Outlook Express an efficient, bloat-free client? Ugh! Never! Outlook Express was essentially a web browser masquerading as an email program--"Client" is too generous a term here, since its only real connection to email is that it (poorly, of course) implemented the email protocols used for sending and receiving messages.

Having said that, if you want an Outlook Express that doesn't suck, you could do worse than to try Thunderbird. It's competent, has a very similar feel, and is extensible so you can turn it from its fairly simple out-of-the-box state into a pretty awesome power-user mailer. I daresay your lady could learn it pretty easily, if that's what you need.

Outlook is a crappy email client, but it makes up for that (to some, small extent) by being a general-purpose personal information manager that also knows how to deal in contacts and calendars and all that. iCloud integration is provided by iCloud for Windows. Set up iCloud on the iPhone first, or you won't be able to sign in on Doze. Requires Win7 or better.

Re file management, as of iOS 9 it's better than it's ever been, and probably it's as good as we're going to get. You can store any type of file, in any directory structure you want. And yes, Apple's own productivity stuff now uses this mechanism. To see what your iCloud Drive looks like, go to Settings, iCloud, iCloud Drive, and turn on the "Show on Home Screen" option. Now, use the app that just magically appeared on your home screen to look at your iCloud Drive file storage. Any other cloud storage provider can hook the exact same pickers in applications, as I said; for Dropbox, for local servers, for privately-managed servers, etc, there will be an app that shows you your stuff and a document provider that exposes that stuff to apps that want to "Browse" it. It's pretty nifty, and really, I think it addresses the worst aspects of the older "Document storage" which was stupidly limited and didn't provide the "File system" that people were clambering for in apps like Dropbox (and especially Dropbox, it seems to me).

Now, if you specifically want to extract audio files from iTunes you’ll have to use iTunes itself to get the files, by syncing them over from your device, or by downloading them from the store. iTunes is what Apple calls a “Shoebox” app, i.e. the data of the app is containerised. So yes, the media folder on a computer is the only way to get the media out. But once you have the media out, you can dump it in your cloud storage drive of choice, as I said, and avoid using iTunes (and the Music app on iPhone) to play them back.

The point of iTunes Match is to allow you to put all your music (that you already own) up in the cloud, so you can get to it from anywhere, so you aren't limited by device storage, so you have Apple’s high-quality rips (if you have inferior-quality alternatives), and so you don't need to sync. If you want my personal opinion, iTunes Match would be made less attractive, even pointless, if iTunes allowed you to download songs to your devices locally from your own home computers on your own network, instead of requiring that they be uploaded to the cloud first before they can be accessed (even offline) from your devices, or else requiring that a sync be manually started from your device to get just the music you want, which you know full well is painful. The flip side though is that with iTunes Match, any number of libraries can be accessed as one--a use case I don't care for--and that Apple is giving you high-quality song files for you to keep as replacements for the crappy ones you may already have. I think iTunes Match is pure profit when you consider that Apple has a strong interest in not providing iTunes users the server capability to download locally--indeed, the capability they do offer, called "Home Sharing", only allows you to stream (but not download) content from your own home computers from iOS devices. Coincidence? Of course not! But it’s the only option there is, so I suggest people with the patience to tag do it. And yeah, most people don’t know how to manage their own home storage equipment or diddle with file and folder structures, and probably don’t keep lossless tracks as I do when they have the chance. It’s hard to argue that Apple isn’t providing what people want (again), just as its competitors are doing.

Hmmm, sebby giving people no alternative then claiming "apple provide what people want" is not really an arguement. Again I don't see the point of file storage on Ios sinse mostly you won't be creating files with programs anyway, not unless you use an office program or similar, hence why I asked about getting tuff out of itunes given that apart from documents, game data etc, the  files I mostly manage on the pc are media ones, but as we all know Apple are allergic to choice in this area. Also I never! managed to get files out of itunes on the pc at all whatever I did, then again Itunes is such a bloated hog of a program to work with it's entirely possible I did something wrong there.
either way until I can buy from itunes and transfer to pc just the audio files with no mess apple can take itunes and shove it up their vertical intigration, aka our way or the highway.

As to e-mail programs, again this is where I simply don't care what does what. outlook express has a great interface with bog standard elements and makes managing contacts with the contacts list really easy. Thunderbird was a little better than outlook when I tried, but still far too bloated as compared to express, again why people want to complicate e-mail programms I don't know. Actually that's one area where Apple are far superior to windows sinse the mail ap on the phone just! does e-mail and the contacts list is nice and streight forward without a hole bunch of other options and tabs and functions your never going to use and can't hide, although sinse I only occasionally have my bluetooth keyboard I don't use mail on the phone much.

@Afrim, welcome to Itunes and why i hate the thig. Personally I struggled with it for two years, hitting it with an iron bar to transfer my books and music across when I wanted it, then when Apple  made the pc interface even worse that was the last straw, and just doing a usb transfer onto my victor stream is sooooooo much easier. I'd personally recommend the same.

@afrim: I think you need another app like VLC if you're playing from the cloud automatically. There are also other apps that can simulate network drives, which play music, and you should look into those. The only way to make use of the Music app in iOS is, as you've noticed, to go through iTunes.

For your tag-killing exercise, you could do worse than to try something like these. Once the files are in iTunes they assume the names of their tags, so you want to kill the tags before importing them. Of course, you also have the option of telling iTunes not to automatically add to library anything you point iTunes at (option in Advanced preferences, don't copy files into music library or some such), which keeps the filenames exactly as they are (because the files were not moved out of wherever you pointed iTunes at), but then using iTunes itself to edit metadata (Get Info) so it's correct. That's a better long-term strategy IMO, since it makes it easier for you to sync and/or match as much of your content as you want in future and get correct metadata showing in iOS for any number of "Albums" and "Artists". Still, for the quick-'n'-dirty solution you're going with now, tag-killing and playlists should be all that you need. And yeah, it's a shame iTunes does not support this kind of folder-based operation, but at least you can show a complete list of "Songs" for now. Perhaps tell Apple you'd like it, and if enough people feel the same way, it might happen.

@Dark: at the risk of bringing this old argument back again, which probably won't change either of our views on the matter, my point is that Apple is giving people the one choice they actually want. And by "People" I mean the 95% who use Apple products, oblivious to the technology or the way that it's potentially limiting them. I use Apple stuff because I can (largely) live with these restrictions, and the alternatives are just horrible, not because I agree with all of Apple's anti-consumer practises, or accept as gospel the one true Apple way. In the case of iTunes, I'd say that a lot of the hatred is unfounded, but that's mostly because I can live with iTunes and don't see any meaningful restrictions inherent to it. You can avoid or replace anything you take issue with (protected content, mostly) and iTunes runs on both Windows and Mac. I never need to transfer from my devices, because I maintain all my content and never store precious files in the cloud, and I appreciate all of the organisational benefits iTunes offers and the fact that it processes file tags. Now, I can see that in your case all this is not true, but (at the risk of sounding mean, which I most certainly am not intending) that's not the norm, and most people at least tolerate iTunes for the few things it's needed for, or simply use alternative cloud-based (or at least network-based) services (including Apple's own) that don't require iTunes at all. And in any case, now that you have your Victor Reader Stream I'd say your dislike of iTunes has reached its logical and inevitable conclusion. For mass storage, and the ability to organise with file names, you paid a price for an awesome player that does exactly what you want. I for one am happy for you.

For audiobooks, what I do is set track and disc numbers on the tracks, and then iTunes plays them in the right order. Means you need the tag editor however, if you don't already have working tags. Oh yes, and they go in the Music section and not the Audiobooks section.

I don't know then what you'll do for email. Mac Mail is quite simple, but it's certainly more complex than iOS Mail. Apple have been gradually whittling the features away though, so you might like it. It's certainly very efficient for VoiceOver users, even compared to TB on Windows.

I don't use file-based cloud services. You're right; it's mostly about documents, although content creators need the space for videos and other things like that. However while iTunes on a desktop is running, you should be able to open the context menu while a song is selected and choose "Show in Finder" (or Explorer, on Doze). In this way you can find the files you need to keep, organised by default into Artist\Album structure, with the disc and track numbers at the starts of file names so they sort lexicographically.

Do you mean a media player or an ID3 killer? Afraid I don't know of many ID3 killers; id3kill was the one I know about, but that works only on MP3 files of course, and is now quite old.

There are lots and lots of media players and virtual disk drives for iOS though. Just Google, you'll find lots, and reviews of them. I used FileExplorer, and that one has a way to connect to SMB servers so you can put all your stuff on a server and access it that way. Last time I tried it it was reasonably accessible, though it could have been better. I know there are others though, and people on here may have tried them. Or check AppleVis. You want to be able to see lists of files you either copy to the server, or connect it to a server to access the files.

@Sebby, I meant an ID3 killer because that one didn't work so good and I couldn't understand it.

Hello Turtle power,
I believe you are a little misled or have a misconception of touch screens and the environment of them. As you said, and I really think so, it should be your lack of experience that causes this feeling. To avoid confusion, or to explain in brief how touch screens work, (for blind users), we must first take the time together to explain how things are done there, or to better say it, how tasks are achieved in a touch screen device. Of caurse, you know what a touch screen is, and so you should work with your common sense a little. There are no keys! No letters! No control navigation buttons! Nothing! So? Within the space of this device, which may range from 4 inches to 7 inches, we have to touch the screen and perform slides. These slides have to do with placing your finger on the screen and moving it into a certain direction. It could be right or left, up or down. So, let’s take a short example. You are a powerful windows user, and I suppose you know better than me, what is the key on the keyboard that allows you to browse/explore items one by one on a windows program. That is “Tab”, right? So, the same task on iOS using Voiceover Is reached by placing your finger somewhere on the screen, (preferably near the centre) and sliding with a single finger to the right. Remember, you may touch the screen to get focused on a certain element, then slide to the right, with one finger, to go to the next item. Sliding to the left from where you placed your finger will get you to the previous item, and it is similar to pressing shift+tab. This process is called flicking. It is identical to swiping and the difference relies on the fact that android users/fans use the term “swipe”, while iOS users like to call it “flicking”. But, please, keep in mind that the world of mobile devices nowadays is not as narrow as it seems from the first look/experience. How many types of commands do you use on windows with NVDA? Aren’t nearly 4/5 combinations? Well, let me explain. You can use insert+N to open the NVDA menu. You can use windows+d to jump to the desktop. You regularly use alt+f4 to get out of a window. So, the developer of Voiceover, just like the one of NVDA or jaws, must think of expansion in terms of commands which stand for different tasks. So, similarly to a programmer of Jaws, someone on the Voiceover team must think of a way to read all the text on a Microsoft word document from a certain point, let’s suppose. Familiar user of NVDA or jaws will instantly tell you that, oh, press insert+down arrow and it’ll be alright. OK. Now, I told you in the beginning of the post that there are no keys on a touch screen device, so the developers must dive very deeply into their minds to invent new commands to get things done quickly. I already told you that there is no insert key, alt key or windows key on the touch screen. In addition, Voiceover experts use gestures, gestures which make use of two, three and sometimes 4 finger gestures or commands if you are not accustomed to the term “gesture”. I think I wrote a few sentences ago about putting into practice these kinds of commands by using the available space on your touch screen. So, for example, let’s suppose you want to read a piece of text on the internet, and you want to read all of it from a certain point. Normally in NVDA you would press insert+down arrow or Insert+A. On iOS, you slide with two fingers to the bottom of the screen.
Now, regarding typing on a touch screen device, I will tell you that even the most genius and legendary blind person in the world cannot type as fast as on a physical keyboard, typically one on windows. You have different methods of typing on a touch screen anyway. You can choose standard typing, where you touch the letter and double tap to type it. Tapping is the process of touching the screen and lifting the finger after having located an item. Also, there is Direct typing, where you touch the letter and release the finger to type it. Alternatively, iOS has introduced brail keyboard, which if you have an idea how it works, may considerably improve your speed of typing. As you may know, the keyboard is similar to the one on windows, except for the numbers and symbols which need to be found by changing the keyboard to symbols through a button on the left side of the screen.
Well, this is all I can say for now. If you have another question, you can leave any comment below and I will try to help you to my best abilities.
Cheers!

I can answer a few of your questions.
First off, when they say that you have to twist your wrist, you don't have to literally twist it. Just imagine your pointer finger and thumb, gripping on a mini virtual nob, that is the size of a mid sized coin. You're just rotating those 2 fingers in a circular motion. You don't even have to turn a full circle to hear all the choices. In fact, you can even just do half circle motions, and lift your fingers up, and do it again.
I will skip braille mode here, because I personally do not use that on my iPhone.
Although it is true that you can lock your phone into portrait mode, that has nothing to do with Voice-Over. iOS and Android both have an option to lock their devices in portrait mode. It is not on by default.

Hi,
Sooner or later you will have to buy a smartphone, so, in my opinion there is no point in giving up. It’s true that you will have to learn a new type of OS from scratch, but this doesn’t have to be so difficult and discouraging just based on your first experience. When I got my touch screen device, which was a Samsung running android, I didn’t have a clew how it worked, I spent hours listening to podcasts and reading lots of pages and also asking several questions on mailing lists, but they made absolutely no sense to me. I bought my phone and asked my brother to describe everything on the screen. Then, without no choice, I was in need of reading a tutorial how android worked, and by the time I learnt that there are gestures like shortcuts on windows, the process of using the phone became less complicated. Then I bought myself an iPhone 6, and I noted a major difference between the two operating systems in terms of accessibility. iOS was far too accessible compared to android. Voiceover is very helpful and when you buy your phone, you’ll notice that it is very instructive and, after all, absolutely one of the best screen readers for both mobiles and computers. I am saying this because someone might persuade you to go for an android device, but do not fall for it. Voiceover is like Jaws or NVDA in terms of helpfulness and feedback. For example, if you touch an element on the screen, voiceover will announce it and after some seconds it will instruct you to double tap to open/activate/toggle it. Also, when you are on facebook, let’s suppose, and you touch the screen under which there is the name next to whom is the post, voiceover will instruct you to double tap with two fingers to interact with the story.

Getting back to your questions, brail keyboard is already installed on iOS, and you do not need to install anything to get it working. I don’t know how it works on windows because I have never used it there, but the keyboard is similar to American brail I think. Changing the language of the keyboard to another will lead to changing the brail keyboard as well. Voiceover does not lock the phone in portrait mode, and if it does, when you activate the brail keyboard, it will change the position of the device into landscape mode automatically. However, brail keyboard has two modes. This landscape/table tap mode, and screen away mode. The table tap mode sets the position of the phone to landscape, and you use three fingers per hand to reach the six dots. You locate dots 1, 2 and three with the fingers of your left hand, and dots 4,5,6 using the fingers of your right hand. To make it clearer, dots three and four should be reached by index fingers. There is also the screen away mode where you put fingers in front of each other. So, the three fingers of each hand stand in front of each other. This, being said, the index finger of your left hand, should be in front of the index finger of the right one. This mode is suitable for iPhones with a small screen, typically from iPhone 4S to iPhone 5s. Changing the mode of brail from table tap to screen away mode is done by swiping/flicking with three fingers twards the bottom of the screen, which should correspond with the homebutton. Do not forget, When your device is set to landscape mode in brail, the homebutton must be into your left.
As I told you yesterday, there are two modes appropriate for voiceover users. The first is standard typing which requires you to find the letter you want to enter, then double tap to type it, and direct typing, which requires you to find the letter and release the finger to type it. There is also typing feedback that has to do with the way you hear the characters. It is again similar to jaws or NVDA. You can hear both characters and words, only characters, only words, or nothing. Of course, you will hear the letter when you touch it, but when you double tap or release the finger to type the letter, it will not be uttered anything by voiceover apart from the sound of keyboard. I didn’t see any bug on iOS, so everything is OK at the moment of speaking.
Cheers!

Ok, thanks again, this has been very helpful. One more question about the Braille keyboard, when you're typing, when you need to type a space, where is that located? Is it similar to where it would be on a Perkins Brailler or a note taker? So would you tap in the center of the 6 dots with your thumb as you would when typing on a standard Braille keyboard?

Hi Turtle,
Again, let's not forget, on a touch screen, there are no buttons. So you make use of gestures. To perform a space, you swipe/flick with one finger to the right, which corresponds with the top of the phone. Remember? The phone should be in landskape.
Then, if you swipe/flick to the left with one finger, it will delete the most recent character you typed, flicking to the right with two fingers will create a new line. Flicking to the left with two fingers will delete the last word typed, and I think flicking with two fingers up will select the correct spelling of the word if it is misspelled. To escape the brail keyboard, you need to rotate on the screen to access other items that are selected to be visible on the roter.
I think you have a considerable number of podcasts on applevis.com to look into. I believe they will help you a lot. Of course, you ought to have an iPhone on your hands so that you can better understand what the information you read is about.
However you can come here and ask us for everything you need to help. Me and others will try to help you.
Cheers.

OK, yeah, this should have been clearer from the start.

When you press the Home button, the app is typically suspended if it has nothing left to do, but continues using resources (like memory) until iOS requires them, at which point the app is killed. Apps are designed to write their state to disk when it changes and to respond to signals telling them they're being suspended, so that when they are killed there are no consequences. Because flash memory is fast, you barely notice this taking place.

There are exceptions to the rule that apps be suspended. Certain classes of apps, like music playback apps or GPS apps, can request permission to continue running in the background. Apps can also request more background time upon suspension, which means that they can finish some task that the user started, like a download. A maximum of 10 minutes can be requested in this way. There is also support for a native file downloader, which apps can signal their intent to use while in the background; iOS completes such downloads. Finally, apps can be spawned at opportune times while not actively in use, to refresh their state. You control which apps have this blessing in Settings, General, Background App Refresh. Such apps will hopefully be ready for you to use the moment you launch them.

Personally, I do as Dark does, and tidy up. There is no real need to do this, though, and unless you close an app that is running in the background, which effectively overrides the OS's decision to leave it running, it is really no different from allowing the OS to manage your resources. The only exception I've sometimes found is the case where an app, say a game, is particularly demanding on resources; in that case closing apps ahead of time can avoid some early crashes as the game tries and fails to allocate memory which it then does not handle. If you restart your device, every app that requires permission to run in the background will get it again and be restarted, and will keep running until you explicitly terminate it again from the task switcher.

HTH.

So I think I'm going to take the plunge sometime in the next couple of weeks and get my new phone. I think now would be a good time to ask my app-specific questions that I hintedabout in a previous post, since, while the Applevis directory is a great resource and something that I think will be very helpful, it is very daunting and there's bound to be some duds in there.

My first question is about using Dropbox. Does it actually try to download all your files to your phone, as it would on a PC? That would be a problem for me, because I store a lot of content in there.

Another question of great importance to me is about managing passwords. Currently, I use Keepass on the PC and love it. I also have it auto generate complex passwords for me, so entering those on a touch screen would be a nightmare. I think I remember hearing that Keepass does not have an Iphone app, and when I use auto type in the PC version, I get mixed results, so I usually just use the copy password feature. I've heard that One Password is a good alternative, because the app does well with auto filling passwords. I was wondering if there's a way that I could import all my saved passwords into One Password so that I don't have to reenter them all? Or has the situation changed and a Keepass app is available? If so, how accessible is it? Relating to that, is it safe to store my database in the cloud, do you think? If possible, I'd like to keep it in my Dropbox, and not on my phone, as I've heard that you can't really tell specific files where they should be stored in IOS.

What apps are folks using nowadays for barcode scanning, and how well do they work? This is one thing that actually has me excited about using an Iphone, the fact that I don't need to shell out an exorbitant amount of cash for a barcode scanner, and I can read package directions and so on.

Finally, I echo a previous poster and would like to know about good GPS apps. I know about Blindsquare, and that does sound cool, but I was wondering more about getting turn-by-turn directions in the most efficient way possible. Thanks as always for any help you can give me.