In a recent State of Mobile App Accessibility Survey, (disclosure: I, and the organization where I work, had some involvement in this survey) Android apps scored as slightly more accessible overall than IOS apps. As a life-long IOS user, since the iPhone 3GS, I found this finding slightly surprising. Of course, as with any result that goes against our preconvictions, it could be easily rationalized away:

• perhaps Android users use fewer apps
• Perhaps android users are more technical
• perhaps android users have lower standards
• perhaps Android users are all fanboys who lie about how accessible apps are (I'm just joking)

However, as it's been five or six years since I touched Android at all, I thought it was time I took a look once again, to discover for myself how things have progressed. I am, of course, deeply biased; I distrust Google, I'm already an IOS expert, all of my friends and family use IOS, and IOS has the eloquence text to speech voices that I prefer. If you have a similarly strong pro-Android bias, feel free to assume that everything I say critical of Android is bad and wrong and terrible. But if you're a fellow Apple person, come along with me over the next few weeks as we either discover that maybe Android is way better these days, and/or continue to gloat about how badly those misguided Android users are wrong.

The first question, of course: what phone to try? For reasons of funding and finances, I needed to keep the entire thing (shipping, tax, etc) under $1000 Canadian. That rules out almost all Pixels accept the 9A. In an effort to get the best phone I could for my buck, I looked at the Unihertz Jelly Max. Unfortunately, none of the Unihertz products are fully updated to run on the latest version of Android, and they only get a single update cycle. I looked at a couple of Samsung phones, but the specs weren't that much better, and I hear blind folks having a lot of trouble with Samsung's accessibility features. I took a brief look at Nokia's and Motorola's offerings, but none of them looked any better than the Pixel 9A in my price range. So that's what I went with for the purposes of testing.

That, however, is when the adventure began. After ordering the pixel on Tuesday morning, I woke up on Wednesday to find that my entire Google account had been locked! My credit card had been flagged as suspicious, and I couldn't continue using any Google services until I verified my account. They claimed to have sent a $2 transaction to my card, with a six digit code I needed to enter. Unfortunately, logging into my credit card issuer's website (Float Card), the transaction just showed up as Google*services. No code in sight. I contacted Floatcard support, and was told that they don't have any six digit code, and can't give me any six digit code. I'd have to contact Google.

When I called the Google phone number, I had to enter a ten digit customer ID. Unfortunately, with my Google account locked, I couldn't get a ten digit customer ID. I finally resorted to going to another computer, with a browser that was still logged into Google, so I could start an online live chat. The chat representative informed me that I needed to enter the six digit code. After insisting that I had no six digit code, and I had already contacted my card issuer, he finally escalated my issue to Google Security. It's a good thing Google doesn't host my email! The only way to hear back from the Google security team was via email; if I was using gmail, I couldn't have accessed it.

Several hours later, I got an email requiring me to upload government ID, and a photograph of the credit card. Unfortunately for me, I was using a virtual card, meaning I had nothing to photograph. I submitted a screenshot of the card information from the floatcard website, along with a photo of my passport, and it was quickly rejected for not being a photograph of the physical credit card that doesn't exist. After going through a second round of appeals, and uploading everything a second time, my Google account was re-enabled. The entire process took about 14 hours, and I accomplished nothing else on Wednesday other than being on hold with Google or writing emails to Google or floatcard.

This morning, with my re-enabled Google Account, I checked in on the status of my Pixel Order...only to find that it had been canceled without any notice to me. So I placed the order a second time. However, Google has yet to charge my card or provide a shipping estimate. I'm holding my breath for them to just decide that the card I just verified is fraudulent again, despite the fact that I've paid for YouTube Premium for years at this point.

This entire experience does re-affirm my anti-google bias. While Apple aren't angels, they've at least never completely locked me out of all Apple services for no reason. Even if it does turn out that Android apps are far more accessible, and TalkBack is a much better screen reader than VoiceOver, I won't be switching my primary device to Android. I just can't trust Google with control of my primary device. Yes, I'm aware it's possible to degoogle Android. However, TalkBack, and the Android Accessibility Suite, depend on Google Store and the Google Services. So that's a complete non-starter for users with accessibility needs.

Never the less, stay tuned for day one on my Android journey! Will my account be frozen again? Will I ever even get an Android phone? If I do, will I figure out how to turn on TalkBack on the latest version of Android without sighted help? I think they changed the gesture again maybe? All this and more, coming up on Sam's Stuff...at some point or other. Who knows; it's up to Google, now.