We’ll be in the live chatroom during the WWDC Keynote – join us! I also hope you’ll come to Macstock Expo in July, and to help it be more affordable use coupon code PODFEET. The free Vectornator Pro for iPad (and iPhone) is an amazing vector design program and I’ll tell you all about it. Rick from Baltimore brings us an amazing Tiny Tip about how he uses the Accessibility shortcuts on his iOS devices to both dim his screen at night and turn on the magnifier. Steve Sheridan tells us all about the Apple Health Study and why you might want to join it. In Security Bits, Bart Busschots tells us about VPNFilter in Security Medium, and then CallKit Removal in China, No Telegram Updates in App Store, End of Flash & Silverlight, Papua New Guinea Turns Off Facebook and much more.
Tag: accessibility
Tiny Tip – Accessibility Shortcuts to Dim Screen & Magnify on iOS by Rick from Baltimore
Rick from Baltimore sent in this awesome little tip that solves a real problem:
Hi Allison,
I wanted to share a quick IOS tip that solved two problems for me.
Problem One: I want to read on my iPad in bed, but the screen is too bright in the darkened bedroom, even with auto screen dimming and True Tone turned on. Is there a one-click solution to reduce screen brightness without fiddling with Settings?
Problem Two: I’m getting older and reading small print is increasingly troublesome. Is there a quick way to activate the IOS Magnifier?
Turns out Accessibility settings on IOS solved both of these problems for me. How? It’s all about the Home button settings. I have it set now where I can triple-click the Home button on my iDevice, and a screen pops up offering two Accessibility Shortcuts. These are Magnifier and Reduce White Point.
CCATP #548 – Lupita Salazar on Braille Literacy and Tech
Lupita Salazar talks to us about how she learned to read at 6 years old (just like everyone else) through Braille. She was highly influenced by my awesome friend Lore Schindler, who taught Tech and Braille to her and the other students in the Los Angeles Unified School District. He explains why Braille is so important to literacy when many believe audio is a substitute for being able to read. Lupita is a hard core tech head who just loves to experiment and learn new tech (she even used Android for a year just to understand it!) She’s funny and passionate and has a great perspective that I really enjoyed. You can find Lupita @queenofthesea31 or email her at looptheloop31@gmail.com.
NC #674 Reggie Ashworth, Clarify, Second Sight, Dumb Question on Accessibility, Seeing AI
In this week’s episode, I open with the sad news that Reggie Ashworth, author of the great apps AppDelete and VidConvert has passed away. We have a minor bit of news about Clarify that is slightly hopeful that it will survive into the next version of Mac App Store (but don’t get your heart set on it). Then we finally start having some fun as we play interviews from CSUN’s Assistive Technology Conference: Second Sight and Orcam MyEye 2.0. I answer a dumb question about why I care so much about accessibility. Then I’ll give you a multi-media tour of a free app from Microsoft called Seeing AI.
Seeing AI from Microsoft
I’m going to talk about an accessibility app called Seeing AI developed by Microsoft and while you might not need this yourself, it’s a fascinating, free tool for iOS that has huge capabilities. I’m going to walk through how I heard about it and the problem it originally solved and then I’m going to do some crazy multi-media. I took a series of short videos using iOS’s built-in recording function of each of the tools within Seeing AI. The videos will be embedded in the blog post as I go along and I’ll play the audio from them for the podcast, setting up what’s going on in each segment.
I was alerted to Seeing AI by Kevin Jones (@kevinrj) after I did the review of the NiteIze Taglit, the little LED lights I clamp on my shirt for walking Tesla in the evening to keep from being plowed down by an unobservant motorist. Kevin is blind and wanted to know if there was any physical indicator to tell him whether the light was on, off, or blinking.
Since there wasn’t a physical indicator on the Taglits, he asked if I’d test a free app called Seeing AI from Microsoft. This app does a ton of cool stuff and I’ll walk you through all of it, but let’s start with the problem Kevin wanted to solve.
Dumb Question Corner – Why Do I Care About Accessibility?
Harald sent in a lovely note and included a Dumb Question for the show. Here’s his note:
Dear Allison,
Several months ago I started listening to the NosillaCast after discovering, and listening to all episodes of Taming The Terminal. I haven’t skipped a single week ever since. Many thanks for putting a big smile on my face every week when I listen to your podcast. It is such a pleasure to listen to you and Bart. My wife also started listening. She is a happy MAC user while I am enjoying Windows. We both love using our iPhone.
My Dumb Question is why are you so interested in accessibility?
Continue reading “Dumb Question Corner – Why Do I Care About Accessibility?”
Made for iPhone Hearing Aids – by Gretchen Macdowall
This is a product review of the Made for iPhone hearing aid interface. It covers the usability of iPhone integration features but only touches on the particular hearing aid I have, since there are several Made for iPhone hearing aid models.
I’ve had the telltale signs for awhile now – not hearing timers go off, comically misinterpreting words in a conversation, turning up the volume on everything to 10. It was time for hearing aids. In typical geek fashion, I was not concerned about how they would look, but I did care about how they would connect to my phone and my car.
Continue reading “Made for iPhone Hearing Aids – by Gretchen Macdowall”
NC #671 Hot Whiskey, MFi Hearing Aids, CES Wonder Workshop, AppleTV & AirPods, iCloud Photo Library Syncing, Mylio & Security Bits
Bart Busschots stands in for a vacationing Allison Sheridan. Since the show is recorded on St. Patrick’s Day, Bart starts with a recipe for an Irish hot whiskey. Then we have a review of MFi Hearing Aids from listener Gretchen, an interview with Wonder Workshop recorded by Allison & Steve at CES earlier this year, an AppleTV & AirPod dumb question & answer from listener Dick, an iCloud Photo library syncing story from Allison, a review of Mylio from listener Tom, and finally a solo Security Bits from Bart.
Random CES 2018 Observations
CES was a complete blast this year. We got to hang out with Dave Hamilton, John F. Braun, and Jeff Gamet. Oh, and Chuck Joiner was there too. We stayed at the same hotel, and traveled to the special press events together but then we pretty much scattered to do our own thing. We also got to hang out with Joe Dugandzic from Smarter Home Life. We dragged him along (kicking and screaming) to a DTNS meetup where we met a bunch of fun people. You’ve already heard Joe on Chit Chat Across the Pond from this week where we talked about his journey from Youtuber to full-time employee at Lynky, a smart home device company.
Then NosillaCastaway Joe LaGreca came out on Wednesday and we did the actual Convention Center walk. Steve and I did 28 interviews, 25 of which were at press events, and only 3 of which were at the Convention Center halls. The press events are 1-200 vendors, while the actual Convention Center is so darn huge it’s overwhelming. Plus by that time we’ve been there for three days and we’re kind of burned out!
CCATP #515 – Allison Hartley on Trials & Tribulations of a New iPhone
This week our guest is Allison Hartley. Allison is the Manager of the Napa Branch of the California department of Rehabilitation, and a podcaster. She co-hosts both the Tech Doctor Podcast with Dr. Robert Carter (dr-carter.com/…) and That Blind Tech Show (blindabilities.com/…).
Allison joins us to talk about the less than smooth experience she had upgrading to iPhone X. You might think it was hard because she’s blind, but accessibility had nothing to do with it. We talk a bit about whether Apple has taken their eye off the ball about quality lately (spoiler alert, yes!).
You can follow Allison on Twitter @hot4technology.