Wasantha Pushpakumara
Wasantha received an iPhone in July 2018. We followed up with him to learn how our donation has affected his quality of life.
I’m Wasantha Pushpakumara. I live in Boralesgamuwa. I’m totally blind. I’ll be talking about how I use my Apple iPhone 6S for my day-to-day activities and how useful it is for my studies.
The greatest challenge we face as totally blind people is how to be independent. It is really hard to be independent when one is blind.
We are unable to access printed information. But thanks to the Seeing AI app on my iPhone, I can read printed material. For instance, whenever I have to recharge my prepaid connection, I use the Seeing AI app to read the PIN on the recharge card. I also use this app to read product information when I go grocery shopping. This app also comes handy when I travel to unfamiliar places. I use it to read signboards.
I use the Voice Memo app for my studies. Recording quality is very good. Taking the special writing equipment that we use wherever we go is quite a task. So, I use my phone to record whatever information I wish to take down. I totally depend on the Voice Memo app for my studies.
The Voice Assistant Siri makes life easier for me. With its help, I search the web and ask it to dial calls using my phone contacts.
The handwriting facility is also very useful. I can write on my display instead of searching for letters on the virtual keyboard. This saves a lot of time.
For my privacy, I use the screen curtain facility. Because I use a headset and screenreader, no one can find out what I am doing on my phone when the screen curtain is on.
The iPhone has many accessibility features inbuilt for visually impaired people. It is true that we can never do everything that persons with sight can do with their phones, but iPhones make most tasks possible for us as well.
With our income, we can never afford an iPhone. It is only a dream. No words can aptly express my gratitude to everyone involved in making this dream come true by donating iPhones to us. The iPhone has changed my life for the better.
This message has been translated from Sinhala to English.