Big Purple Phone and David's podcast list

00:21 S1

Hello everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from August the 6th, 2024. I'm Stephen Jolley, great to have you with us listening through Vision Australia Radio, associated Stations of the Radio Reading Network or the Community Radio Network. There is also the podcast. To catch that, all you need to do is search for the two words: Talking Tech and [?Dana] can all come usually on a Tuesday afternoon just after it's been produced. Another option is to ask your Siri device or smart speaker to play Vision Australia Radio Talking Tech podcast... Vision Australia Radio Talking Tech podcast.

With me, someone who can explain all this tech stuff really well: Vision Australia's national advisor on access technology, David Woodbridge. David, let's start with the product minute, an item from the Vision Store of Vision Australia. You've got a nice big phone to tell us about. 

01:15 S2

Yes I do. So this product is called the Big Purple Phone Silver Fox. And the first thing I like about this is that it's an Australian product. So you know, made in Australia, which is actually really cool. I probably should say the software is made in Australia because the software that runs on the hardware, the hardware is actually a Nokia phone. And of course, you're probably already thinking, Well, I think David's going to mention the word Android, which I am. Because the operating system on the phone is indeed Android, and the software, which is the Big Purple Phone, Silver Fox software, it sits on top of that Android operating system. But as far as a customer is concerned, when you wander into the Vision Store and you pick up the Big Purple Phone Silver Fox, you see immediately beautiful, large, simple icons. You see pictures of people that you'd like to dial. It's extremely high contrast. It's got an SOS button for emergency calling, and it's got a limited number of apps on the phone that you can choose to have, visible or not visible. 

And if you're a carer or a support person of someone who has the phone and they don't have the ability to be able to change settings on the phone themselves, or you want to add things to it or take things off, there is a (quote) Carers website that you can log into and you can completely control the phone - of course, with the person's permission on being able to change the settings in the phone. But the thing I also like about the phone is the fact that it's also protected against spam calling and SMS messages, because where you can set up for only contacts can call the phone. So there's no, you know, spamming going on. And the really, really cool thing is that if you need to get into other settings of the phone, which is hidden from the user, you can also do that. 

And it has very simple things like video calling. It has internet radio on it for listening to different radio stations. It's got photos so you can still share and take photos and you can still, you know, send and receive text messages. You can also use the Dialpad if you wish to make phone calls manually. And by the way, even though this is a low vision phone, that keypad, you can also make it talk. So when you press one, two and three, it'll actually announce one, two and three. So all over it's what it's meant to be is a very simple, straightforward phone. Now, I know we used to call these things "dumb phones" in the past. Well, if you like, I wouldn't say this is dumb. This is a nice, simple phone to use for people that just want to be connected with their loved ones and friends, and I think it's a fantastic idea.

04:05 S1

And how much is it?

04:07 S2

It's $699.

04:09 S1

$699. The Big Purple Phone, Silver Fox from the Vision Store at Vision Australia. 

I want to talk about OrCam. Many would know of the OrCam products, the wearable that detects things been around for some years and more recently, the handheld redoubles. There's been talk around the world that OrCam are moving out of the blindness and low vision market. David.

04:36 S2

That's correct. It's been on a few news websites and podcasts, and I'd like to assure our customers and of course, our listeners, that senior management at both Quantum and Vision Australia Vision Store are quite aware of what's happening. They're currently working through a few things to see how this will impact both Quantum and Vision Australia, and I'll be able to give people an update in the near future.

05:02 S1

Now, I'd like to talk to you about your podcasts. We haven't talked about podcasts for a while, and the podcasting world is an evolving one. What do you do with podcasts these days?

05:13 S2

So I've gone in and decided to only use the podcasts app on, of course my Mac, my Apple Watch, my Apple TV and my iPhone, etc. etc. Because one, it had transcriptions in it... and two, I was just getting very messy between the old downcast that I used to, which I used to use Stephen Overcast and the Apple Podcasts, I decided, right, that's it. I'm going to actually consolidate into one app, which is the podcasts app. And then when I cleaned them up about a week or two ago, I discovered that I've got about 21 to 22 podcasts that I religiously follow every single week and listen to them. But out of those 21, which are divided up between adaptive technology or assistive technology and mainstream, I do have three top favorites for assistive technology, and I definitely do have top three favorites for mainstream.

06:03 S1

And you've got a list of all those somewhere.

06:05 S2

I do, so I did post the whole list on Mastodon because it definitely won't fit on Twitter. I will have all the links in the show notes. But I didn't want to sort of bore people about going through the whole 22. So today I'll just list my top three from each category. But yes, you can definitely look in the show notes or on Mastodon.

06:27 S1

And what are your top ones?

06:29 S2

So what I recommend to people to listen to in particular is the Talking Tech Vision Australia radio show. Second one is Living Blind Fully by Jonathan Mohsin and number three is the IC Forest Technologies from a blind person's perspective.

06:45 S1

And what about mainstream ones?

06:47 S2

Mainstream one is... one that I've been using and listening to for a long time, is the Daily Tech News show. The second one is Six Colors and a third one is Macbreak Weekly.

07:00 S1

What's Six Colors?

07:01 S2

About... Six Colors is by a person called Jason Snell, who used to be one of the major editors at Macworld quite a long time ago, and he's been a co-host now on Macbreak Weekly. So he does a podcast which is primarily aimed at Apple technology, but he really does all types of technology and how it relates to culture in general. So it's not just a, you know, This tech came out... it's how this technology is reflected in our current culture.

07:32 S1

And details in the show notes of how to get hold of those.

07:34 S2

Indeed.

07:35 S1

Excellent. A completely different topic. Now X is continuing to muck around and has removed the Twitter app from the Mac App Store.

07:45 S2

Yes. now there's an interesting story behind this one, because I got a notification on my Mac last weekend and it said, You can't use this application anymore, you need to update it to the X app. So I updated it to the X app, and then it came back and said, you are not authorised to use this application. I went, Oh. So I got rid of that one. And then I went back to my iOS Xe app and it said, due to violations of the ECS rules of conduct, your account has been suspended - please contact us if you don't agree with this. So I emailed ECS as instructed by their email. I got a one liner back saying it's under review. No further discussion was held with me, and then I logged on the next day and it said, Your account has now been labelled as a spam account and it's attracting spam, but you can still use it. However, your spam label may limit the reach of your account. 

So what I've now decided is that I'm probably going to only very rarely post on X, because I was only doing it to support people, and the fact that the Mac application has completely gone with no comment from X at all. Most people are saying now, just don't even try and run an X app if you've got an M1, Mac, etc. because you'll most likely get blocked, which is what happened to me. So for all intents and purposes, if you want to use X now, it's either the web version, the Android version, or the iOS version. The Mac one does not exist anymore. And of course, if you've got Windows, you can use it on Windows as well via the website or other apps, but it's just a complete mess.

09:29 S1

Again, very strange. Let's talk more positive things now. We haven't talked about it much for a while, but The Living Mindfully podcast from Jonathan Mohsin continues to flourish.

09:40 S2

It does, and I quite like what he's done in sort of a bit of a renew of Living Mindfully. And that's the fact that you can now subscribe to Living Blindly under Apple Podcasts, which is a great thing. Under there you can subscribe monthly or yearly. And of course, I think you've got a 14 day cooling off period. And as if you do monthly, you can always terminate whenever you want to. But interestingly, he also said on his latest Living Blindly podcast that if you subscribe via their podcast website, you can choose about how much you want to pay to support the program. You can always change it, whereas the calls on Apple you can only get, you know, one, 1 or 2 bites of the cherry either monthly or yearly. 

And the other thing I think was interesting is, once you subscribe to Apple Podcasts, that's it. You can only use it in the podcast app, so you can't use it on the Victor Reader stream or anything else if you do it via podcast, of course it's a secure link to the Living Mindfully Plus feed, and you can pop that on anything you like, whether it's your Victor Reader stream, your Sense Player, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, or whatever else you might be using. So have a think about what you do. I chose to do an Apple podcast. Like I said earlier on, I've just put all my stuff in just one place now.

11:01 S1

Yeah, it's a good one to go to. It's a very good way to keep in touch with current affairs in the tech world, for people who are blind or have low vision and other blindness and low vision related stuff as well.

11:13 S2

Absolutely.

11:15 S1

People do spend a lot of money on hats, and you can spend $150 us on a very environmentally friendly one.

11:24 S2

Yes. Now, I think this is a really cool idea. It's from a company called Eco Flow. And it's a hat, of course, to, you know, keep the sun off you, which is very good for us in Australia since it's coming up to spring and summer and what the hats got built into it, a little solar panels, that generate power and you can plug in your smartphone to recharge it when you're out and about, when you're wearing your hat in the sun. So this is like a new wearable and a piece of clothing while we're at it. But I just think it's a really, really, really cool idea because when I'm out in the garden,  particularly in summer here - I'm always gardending - I'm literally outside for a good 3 or 4 hours anyway. 

So I'm probably going to be one of these that's probably going to buy this hat. So hopefully in summer time this year in Australia, I'll let you know how my Eco Flow hat is going. But I just think it's a tremendous idea.

12:19 S1

And how do you get hold of it?

12:21 S2

There's a link in the show notes that I will share. It was one of my RSS feed articles, but I'll have a link in the show notes and you can look it up and take it from there.

12:32 S1

There's been further developments with the Apple Pay facility.

12:36 S2

Yeah, this is an interesting one. Now, I'll just say up front that I can't use this because I've got two Apple IDs. I've got a developer one in my main one. But if you go into your Apple Wallet and you choose Add card, you'll see a new option that says Apple Card. Now don't get too excited. This is not the credit card they've been talking about overseas. This is where you can literally add money to your, quote, Apple Card. And then when you go into an Apple Store. So this is not the App Store but the Apple Store physically or I guess I can't confirm this, but I'm assuming the Apple Store app. You can then use the money that you've been putting into your Apple Card to go against the purchase of a product, so it's almost like having your own little piggy bank, as we used to say. 

So you save up your dollars and cents and then you can go and buy exactly what you want at the Apple Store. If using your some of your savings and your Apple Card.

13:28 S1

It's an alternative to drawing from your credit card.

13:31 S2

Correct. Except this. This way you've already, quote, spent the money, if you like, because you've already stored it in the upper card already.

13:37 S1

Now, before we go, a reminder of whether a details of what we've been talking about in this and previous editions of the program indeed.

13:43 S2

So as always, you can check out my blog site, which is David Wood bur dot Podbean pod Cbn.com.

13:50 S1

David Wood beard Podbean podbean.com to right to the program.

13:56 S2

You can write to me at Vision Australia where I work, which is David dot Woodbridge - how it sounds - at Vision Australia dot org.

14:03 S1

david.woodbridge@visionaustralia.org ... This has been Talking Tech, with me has been Vision Australia's national advisor on access technology David Woodbridge I'm Stephen Jolley. Stay safe. We'll talk more tech next week. See you.