Update: I had a chance to try the iPhone 4 and for the first time I had no problems using my telecoil or normal settings on my hearing aids when making a call. The iPhone is finally hearing aid compatible! I don’t know what the official rating is now, but it worked fine with my Starkey hearing aids. :-D
Well it looks like the iPhone is out for me. :( I’ll have to look into alternatives with Verizon instead. Why you ask? Because Apple, in their ever so thoughtful consideration for the disabled decided to flip off those of us who were hearing impaired by designing a phone incompatible with digital hearing aids. Thanks Apple!
There was this whole stink about it last year too, but I would have thought by now they’d wise up to their asshattedness and produce a more compatible phone with the release of the iPhone 3G. Nope. I gave it a try today and immediately heard a grating buzzing sound as soon as I put my aids in telecoil (telephone) mode. I can still hear the voice on the other end but the screeching banshee sounds as a result of electronic interference didn’t exactly make it a pleasure to use. Beautiful.
Guess I’ll be sticking with Verizon then, at least for the time being. I checked their list of Smartphone / PDA / Blackberries that were hearing aid compatible and found the following short list:
| Blackberry Curve 8330 | M4/T4 |
| Blackberry 8703e | M4/T4 |
| Blackberry 7130e | M3/T3 |
| Blackberry Pearl 8130 | M3/T3 |
| Motorola Q9c | M3/T3 |
| Palm Treo 755p | M3/T4 |
| Palm Centro Smartphone | M4/T4 |
| Palm Treo 700wx | M3 |
| Verizon Wireless PN-820 | M4 |
| Verizon Wireless SMT 5800 | M3/T3 |
| Verizon Wireless XV6800 | M3 |
| Verizon Wireless XV6900 | M3 |
I have no idea how any of these phones differ from the iPhone, but I’m gonna guess they all suck flaming hog balls in comparison. The Mx/Tx designation by the way determines how compatible they are. Anything with the number 3 meets the compatibility standard, while any number above that exceeds the standard (in other words, 4 is better.)
Guess I’ll be doing some research today while I curse out Apple’s name.
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Go with the Blackberry Curve 8330.
Yeah, it looks like the 8330 is the most feature rich.
I still want an iPhone though!!!!
Blackberry has a new touchscreen phone coming out, that looks very iPhone like…think it’s called the Thunder. You should check that out.
Actually it’s called the Storm, and it looks AWESOME. I think it’s the answer I’ve been looking for too!
Well gosh, i suggest you try the iPhone with other assistive devices like a GeeMarc neck loop. HMMM i am severe/profound hearing disabled. I plug my GeeMarc neckloop into an iPhone and guess what?? It works i can hear fine on it and the phone performs well. So i am mystified by all the Apple bashing. Would you really give apple the finter?? How rude that is esp when all the testing and trials have not been examined. I simply went to bestbuy where they had a live demo and plugged in my geemarc and poof they made a sale. iPhone also supports http://www.sprintcaptel.com and i can do captioned calls for those times when my hearing is just not up to the task. Hard to use a phone when the hearing loss is in the upper 90%!! But the iPhone proved to be up to the task. Sooo maybe you can take the finger back or point it somewhere else. OH and the geemarc is amplified too so that is another layer of help. Thanks for the opportunity to add to your site. Give apple and others a lot more testing before you finger them. Good thing i did not listen to these blogs and other post i would have missed out an a great piece of technology.
Leslie
I shouldn’t have to wear a ridiculous looking neck loop and get all tangled up in wires just to use an iPhone. I certainly don’t need to do that with my regular LG phone. It might all be a moot point though if the Blackberry Storm (or HTC Touch) comes out and offers much better features than the iPhoine does.
By the way I didn’t finger Apple, they fingered us. :-D
I’m not hearing impaired but I think the best option is to use a hearing induction loop.
http://www.oticon.com
or
http://www.tecear.com
http://www.apple.com/au/accessibility/itunes/hearing.html
(take out the slash AU if you want the US site)
Cheers,
Chris