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VoiceOver at the Bar

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image of MacBook Pro 2016 from iMore.com

This week Apple introduced all new MacBook Pro laptops with an AMOLED Touch Bar, which replaces the function keys. Although this changes how users work with the Mac, the Touch Bar allows quick access to tools and controls that may be difficult to find. Not only does the Touch Bar do all of this while keeping standard functionality, but it is completely accessible for all users! Here is how it works with VoiceOver.

How does the Touch Bar work?

The Touch Bar stretches across the top of your keyboard, where the function row would have been located. Items appear based on which app is open. At the right side of the Touch Bar, you will find an all new Touch ID sensor that doubles as a power button for the computer.

Enable and Disable VoiceOver

Without function keys to rely on, Apple had to change some VoiceOver commands. For example, to enable and disable VoiceOver on the new MacBooks, hold the command key and tap the Touch ID sensor three times. This may seem familiar, because it’s similar to how iOS users toggle accessibility features.

Using the Touch Bar with VoiceOver

If you’ve ever used VoiceOver on an iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch, you will feel right at home using the Touch Bar on the new MacBooks. VoiceOver will read out any item under your finger, or you can flick left or right to move through elements. Then, simply double tap to activate an option.

Using Traditional VoiceOver Function Key Commands

If you miss your traditional function keys, do not worry. You can still get to them. When the function key is held down, the Touch Bar reverts to a row of function keys for you to select. However, VoiceOver commands that rely on function keys are easily performed by holding down the function key with the keystroke you usually use. The only difference is you will use the number row as function keys. For example, VO+F2 would be Function+Control+Option+2.

Slider Controls

At this point, you may wonder how you’ll adjust controls, such as brightness or volume. Never fear, Apple has you covered once again. To use a slider control, setVoiceOver focus to the slider, and double tap and hold until you hear three rising tones. At this point, you can move your finger left or right to adjust the value. Once you are done, simply remove your finger to set the value. Alternatively, VoiceOver users can adjust system volume using the keyboard. Press Control+Option+- to lower system volume, or Control+Option+= to raise it.

The VoiceOver Cursor

VoiceOver provides a visual cursor to show what is selected. When working on a Mac that has the new Touch Bar, you will have two VoiceOver cursors. One is located on the Touch Bar, while the other is on screen. This means when you switch from using the keyboard to using the Touch Bar, you will not lose your place.

Conclusion

Yes, Apple’s new Touch Bar allows for quick access to controls and other items, but it is not just for sighted users. Apple’s commitment to accessibility has been clearly demonstrated in the usability of the Touch Bar for everyone, including those who rely on VoiceOver. So, if you were concerned about the usefulness of the Touch Bar, we hope this information puts you at ease!

How To Prevent Attacks and be a Good Internet Citizen

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A map showing that much of Friday's Internet outage was over the US.

On Friday October 20, 2016, much of the popular websites of the internet went down thanks to an attack that used millions of Internet of Things devices to hit servers that kept internet websites going. Internet of Things devices are common devices that we keep in our homes, and can include TVs, lightbulbs, DVRs, routers, and even refrigerators. Many Internet of Things devices have a security hole in their software that lets hackers gain control of these devices and use them to harm other websites and services on the net. The good news is that there is a way that you can close this hole and make it where the attacker can’t gain access to your devices, and your home can’t be used as a tool for these activities. While we directly aren’t the attacker, we still must take efforts to make the internet a better place, and be good citizens of the net.

Block the Attack

The best way to make sure that you do not contribute to the problem is to make sure your equipment is not open to others to login. If this your router is open then a hacker can login and find your equipment and use it to send data to another website. This is called a Distributed Denial of Service attack also known as DDoS. The targeted website gets so much traffic that their site and services are forced to shut down, and it is our devices that they see that are causing the issue, and the hacker gets away without anyone knowing who they are.

The process of fixing this issue differs for each router, but the best thing to do is either get help from a trained network professional or to do the following steps yourself.

  1. Go to Google
  2. Search for, “Disabling port 22 on (Your router name here)”
  3. Complete the requested steps, and also change the user name and password for your router to something other than admin and password

These basic steps will go a long way in protecting your network from unauthorized access, and it will help keep hackers from taking down their targets, because the tools they use will not be available to them.

To learn more about this attack, visit Gizmodo – This is why half the internet shut down today

Online Training: A New Service from iAccessibility

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iAccessibility Logo

iAccessibility is proud to announce that we are now offering online training for those looking to increase their technology knowledge.

Our trainers can teach students in many different areas of technology, from iOS to Windows and even  the Mac.

Our training pricing is $18 per hour, and we use Skype for trainers to reach their students.

Please fill out our sign up form if you are interested in our new and exciting training program.

Low Power Mode Explained

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Image of black screen with battery icon which is a battery with small glowing red area showing the amount of battery left to represent a time when low power ode is needed.

Have you ever wanted or needed to squeeze more power out of your phone’s battery? Low Power Mode might be the setting you are looking for. Low power mode reduces the amount of power your phone is using until it has at least 80% battery. When low power mode is enabled, it may take some time for some features to work while others will not work at all.

Low Power Mode affects:

  • Hey Siri
  • Email fetch
  • Automatic downloads
  • Some visual effects
  • Background App Refresh
  • location services in apps

How to enable low power mode:

  1. Open settings
  2. Tap battery
  3. Toggle the switch next to Low Power Mode to On

Note: When Low Power Mode is on, the battery percentage icon on your status bar will be yellow.

Traveling Made Easy with Tile

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Picture of Tile device. Device is a white square with rounded corners with the word Tile in a light grey. It also has a round hole in a corner for a key ring.

Have you ever traveled to a destination and had difficulty finding your luggage? Tile, a new device with a mobile app aims to fix this issue is now available, but is this solution accessible? Lets take a look at the app and the devices themselves.

Picture of Tile device. Device is a white square with rounded corners with the word Tile in a light grey. It also has a round hole in a corner for a key ring.•What is a Tile?

A Tile is a small device that is sure. It has the word Tile on the device, and the e is a button to press to find your phone or pair the device with your phone. There is no tactile way of knowing where this button is, so I simply pressed on the device until I found it since it is very small.

There is also a round hole in the device to add the device to your key ring so you could use it to find your keys, or attach the device to another object.

The Tile does not have a place to charge the device, so when the device runs out of battery power then it is dead. Tiles use Bluetooth LE, which stands for low energy to be found only when called upon. They use very low amounts of energy, so the battery should last for years.

Any device running the Tile app that supports Bluetooth LE is also a Tile. You can find your iPhone or iPad that is paired to a tile by pressing the e on the Tile device.

The Tile App

The Tile app is how you set up your tile devices with your phone. To use this app, Bluetooth must be on, and you must have a connection to the Internet.

Once you start the app you will need to sign up or sign in. I did not do this portion of the review with VoiceOver, so if someone could add their experience with signup in the comments then we will have a better understanding of this part of the app.

After you sign up, you will be asked to buy a Tile or Pair one. We will assume that you already have a Tile and are going to pair it with your phone or tablet. To pair your Tile to your phone, do the following steps when you are at the correct place in setup.

  1. Hold the pairing button on the Tile, which is the letter e button until it plays a note or tune.
  2. Keep the device near your phone until the phone states that it is paired.
  3. When prompted, type the name of the Tile that describes what the Tile will be used for, examples are keys, luggage, or backpacks.

While text is readable on the add screen, the buttons are not properly labeled and can be confusing.

Once a Tile is set up, you should see all of your tiles in a table view. At the time of this writing, the table view only shows button labels, and the labels that you give to your tiles during the adding process are not read by VoiceOver. You will also notice that no labels in the detail screens are read either, which makes the Tile service completely unusable to VoiceOver users. Buttons and text elements can gain focus by VoiceOver, but only the button and text label names are read instead of their contents.

Conclusion

While the Tile devices are a good way to find luggage and items that you can’t easily find, they do not offer a good experience at this time for VoiceOver users, and the lack of a tactile pairing button on the actual Tile make it difficult for visually impaired and blind users to even pair their devices to their phones.

Some of My Favorite #macOS Sierra Features

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Image of the macOS Sierra App Store Icon, which is mountains and sky inside of a circle with a border.

Sierra has been out for awhile now, and while I haven’t had the chance to play with it as much as I would like, I have found some interesting new features and changes. If you’ve been following macOS Sierra news, or if you are using the new OS yourself, you’ll probably know about most of these. However, there’s a chance you might find a few mew gems.

Siri

First and foremost, let’s get the big one out of the way! Yes, we now have Siri, Apple’s digital assistant, in macOS Sierra. The functionality is more limited than I would like, and there are a few accessibility issues with it, but it is a great start! I can’t wait to see future improvements made to Siri on the Mac.

For more coverage on Siri in macOS, check out these articles:

Unlock Your Mac with Apple Watch

Another feature we also have covered on iAccessibility is the ability to unlock your Mac with your Apple Watch. This is a huge step for convenience and security, and those who have tried this feature absolutely love it!

However, there are some limitations, such as:

  • You must have a 2013 Mac or newer.
  • You must have two-factor authentication enabled for your Apple ID.
  • You must have watchOS 3 on your Apple Watch.

Some of these limitations may be show stoppers for some users, such as myself. Unfortunately, I own a 2012 MacBook Pro, so I am unable to use this feature.

Picture-in-Picture

One of the great features from the iPad is now available on the Mac! If supported in the app, or if you are watching video in Safari, you will be able to continue watching video while working in other apps. The video will take up a corner of your screen, and you can continue working. Even if you have little or no vision, this is a great feature, because it means your audio will continue as well! Nice!

Tapbacks

Wait, what backs? LOL! Basically, reactions to iMessages is available in macOS. Want to know more about iMessage in iOS 10, check out this article.

In macOS, simply right click on a bubble, choose, tap backs, and then the reaction you want.

This feature is great if you need to reply to a message, but do not want to lose your train of thought and want to return to working quickly.

Rearranging Menu Extras

Yes! Finally! In macOS Sierra, you can now rearrange menu extras. Simply hold down the command key while dragging icons to rearrange them. Note: This feature does not seem to be VoiceOver accessible at this time.

New Notification Shortcut

Now VoiceOver users can quickly access any notifications they have waiting in an easy-to-use VoiceOver menu.

That’s right. Simply press VO+N to access new notifications. Enjoy!

One Row Added?

This is most likely every VoiceOver user’s favorite new feature, especially if they frequent Twitter. One Row Added, One Row Added, One Row Added got annoying very quickly.

Now we have more control over what happens when the number of rows changes under the VoiceOver cursor, and it is awesome! Most users will most likely choose nothing, but you can also have a sound played or have spoken feedback as before. This is great, because there are instances in which you would want to know a row has been added, such as when adding a marker to an audio file.

Related Article: There’s an Activity for That

Simplified Preferences

Take a trip through system preferences and VoiceOver Utility, and you’ll notice that some options appear to be missing, have new locations, or are worded differently. Although it is a subtle change, it is a welcome one. It helps to simplify changing preferences, and remove redundant options.

…and that’s it, at least for me! What do you think? Are there any new features I should have added? Do you think tabbed interfaces for all apps should have made it onto this list? Feel free to share your favorite features in the comments, and thanks for reading!

Review: Google Allo Accessibility

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Image showing the Google Allo icon

Clearly in competition with Apple’s iMessage, and other messaging services, Google recently released Allo – a messaging app for Android and iOS. Most of its features are very similar to iMessage, with a few exceptions.

First of all, as stated above, unlike iMessage, Allo is cross-platform. That means, regardless of whether you’re rocking an iPhone 7 or a samsung Galaxy S7, you will be able to use this app.

Additionally, Google’s assistant is baked right into the app. You can chat with it, play games with it, and more.

Lastly, Google will read messages sent with the service, unlike Apple’s iMessage. Note: There is a way around this, but it involves giving up most of the app’s unique features. Is that a deal-breaker? Well, that would depend on who you ask.

We have already talked about iMessage on iAccessibility, so we know it is accessible. So, how does Google Allo stack up? Is it worth using to communicate with friends? Let’s see.

The setup process is fairly straight forward. Like WhatsApp, Google Allo uses your phone number to create an account. This means you will have difficulty if you wish to message using tablets or other phones. After verifying your phone number, you are prompted to give the app access to your contacts and to send you notifications. Then you take a selfie, and add your name. And that’s it! You are all set up!

Once you’ve completed the setup process, you’ll notice there’s already a thread with Google Assistant. In this thread, there are unread messages. This is where I first began to encounter accessibility concerns on iOS, but not on Android.

The first thing Google assistant wants you to do is allow access to your location. This makes sense given the fact that the assistant can help plan a night out, among other things.

The reading of messages in this thread by VoiceOver is quite erratic. Some messages are read at least twice and out of order. I quickly learned that it is better to flick rather than to explore the screen by touch.

The smart replies are completely accessible, and I had no problems with those.

However, in some replies from the assistant, VoiceOver will get stuck in a continuous loop. For example, when asking what can you do.

Talkback, on the other hand, has none of these issues as far as I could tell. I was even able to successfully play Tic-Tac-Toe with Talkback running on Android. That was a lot of fun, and it was accessible, too!

I did appreciate the attempt by Google to make the conversation with Google Assistant more like chatting with a friend, but it was a little creepy at times. For example, it wants to know where you are and more about you. For me, it felt a little like talking to a stalker.

So how about chatting with a friend?

Well I tried that too. The same messaging issues that plague the Google Assistant message thread also affect any other threads you have. The most annoying thing for me is constantly hearing VoiceOver say, “double tap and hold to open message edit menu.” I do not know what that means. With all the double tapping and holding I did, I could not make any “message edit menu” appear.

One neat thing that Google Allo has over iMessage for me is that the quality of audio messages is so much better! I get why Apple uses low-quality recording, but it is such a disappointment. similar to Apple’s iMessage, you double tap and hold on the “record an audio message” button and swipe up to send or left to cancel.

If text effects are your thing, you can easily do this with VoiceOver running. Simply enter text, and then double tap and hold on the send button. Without releasing the button, swipe up to make text larger and swipe down to make text smaller. Note: there is no feedback to inform you of just how large or small your text is, regardless of whether you’re sending or receiving.

You can also send your location, stickers, take a photo or video (and draw on it), or attach a photo or video from your camera roll. I was extremely disappointed to discover that taking a photo or video in the app, and sending stickers are both completely inaccessible on iOS. VoiceOver sees no elements on the screen. Android, once again, has no such issues.

There are also a few inconsistencies as far as the interface is concerned. One example is to delete a conversation on iOS, you need to double tap on the menu at the top right of the screen while you’re in the conversation. On Android, on the other hand, you long press on the conversation thread and then double tap delete.

Another inconsistency is that Android users can access quick replies in notifications, whereas that does not appear to be an option on iOS. Neither version of the app allows you to quickly write out your own response, which is disappointing.

I also tried out encrypted one-on-one chats with myself, and that worked just like any other chats. The interface is dark instead of light, which I honestly preferred, and messages can be set to expire. Also, notifications are very vague, only telling you that you have a message.

Overall, I like the app. I think it’s great if you can convince enough people to download it. You can send text messages with it, but you can’t use any of the app’s main features unless the recipient of your messages is also using Google Allo. Also, there are legitimate privacy concerns. If you’re OK with Google reading every single message you send, unless you remember to start an incognito chat, then go for it! Lastly, accessibility has room to improve, especially on iOS, but it is a very new app.

What do you think of Google Allo? Have you tried it yet? Do you plan to download it? Why or why not? Let us know!

#macOS: How to Change VoiceOver’s Grouping Behavior

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Image showing VoiceOver icon. icon is a grey gradient to white with a universal access symbol and a speaker with sound waves going to the right.

I’ve been using VoiceOver for a while now. I use VoiceOver on both Mac and iOS. The more I use VoiceOver on iOS, the more I would think “I wish I didn’t have to interact so much on the Mac. Some apps take it to extremes.” You can! Actually, you’ve been able to do this with the introduction of El Capitan, but it was broken. You would get stuck in certain web tables, like the table found in the “Purchases” category in the App Store. So how do you to it? Read on to find out.

Instructions

  1. Press Command + F 8 to open the VoiceOver utility.
  2. Arrow dow to the “Navigation” category.
  3. Press VO + Right until VoiceOver announces “Grouping behavior”
  4. Press VO + Right again and you should hear “Standard, popup button.”
    Note: The other options are Bookend groups, Announce groups, and Ignore groups.

Before you change anything, let’s talk a bit more about what each option means.

Standard

This is the default setting VoiceOver uses. VoiceOver will announce a group (such as “Web content,”) and you will then have to interact with it to see everything inside.

Bookend Groups

Like the “Standard” option, VoiceOver will announce groups, but you can VO + Right to see the content inside them. Once you reach the end of the group, VoiceOver will announce something like “End of web content.” If the app had more than just the web content, you would then VO + Right to see everything else.

Announce Groups

VoiceOver will read the group title to you and the number of items it has in a lower pitch when you land on the first option that would normally be inside it with the “Standard” setting, but it will read the content first.

Ignore Groups

Like the title suggests, VoiceOver won’t tell you when you’re on a group. Rather, it will just read the content.
For example: If you open System preferences, normally you would have to interact with the “Scroll area” to see the options you have, but with this setting, VoiceOver will just read them when you press VO + Right to get to them.

Notes

  • You will need to turn off cursor rapping for these options to work correctly.
  • With the Announce groups and Ignore groups settings, VoiceOver may still announce “Web content” when a page loads in Safari.
  • In Safari, VoiceOver will sometimes act as if you’re using the “Standard” setting and not let you see what’s inside the web content until you either interact with it, or VO + Left back to the splitter and VO + Right again. Once you do that, VO will respect your group setting.

Questions?

If you have any questions, let us know and we’ll be happy to answer them.

There’s an Activity For That

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Image showing VoiceOver icon. icon is a grey gradient to white with a universal access symbol and a speaker with sound waves going to the right.

Have you ever used an app and thought “You know what? I really seem to slow VoiceOver down a lot when I use this.” Maybe you find you tend to have VO read with more punctuation in some apps more than others. If you’re tired of constantly making changes to your VoiceOver settings, I’ve got some news for you.

Customizing VoiceOver for Different Situations

Yes, you read that correctly! You can set up VoiceOver to automatically change your settings, based on what you’re doing. It’s called Activities, and it’s one of the categories in the VoiceOver Utility.

So how do you accomplish this amazing feet of computer greatness? Read on to find out!

Instructions

  • Step 1: Press VO + F8 (VO + FN + F8 on a portable Macintosh keyboard, if you haven’t changed the behavior of the function keys in the keyboard pain of system preferences.) This will open the VoiceOver utility. VoiceOver should tell you that you are on the “Utility Categories” table.
  • Step 2: Arrow down until you hear VoiceOver announce “Activities.”
    Note: You can also press Command + 0. Pressing Command + 1 through 0 will jump you to each category in the “utility categories” table in sequential order. This means that pressing command + 1 will move you to the “General” category, Command + 2 will move you to the “Verbosity” category and so on.
  • Step 3: VO right until you hear VoiceOver announce “Add” button.
  • Step 4: Press the button with VO Space.
    Note: Once you press the “Add” button, VoiceOver automatically interacts with the “Activities” table.
  • Step 5: You will now be placed on the “Untitled” activity. Press Enter, and VoiceOver should announce “Untitled, contents selected edit text.” This is ware you can name your activity so if you want to edit it later, you can find it without the need to go through the settings for each activity.
  • Step 6: After you give your activity a name, press VO + Shift + Up arrow to stop interacting with the “Activities” table.
  • Step 7: Now, you are able to choose the settings you want to include in the activity. The settings that you check are settings that when changed, will only effect the current activity you are working on. You can set the settings you check now by pressing the “set Setting name” (where setting name is the setting you’ve checked or unchecked,) or set them later. Remember that the settings that you check here are the settings that will only change for the activity you are in the process of setting up. All other VoiceOver settings you change will effect the “VoiceOver settings” activity, which is VoiceOver’s default activity. In other words, if you’ve never looked at VoiceOver’s activities, you’re using the “VoiceOver settings” activity.
    For example: I’ve created an activity called “Test.” If I check the “Verbosity” checkbox, changing any verbosity setting will only effect the “Test” activity, once I tell VoiceOver when to use the settings in this activity, but more on that in step eight.
  • Step 8: If you keep pressing VO + Right arrow, VoiceOver will announce “Use this activity for.” Pressing VO + Right again will place you on the “Apps & Websites…” menu button. Pressing this button will cause a list of apps to be displayed, as well as the choice of setting the activity up to be used with specific websites that you can add if you choose that option.

Need Help?

If you have questions about anything in this post, please don’t hesitate to let us know, and we would be glad to help you.

Quick Tip: Enable Night Mode in the iOS Twitter App

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Image of Twitter logo for iOS.

Image showing Twitter for iOS Night ModeTwitter for iOS has updated their app with a feature called Night Mode that changes the app’s color scheme to allow for higher contrast text. This feature allows for users to read tweets easier by showing text on a dark background with light colored text. Here is how to enable this feature.

  1. Open the Twitter app
  2. Find the Me tap at the bottom right portion of your screen
  3. Find the Settings button
  4. Select the first choice for Settings
  5. Find an option that says Display and Sounds
  6. Find the switch for enable Night Mode.

Turning on this feature will instantly switch your device to Night mode.

Night Mode is a great new feature that adds high contrast to your Twitter experience. You will still see pictures correctly because the app adds high contrast without reversing the video like the built in high contrast feature does.

Adding Links in Notes

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Picture of macOS Notes icon showing a note pad with lines

Apple’s latest release of its Macintosh operating system, macOS 10.12 Sierra lets users add links to websites into the notes app, which contain the site’s icon, and a brief description of the site. This is a great new feature, but it doesn’t always show up, and here is why.

Manually adding links

If you manually add a link by typing a web address in the notes app, the address will turn to a hyperlink, but it won’t show a preview of the site. It is not clear why Apple didn’t make this happen, but that is how the notes app behaves.

Adding links to notes through Safari

Safari allows you to add a website to your notes, and you will see the preview of that website if you use this method. Here is how to accomplish this.

  1. In Safari, go to the website or web address you would like to use in a note.
  2. Find the Share button in the toolbar.
  3. Pick the Notes option from the Menu.
  4. Add any text that you want to go with the website.
  5. Pick the note that you want to embed this site in. You can also select New Note, which is there by default.

Conclusion

While there are many ways to add links in the Notes app, this method allows you to add a link preview into your note. Please comment and let us know if you have found another way to add links with page previews in the comments section, and we hope that you add our page as a link with a preview to your notes, or at least your favorites.

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