Apple's iOS 17 Accessibility Features

00:44

S1

Hello everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from September the 19th, 2023. I'm Stephen Jolly. Great to have you with us. Listening may be through Vision Australia Radio, associated Stations of Australia or maybe the Community Radio Network. There is also the podcast. The way to catch that is to search for the two words talking tech and Diana can all come usually on a Tuesday afternoon just after it's been produced. Another option is to ask a 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. And he's been working very hard over the last week or so. David Woodbridge, Vision Australia's National Advisor on Access Technology. David, you were awake bright and early last Wednesday morning to follow the Apple event from Apple Park. So let's dissect a bit of that today. Firstly, what was your impression of the event?

S2

Well, first of all, the positive thing was the fact that again, again it was audio described which places like Microsoft, Samsung, Google and so on haven't decided not to do yet. So that was a good thing, a good plus. I think Apple sometimes gets a little bit too distracted on doing their, quote, cute little, you know, photography bits, filming bits, play bits. And I just got the funny feeling that the whole presentation went for roughly about 90 minutes. I reckon they could have done it in about 45 minutes because they had a lot of fill in stuff and some of the important stuff they sort of brushed across. 

And then some of the the non important stuff, at least for us, blind and low vision people, they spend a heck of a lot of time along. But I must say, Stephen, the thing that and I know you and I were joking about it before we came on here, but the environmental thing with, you know, Mother Nature coming into Apple Park and basically, you know, prove to me what you're doing. Apple In some ways I thought that was a complete waste of time. But in the other thing and what you said and it's probably true, I also started thinking of the environmental impact upon when we start making any type of technology and, you know, dragging stuff out of the ground, how to recycle it, how to produce better manufacturing techniques and everything else. 

So from one point of view, it was like, Oh God, no, really? Are we going we're going to go into a whole skit now? Are we versus Oh, that's right. I've got to keep remembering about environmental impact. Yeah, I.

S1

Thought it was pretty entertaining and it did make me think about it. It was rather innovative way to do it. Okay. So let's talk about what was put out to us. We'll start with the iPhones. Firstly, what are the models of the iPhones that they told us about the other day?

S2

So the new iPhones are the iPhone 15 and the 15 plus. So that's your 6.1 or 6.7 inch phones. And then you've got the pro versions of that. So you've got the iPhone, iPhone 15 Pro and the iPhone 15 pro max, and again, 6.1 and 6.7. So there were the four phones, the 15, the plus and the 15 pro and the we can't call it a plus. It's a max. So yeah, four phones.

S1

Okay. So tell us about the the design and the display of these devices, these iPhones.

S2

Well, in particular with the 15 they were talking about the fact that the color is now incorporated into the the metal when the phone's built. So it's actually part of the whole process of building the phone now with the, quote, metal, unquote, in the the bigger version, the pro version of the phone, if you like, it's titanium. So it's going to be a lot stronger. I still think the weakest part of the phone is actually at the back because when they talk about the gorilla, the gorilla glass at the front and other glass, I've actually managed to crack my phone screen. 

So and the back of it. So when they say it's really, really tough, it might be, but you can still break it. The other thing between remember, between the 15 and the pro versions of these phones is the 15 itself has still got this 16 chip, which is currently in the 14. The 14 pro the 17 chip is only in the pro versions of the phone. What they were also pointing out quite a fair bit was the you've got much more lenses to use wherever virtually if you like, or mechanically in the pro version as opposed to the 15. 

And of course the pro version being the pro version, it's got a lot more oomph in the actual processor. It's got more neural engines, it's got more cores. And also the fact that this might be good for low vision people. It's actually brighter in sunlight. So if you're out and about, you need to look at your phone screen. It's bright enough so that the daylight doesn't wash out the screen and you can still look at the screen. So that was actually pretty amazing. 

The thing that they slid over quite nicely, I thought, was the fact that both of these would say, let's just say the iPhone. Now the new iPhone is going to Usbc. So the lightning cables and the lightning connector is now gone. And supposedly you can now connect all sorts of wonderful usb-c things to your iPhone. Now, there's a slight difference between the 15 and the pro version of the 15, which I'm not really going to go into, but I would suggest moving forward with the usb-c cabling options, you need to be a bit sort of more definite about what cable you're using in a way because you've got data and data and charging and you've also got cables that are either usb-c two or Usb-c three. So lightning was good because lightning was lightning. 

I think we're now going to be entering into a bit of a maybe a learning period for maybe the next 6 to 12 months as we get used to what usb-c things work and what Usb-c cables work with the iPhone 15.

S1

On the iPhone 15 range. Tell us about the action switch.

S2

Quite simply, the the ring switch, which is what you used to use on the side of your phone to silence or unmute. If you like your phone call ring, This is now changed into the quote actions button, which is basically what is on the ultra Apple Watch and what you can do. There will be a certain number of features that you can associate with that action button that might be to, you know, run a shortcut to activate the camera app to do all sorts of things. Now, initially there's about 6 or 7 features that you can associate with that actions button, but I'm assuming moving down the track, particularly of shortcuts, you could assign any feature to that actions button.

S1

I get the impression this has been very much an incremental increase. The last really big development was probably with the iPhone 12. So people are still happy with say they're 13 and 14 and maybe even their twelves. Might it be a good idea to just hold back for 12 months.

S2

Look like I would, particularly if you've got an iPhone 12 Pro which has got the built in LiDAR in it because that's what quite a few of the accessibility options are built around. So I've still got my 12 pro even though I do have a 14 pro max, but that's mainly for testing. But my 12 pro is perfectly fine. Okay, the battery is getting a bit worse for wear, but I'm quite happy to go and put a new battery if I have to in my 12 pro or carry around a battery pack. So yeah, honestly, if you've got a 12 pro, a 13 or definitely a 14, there is absolutely no need to update to a 15.

08:39

S1

Just might have to replace your battery. Tell us about the new Apple watches the series nine and the ultra two.

S2

So yes so two brand new watches. The Series nine is an absolute update from the series eight. So it's definitely got a faster process because remember, the series eight in the ultra one had the same processing power. So now the Series nine has got a proper updated chip in it. And the ultra two it is main feature is that it's again a lot brighter in sunlight. Now I can't remember whether they said that applied to the series nine one or not, but the Ultra two was definitely an improvement for looking at in sunlight because you're really using it outdoors. 

And of course the major feature that I really liked to hear about was the double tap function where the double tap with your two fingers, which is really a double pinch. It would detect that movement through your wrist and do a default function. And the one that I think is quite amazing is that it would actually answer a call and hang up a call. So for me, if you've already had issues about using your Apple Watch to answer and hang up a phone call, this is a pretty major improvement. So that's why I'm looking forward to it. 

So if you've got a Series eight watch or an essay and you do have trouble with the phone calls and that sort of stuff may not be a bad idea to update.

S1

So am I looking forward to being at a restaurant? My phone goes without dropping my knife and fork. I can start a conversation on the phone. Isn't that disgraceful?

S2

It's pretty amazing. Yeah. Don't talk too much about it. I might convince myself that I need one now. Yeah.

S1

AirPods two. There's been an update with those. Is that of much interest.

S2

In the sense that it's getting a lot busier with the AirPods software. So you've got all these new adaptive functions for conversation mode and noise cancellation modes and everything else, plus the fact the new case that you'll have to buy a complete new set of. AirPods will be using Usb-c. But I think what Apple's doing is they're positioning the AirPods Pro to be part of the whole new. What's the word for it? Hotel, if you like, of features that will be coming up with the Vision Pro next year.

11:00

S1

I was 17 out today. If you're listening on Tuesday and we'll go into that in a lot more detail next week. Tell us, though, about the accessibility features of iOS 17.

S2

So the major one that I like to point out at the time at the moment is the new access assistive mode, which is basically means it cuts down an application to its bones. And then it simply got a back button to go back to your home screen. And so what they've done, they've combined the phone call app into by phone calls and FaceTime. They've simplified the photos app, simplified, and a few other apps as well. But it literally just means you've got a few icons on the screen, particularly for music, nice big large buttons and large print. 

So really it's for people that find the quote, iPhone in iOS too hard to use. This really makes it a very simple, straightforward interface and the other feature that a lot of people are talking about is the personal voice option. So if you're want to record your voice and be able to, if you like, have the iPhone speak in relatively similar to your own voice, you can do that. 

The other function calls, which I love, is when you're on a phone call, a particular for someone that might be deaf or has a speech impediment or another disability, you can type in on the keyboard of the iPhone and then what you type in gets sent off to the caller, either in your own voice, if you've recorded it, or the default voice that you're currently using for iOS. That's pretty amazing. 

And the other major feature of calls for me is the Siri option, where you can speed up Siri to twice. And of course we don't have to use the magic word HTC anymore. We can just use the word Siri plus the fact we can put two commands at the same time when we're using series. So there's a few other ones there that we'll go probably do more in depth next week, but they're the major ones. 

I will talk more about point and Speak next week because I've got some sort of issues with that point. And speak is simply when you run the magnification app only with a pro version of the phone, by the way, then it will use LIDAR and the Magnification app to detect where your finger is in space and what your finger is pointing at, i.e. icons on a touchscreen. It'll tell you what the button is when that icon is obscured or the buttons obscured because your fingers over it and then you can tap it, which means you can use a touchscreen with your finger, with your camera point speak, positioning you on the touch screen. 

And by the way, there are a few known bugs in iOS 17 and I'll point them out. But if you want to have a look in the meantime, they're up on the Apple.

S1

Website as usual. Great stuff on the Apple website with articles and podcasts explaining these new features, particularly accessibility features.

S2

That there will be. And I haven't checked today, but I'm sure there's going to be a whole raft of blog articles and podcasts to do with all the features with iOS 17, including the accessibility one. So if you want to fill in some time over the next week, week or so, enjoy Apple Podcasts.

14:17

S1

We'll talk about it in more detail next week.

S2

Certainly. Well, just before we go, a reminder of where people can find details of what we've been talking about in this and in previous editions of the program.

S2

As always, you can check out my blog site, which is David would be a dot podbean pad beacon. Com.

S1

David would be our dot podbean pod beacon to right to the program.

14:42

S2

You can write to me at business trial where I work which is David Dot Woodbridge, out sounds at Vision Australia-dot-org.

14:48

S1

David-dot-Woodbridge at Vision Australia-dot-org. This has been talking tech with me has been Vision Australia's National Advisor on Access Technology David Woodbridge. I'm Stephen Jolley. Take care. We'll talk more tech next week. See you.