Today we decided that VO Starter should provide training to all iOS users who want to learn VoiceOver, so we decided to make VO Starter a free app. One reason we did this is because everyone should know how to use their device, and the other app that helps with this training is now 2 years old and could use an update. iAccessibility hopes to provide the best training opportunities for students with the use of VO Starter and future VoiceOver training apps, so from this point on, VO Starter shall be a free app. If you are a trainer of the blind then this will be a great asset to your students and to all who need some extra training on iOS devices.
ios
#iACast DemoCast 8 – iPad Pro 10.5 Review
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On this episode of the iA DemoCast, Michael, Aleeha and Lyn review the iPad Pro 10.5 inch which is the latest iPad from Apple in 2017.
During the review, we look at the form factor, the speaker quality, and how iOS works on the new iPad.
#iACast DemoCast 7: Apple Music Part 1
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On this episode of the iA DemoCast, Matt goes through the steps in setting up Apple Music on an iOS device. After setup is complete, Matt goes through the basics of finding and adding music to Apple music in the Music app.
#iACast 48 – An Interview With Hooke Audio
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The National Federation of the Blind convention brings people together to network and to discuss all new technologies. Though we have had the chance to unbox and review the Hooke Audio headphones, we have had the pleasure to sit down today with Anthony and Justin of Hooke Audio to talk more about the amazing 3D audio headphones.
We will be posting this podcast twice. We recorded this on the Yeti Pro, and on the Hooke Verse headphones to compare the audio in a podcast setting. This version of the podcast was done on the Yeti Pro, and the other version will be up soon.
We would like to thank everyone at Hooke Audio for letting us try the Hooke Verse headphones, and we urge all of our listeners to look at and possibly purchase these headphones. While there are limitations to the Hooke Verse, the possibilities are endless for future updates.
#iACast 44 #WWDC17 After Party
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On this episode of the iA Cast Aleeha, Michael, Jason, Aaron and T. J. discuss the latest news from Apple’s yearly WWDC conference. Here is what was covered in the episode.
- Apple Announces Amazon Prime Video on Apple TV
- AirPods will automatically pair with Apple TV
- tvOS 11 announced. Beta for developers live.
- WatchOS 4 with Siri watch face, Toy Story characters and more announced. Beta for developers now live.
- macOS High Sierra announced. Beta live for developers
- New refreshes on MacBook lineup.
- iMacs were upgraded with addition of new iMac Pro
- iOS 11 announced with new control center, Unified notification center and lock screen and more. Beta now I’ve for developers.
- iPad Pro 9.7 dropped. Replaced with new 10.5 inch iPad Pro
- iPad Pro 12.9 inch gets an upgrade with new features.
- Apple Announces new Siri enabled speaker called the HomePod
What the iA staff would like to see from #WWDC17
Each year, Apple announces their latest software at their Worldwide Developer Conference, and WWDC 2017 starts today. the management staff here at iAccessibility has written down what they would like to see, and is written below.
Matt’s wishlist
Monday, June 5 is Apple’s World Wide Developer’s Conference (WWDC) where we will most likely see some new hardware and software. Here are a few of my hopes for tomorrow’s conference announcements.
iOS
- Updated Braille translation support – I should be able to type quickly on my Braille display without waiting for the operating system/display to sync with each other.
- Siri – Hopefully in iOS 11, Siri will be able to support more third party applications with Siri kit. I would love to be able to say, “Hey Siri, Play podcasts with Overcast,” or, “Hey Siri, play my Audible Book.” Also, while using Hey Siri, you should be able to continue to speak to Siri after you’ve asked it a question. This should be true for which ever device, especially if the rumour is true about Apple releasing a Siri speaker.
MacOS
- No more lag — personally, there shouldn’t be any lag when moving with VO, whether it be in Safari, Pages or Textedit. At the moment there is also a lag when switching activities with both apple voices and Vocalizer voices.
- “Hey Siri,” – Apple is always about the “universal experience across devices.” Hopefully in the next version of both MacOS and TVOS we see “hey Siri” added.
These are just a few things I would love to see at today’s event. It will be great to see what’s added in the upcoming operating systems.
Jason’s Wishlist
As we all know, Apple’s WWDC conference is happening on June fifth. Here are some things I’d like to see.
iOS
I’d like to see Apple put the “Pro” into iPad Pro. From Apple’s website: “iPad Pro is more than the next generation of iPad — it’s an uncompromising vision of personal computing for the modern world. It puts incredible power that leaps past most portable PCs at your fingertips. It makes even complex work as natural as touching, swiping, or writing with a pencil. And whether you choose the 12.9-inch model or the 9.7-inch model, iPad Pro is more capable, versatile, and portable than anything that’s come before. In a word, super.”
For me, two things come to mind that would make the iPad “super.” 1. Finder for iOS, and 2. xCode for iOS. If apple wants the iPad Pro to be an “uncompromising vision of personal computing,” adding those two features to iOS would, I think, really help Apple meet that goal.
Siri
I’d like to see Siri get smarter, and more capable.
More app categories being added to Siri kit would be nice, especially if Apple is indeed going to announce a Siri speaker.
I think Siri needs to have a more natural conversation stile than it currently does, and that stile should be hands-free. We can already say something like “Hey Siri. What’s the weather?” And it’ll respond. But if you want to ask something else, you would keep having to say “Hey Siri.”
Maybe Siri could listen for a couple seconds to see if you have something else to ask before waiting for the “Hey Siri” command again?
I can already see a downside to my idea, but it leads me to the last thing I’d like to see for Siri, and that would be to improve Siri’s ability to only respond to your specific voice.
Conclusion
These are just a few things I’d like to see announced at WWDC. Will they happen? Well, all I can say is it’s going to be fun to watch it and find out.
Michael’s Wishlist
WWDC is one of my favorite announcements of the year, and I can’t wait to see what Apple brings us today. There is so many things that I would like to see them release today, so I will separate them out by OS.
iOS
- I have to agree with what Jason said about the iPad Pro. I would really like to see this become more of a Pro device for dev and others.
- I would like to see a full file system come to iOS
- I would like to see full audio support come to iOS where multiple media types can play at the same time, so I could have TeamTalk and music playing at the same time, or have recording from multiple inputs work.
- Better support for Siri to learn new skills
- Removal of Apple Music Cache files. You can do this on Android, so iOS should have this as well.
- less use of iTunes to get items like Ringtones on your device.
macOS
- Support for, “Hey Siri”
- Support for touch screen macs
WatchOS
- Allow the watch to unpaid and pair with different phones.
- Speed improvements
- Siri Improvements
Windows
- Support for iMessage for Windows
Android
- Support for iMessage
- Support for Apple Watch
- iCloud contacts and sync for Android
While I am sure much of my list will not be on the list for today’s event I can hope that some things will make it to reality.
Conclusion
I think our team has put together some awesome ideas of things we would like to see today at WWDC, and we will see what we get in an hour.
#iACast DemoCast 6: Prizmo Go
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In this Demo Cast, Jason demonstrates Prizmo Go, a free app for iOS that allows the user to scan and read text. Download the app by following this link:
Prizmo Go – A free OCR Solution for Everyone
One of the first apps that iAccessibility reviewed was an app called Prizmo which would scan an image and convert any text found in that image to digital text that could be copied or opened in another program or that could be read by a screen reader. Now, the makers of Prizmo has released a new app called Prizmo Go which is a free app on the iOS app store. This new app has several features that make it similar to other OCR solutions, but it is completely accessible, and offers text to speech reading of text.
Prizmo Go Features
Prizmo Go lets the user scan an image and convert that image to spoken or readable text. Like other apps, Prizmo Go contains page detection, stabilization, and a field of view report to tell the user how to angle the page and the camera to get the best shot. Once you have taken the image you can have Prizmo Go read out loud any text that was found. This is an amazing feature as it allows for quick scanning and reading of documents. While scanning an image is the app’s main feature, Prizmo Go can also detect text in images from your camera roll, and from other apps through an app extension. Once you scan an image, you can purchase an in app purchase to unlock the export pack to send the scanned text out to other apps.
Prizmo Go compared to Prizmo
So one question you may find yourself asking is why should I get Prizmo Go if I have Prizmo, and the answer may surprise you. While Prizmo Go has all of the same features that come with Prizmo, Prizmo Go provides a quick and easy way to read documents and move on to your next task. Prizmo allows for the storage of multi-page documents locally on your device, or in the cloud with iCloud Drive. This makes Prizmo an extremely powerful app, but does take more time to use. With Prizmo Go, a user can open the app and quickly scan and read a document and send that document to another app without having to pick the type of document, or how to store that document or anything. The app just brings you to the scan interface and lets you scan a page quickly
How does Prizmo and Prizmo Go compare to KNFB Reader?
KNFB Reader has become a huge success in the OCR world whether the user is blind, low vision dyslexic or someone without a disability altogether. Despite this fact, KNFB Reader was designed for the people who are blind and visually impaired and is built around blindness concepts and has been built to serve a certain demographic, and while I think it is great that KNFB Reader is being used by more than just the world’s blind community, I have to really applaud a mainstream company like Creaceed for coming to the table and providing to great solutions to OCR from a mainstream perspective. Prizmo and Prizmo Go are two very accessible apps, and have been so from the start, and while I think KNFB Reader may be slightly more accurate with quicker OCR recognition time, I think that Prizmo and Prizmo Go provide a cheaper solution that can truly do more with your text then what KNFB Reader provides. I also find that the interfaces for Prizmo and Prizmo Go are more modern than that of the KNFB Reader software
Drawbacks to Prizmo and Prizmo Go
As stated previously, Prizmo Go and Prizmo have been seen to not have as good of accuracy as KNFB Reader. The process may take longer to recognize text and you may need to hold the device a certain way for Prizmo Go to detect all of the text. The other drawback is that Prizmo Go is only available for iOS where as KNFB Reader is available for Windows, Android and iOS. It is worth noting though that Prizmo does have a Mac version that costs $50.00
Conclusion
While Prizmo and Prizmo Go have their drawbacks I think that the makers of these apps have brought mainstream OCR to the next level, and have taken a huge step in bringing mainstream OCR to the accessibility world. Prizmo and Prizmo Go will read text aloud, and have extremely good support for VoiceOver. iAccessibility would like to thank Creaked for keeping accessibility in focus throughout these apps.
iAccessibility will also be reviewing Prizmo Go on our Podcast the iA Cast.
#iACast DemoCast 3 – Talking Typer for iOS Review
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On this episode of the iA DemoCast, Rich Cavallaro reviews Talking Typer for iOS and demonstrates several areas of the app.
#iACast 40 – Mobile OSWars: iOS VS Android
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Welcome to the latest episode of the iA Cast. This week we talk about the differences between the two most popular mobile operating systems iOS and Android and we say which ones we prefer.
Patreon
iAccessibility has set up a new pattern account for our community to support our podcast each month. If you would like to support the podcast, head over to Our Patreon
Mobile Operating Systems
On this episode, we talk about the differences in iOS and Android and why we use the hardware we do. These episodes are designed to be open so that podcasters can voice their opinions and let others know how they feel about the devices they use.
Conclusion
During the episode, Aleeha Dudley, Jason Earls, and Michael Doise decided that iOS is the best platform for getting work done on quickly with the least amount of setup, but that Android can offer more power to users with more customization with features that iOS can’t provide.
What are your thoughts, Please tweet us at @iaccessibility1 or email us at feedback@iaccessibility.net
#CSUNATC17 – Dot Incorporated Makes a Braille Smart Watch For The Blind.
There were many companies showing products this year at the CSUN Assistive Technology conference this year, and one of those companies was Dot Incorporated. DOT makes a Braille smart watch that is similar to a standard braille display with four braille characters only to let someone tell time and much more.
Features
The Dot smart watch is a light Braille smart watch with four refreshable braille cells. It shows the time with these cells, so you would feel something like 1230 instead of 12:30. The watch also allows for pairing with your smartphone over bluetooth to receive push notifications and other smartphone features that you would expect on a smart watch. The Dot watch will even vibrate your wrist when you receive a push notification on your phone. One of the things I liked about the watch is that it is very light weight, and the leather band is comfortable to wear. It also appears that the watch charges with a magnetic charger that attaches to the bottom of the watch.
issues
I have a few issues with this product though and while they are not huge issues they are things that people need to be aware of. The Dot watch has an orange crown. I think the watch looks very nice until you see that orange color on the crown. I personally don’t think it goes well with the aesthetics of the watch. Also, While I think the Dot watch has great features, it does not have any fitness possibilities which puts it below other mainstream watches like the Apple Watch which are at the same price point of around $300.
Conclusion
While there are some issues with this watch, I feel that it is a good start in offering a Braille smart watch to blind and low vision users. The Dot Smart Watch is still not shipping yet, but you can pre-order it for $300 from their website at Dot Incorporated.
UIAccessibilityTraits Roles for iOS developers
If you are an iOS developer then accessibility should be high on your list of priorities so that all users can utilize your app. Apple has added accessibility traits that are like Aria roles to determine what each element in your app can do. Some of these traits may include Titles, Headers, buttons and more. One that I find interesting is the UIAccessibilityTraitAllowsDirectInteraction trait. This allows the element to be interacted with without having to double tap on that element.
For more information on these traits, head over to the UIAccessibilityTraits documentation from Apple.