The invisual case puts blind people back in touch with the iPhone 1 Dec 2008

Perhaps the biggest criticism of the iPhone is that its lack of tactile feedback renders it useless to the blind. It's simply impossible to feel your way around a flat, featureless screen...

...Or at least it used to be. Because product designer Bruno Fosi has developed a new silicon case that puts the visually impaired back in touch with the device.

Fosi's "invisual" iPhone case is engraved with a set of modified bas-relief (i.e. tactile) buttons, each one corresponding to a different function on the iPhone's touchscreen user interface. In order to ensure that different screens/applications don't interfere with these mappings, the user simply installs a special app that reconfigures the layout of each of the iPhone's core features (phone, email, text messaging, calculator etc.) so as to maintain consistency. This app also enables a number of special accessibility functions like text-to-speech and moon type tactile feedback.

Yanko Design has branded the invisual case "BRILLIANT!", and we're inclined to agree...however, we can't help wondering whether blind users will actually adopt this product in real-life. If you were blind, wouldn't you prefer a mobile device with a "proper" tactile keyboard? Perhaps some of our visually impaired users can enlighten us in the comments section...