By Luciano Butera, Swiss Federation of the Blind and Visually Impaired SFB
The Swiss Federation of the Blind and Partially Sighted SFB launched the app MyWay Pro, an orientation and navigation app optimised for visually impaired people.
The app is a successor of MyWay Classic using state of the art navigation-technology. Together with a growing group of test-users SFB identified the needs of blind and partially sighted users and launched the first release after two years of development in June 2020.
MyWay Pro has the following main features:
- Record and edit individual routes either manually or automatically
- Calculate a route to an address using the service of Apple Maps
- Exchange of route files in OSM, GPX and PLIST formats
- List- or map-based presentation of selected route and possibility to edit it
- Turn by turn navigation
- Frequent acoustic distance and direction updates during navigation in background (either after a fixed time or after walking 1/3 of the distance to the next point of the route).
- Locate the direction to the next point continuously by holding the mobile device flat and turning it around until a beep marks the direction.
- Show of nearby Points of Interest like restaurants, traffic lights and crossing.
- Start the navigation to a POI.
- MyWay Pro is highly customizable
The ability to announce nearby crossings when the app is running in background is just a first feature. SFB plans to add regularly new features which improve the orientation and navigation of blind and partially sighted users.
The App is available in Apple's App Store (Europe area) and runs on IOS 11.2 or later. “MyWay Pro” can be downloaded from the App Store as a subscription service. The subscription costs EUR 0.99/month or EUR 9.99/year. As an alternative the app can be unlocked for lifetime use for a one-off payment of EUR 33.99. The subscription model allows to test the full version of “MyWay Pro” for free for one month.
The App and its main Functions work everywhere. There are two main limitations.
- As of today, the app is just available in German, French, English and Italian.
- The App uses OpenStreetMap (OSM) for the presentation of Points of Interest in the surrounding. The Quality of OSM is not constant around the globe. Some data is not available, some is not up-to-date and some is just coded differently. We try to extrapolate the most useful information of the data but currently our tests are limited to Switzerland.
To improve the quality of the service in more regions we need the support of local volunteers. If you are interested to improve the App in your region, we are happy to work together with you. We can offer a test-environment, which gives you an early access to the newest features. If you just want to give feedback you can contact us through the app or write an email to tech@sbv-fsa.ch.
Youtube-Video (English Version)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTnrA9rQLiw
App-Store-Link
https://apps.apple.com/ch/app/myway-pro/id1434398223
App-Store-Icon
