For the blind, Apple iPhone has become phone of choice

The undisputed phone of choice for the visually impaired is the Apple iPhone.

So says Paul Schroeder, vice president of programs and policy at the American Foundation for the Blind.

According to Schroeder, Apple's innovative decision to build screen reader technology -- VoiceOver -- into the iOS mobile operating system has endeared it to the more than 25 million Americans with vision loss.

But it wasn't always that way. The original iPhone had a touchscreen but no accessibility support.

But as Schroeder describes in an interview with SmartPlanet's Melanie D.G. Kaplan, pressure on the company caused a change in less than two years.

"They have changed the world," Schroeder says. "You can't go anywhere without seeing iPhones in the hands of blind people."