An accessible mobile camera is, thankfully, no surprise to visually impaired users of the iPhone and iPod Touch. In fact, it may well be the only accessible mainstream camera for the visually impaired, out-of-the-box. I.E. When a blind or visually impaired user turns on Voiceover the camera is as available to them as it is to any sighted user of the iPHOne. This, in itself, is a huge leap forward in leveling the playing field as it were, to make technologies useful and meaningful to all.

One new feature in particular, in iOS 5, takes camera use by the blind and visually impaired, to a whole new level. -And no, I’m not talking about face recognition here. (but we’ll get to that in a future post)

The feature I’m referring to here, is the ability, of Voiceover users in iOS 5, to label elements of information on the screen. Yes, Voiceover already does announce controls or items of information as one touches or flicks to them. This feature takes this further by offering the Voiceover user the chance to customize how a control or bit of information is spoken or described to them.

Now you may be asking why I mention the camera in the first part of this post; while it’s wonderful to be able to take pictures with your iPhone, and its wonderful to be able to label some elements on your screen, so they make better sense to you, it would be even more amazing to be abel to label pictures you’ve taken with the camera, so that you could share them later, with people you know. this is, after all, what sighted iPhone users do every day.

Well, with the new iOS 5 labeling feature in Voiceover, you can do exactly this! -And it’s so very easy and elegant as well. Here’s how you do it!

• Once you’ve taken a picture with the camera, it then shows up in your Camera Roll, which you can find in either your Photos app, or in your camera itself, in the Photo and Video Viewer.

• Double tap the Camera Roll to open it and locate the image you’ve just shot. (the latest image is at the bottom and will be labeled with the highest number.

• Here’s the fun part; Tap the screen twice, with two fingers, and hold them down on the second tap.

• You’ll hear a series of tones, and then you’ll be presented with a dialogue where you can enter a new name for the photo, or edit the existing name.

• Once you have a name you like, simply double tap the ‘Save’ button and that’s all there is to it!

• Congratulations! -You’ve just named your first photograph on the iPhone!

Now whenever you come back to the Camera Roll, you will see your new name for the photo you’ve chosen. This way you can now know which images you’d like to share with your friends / loved ones, when you revisit your images that you’ve shot.

One important note to mention here, is that this new labeling feature is actually dependent on which ever app you’re running at the time. What this means is that when you label a photo in the camera itself, you’ll only see your new name when you again open the camera app. If you open your Camera Roll from within your Photos app, you’ll see your old photo names. So It’s important to name your photos in one app. Either choose to name them from your Camera or from within your Photos app.

I hope you’ll find this new feature and interesting way of using it, helpful. Happy photo labeling!