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Huh? Cell phones are adding new features daily it seems and often it appears that they will become the single gadget that everyone needs as all other devices fall by the wayside. How can their progress be seen as slow? Simple, talk to individuals with a hearing or vision loss for starters.

Although text messaging is useful for those with a hearing impairment, it took many years for video calling capabilities to reach a point of being really functional. Finally in the past year or two, things have started to take off. Long after cameras, media players, web browsers, and GPS became standard smartphone attributes, functional communication for the deaf is finally being established. Now deaf individuals can actually hold conversations using sign language via their cell phone, at least as long as their network is fast enough and they have a phone with a front facing camera.

For those who are blind, things are still creaking along. The wait for a good cell phone for the blind or a  braille phone continues of course. There are, and have been for years, prototypes, but no marketable product yet. Some phones do offer basic voice commands but the trend toward touch screen interfaces doesn't do much to help the plight of those with reduced vision. Screen reading software has been available for years, but it's pricey to say the least. 

For most of us voice commands and voice dialing are convenience items, features that can make us more productive. But for others, voice commands are what stand between a useless gadget and a functional tool. Luckily though, there is slow progress here too. The iPhone touch pad is superior and it's VoiceOver screen reading software provides much greater accessibility as well. Of course, the other popular phones, Droids, have added Voice Actions (voice commands) and apps like "Walky Talky" with it's voice directions that will help make even new touch screen phones more accessible. Touch screen phones seem poised to take over the market, so work being done to make them more accessible needs to be a higher priority so that it doesn't create a barrier.

There's much that still needs to be done, but if developers could focus just a few more resources on assuring that these necessary devices are accessible to everyone, then real progress could be made.