looks like he abandoned that project, since the home page now redirects to something else....
1....
What happens if for example 4chan decides to 'raid' your app and direct blind people into unfortunate situations. I must admit it's a very low act but that's my only real thought about this.
If abuse wasn't a possibility I think the app is 100% amazing.
For example, there is a commercial service in the "visual search" space which has been around for a few years, which uses a combination of algos and human employees. It is available as an API and app (8 cents per picture, or $10 per month unlimited).
"Besides CamFind, the Image Searcher, Inc. team also created TapTapSee, which is a similar app for the blind and visually impaired. It uses image recognition technology with photos taken on your smartphone and then a voice actually speaks the results. This earned the team an Access Award just one week ago from the American Foundation for the Blind",...
An AFB review from 2013 (at that time the app was free),
How much faster could this research area have moved if the collected data was open? What if Facebook/Instagram decided to contribute in some manner, given their large database of photos and tags?
I would be happy to transcribe a letter, or product expiry date so that I could be read back to the user with text-to-speech in real-time.
I suspect that I'm in the minority and this is likely a non-issue.
Think about how interesting it would be to help out a complete stranger from anywhere in the world. I think it would become quite addicting.
Many blind users use the voice over feature built into ios as @rgoodwintx mentioned.
The EP of This American Life is that basically with a little practice most blind people can learn to see with echolocation. Yes I know it sounds incredible but listen to the episode. The TL;DL version would be
(1) blind people can learn to echolocate
(2) MRI scans prove they are actually seeing, no colors but shapes
(3) People that could see but then went blind and learned to echolocate confirm they can see.
(4) The fact that most people think blind people can't do anything and need and then offer so much help prevents most blind people from learning to echolocate and start seeing.
don't shoot the messenger....
Examples:...
Of course the end game is to allow remote "workers" to take control of appliances in your home to do certain tasks that aren't easy to automate yet, ie clear the dinner table, wash the dishes, clean up after the dog, etc.
Another lucrative application would be remote operation of heavy machinery. Imagine road work with no "Men at Work" signs.
I have uninstalled it and logged in again, but the crash loop is coming back.
Otherwise your concept is great, but the app needs improvements from here.
It's a non-profit/charity, and (I think) people understand they won't get anything in return (other than good feeling), what's with the points? (pure curiosity)
iOS 8.something on an iPhone5.
Edit: Sorry, should have looked at the FAQ.
Great concept, though, and it being FOSS is a huge plus in my book (and will probably help with developing more applications around this for non-iOS platforms).