Introduction

Until a couple months ago, I had been using an iPhone as my main phone. I purchased my first iPhone in 2011. Since then, I have tried Android tablets briefly then went back to using my iPhone and iPad because I did not like the experience. For those that do not know, VoiceOver is the screen reader for iPhones and TalkBack is the screen reader for Android phones. For one thing, the gestures for TalkBack seemed really weird to me. You needed to use these gestures called angle gestures in order to read the screen by word, line or character. By angle gestures, I mean that you needed to do things such as swipe up then right or up then left in one gesture. I could never do that consistantly. For another thing, TalkBack was not always responsive enough. For example, when I tried to read posts on Facebook using TalkBack, I would swipe to the right to go to the next post. After I swiped, I would need to wait a few seconds for TalkBack to start reading the post. On iOS using VoiceOver, the post would start reading immediately. That may seem minor, but that was just one example.

Improvements

Since I am a technology instructor and because I like keeping up with technology, I am on several different technology email lists. As a result, I read several emails about improvements to TalkBack. Since I was curious enough to try it out, I decided to use some of my stimulous check to purchase a Google Pixel. One of these improvements is that on Google Pixel and some Samsung phones, the latest version of TalkBack now supports multi-finger gestures. Yahoo, no more need to use those angle gestures that I had trouble with. Don’t worry, if you have been using TalkBack for a long time, you can still use the angle gestures if you want. Some gestures are even similar to VoiceOver on iOS. Do you need TalkBack to stop talking? Tap on the screen one time with two fingers just like on iOS with VoiceOver. Do you want to stop audio from playing? If you use VoiceOver on iOS, you already know this gesture. Double-tap with two fingers. I can answer the phone by flicking up with two fingers. If I need to review text on the screen, I can flick up or down with three fingers to set TalkBack to move by word, character, line, ETC. If you are on a web page, this also includes links and headings. Then I can flick up or down with one finger to move by that amount. If you are a VoiceOver user on iOS, you can think of this as TalkBack’s version of the rotor. I cannot remember if the gestures for reviewing the screen are the default gestures or if I customized them. If you are using TalkBack, you can find out the gestures by opening Settings on your phone. Go into Accessibility. Go into TalkBack. Go into customize gestures. Also, the first time TalkBack is started on a device, you are given the option to go through a tutorial that teaches you the basics of TalkBack. This is something Apple can learn from Google.

Another improvement is the ability to control TalkBack with your voice. I can double-tap with three fingers then say something like home to go to the Home screen, Notifications to open the Notification Shade or overview to show my list of open apps. The Notification Shade is similar to the Notification Center on iOS. You can think of the Overview as Android’s version of the App Switcher on iOS.

things that need improvement

On iOS devices, braille displays such as my Orbit Reader 20 can be used with VoiceOver to both read text in Braille that one would normally read on the screen and type things such as text messages and email using the Braille keyboard. Android has an app called Brailleback that is supposed to perform similar functions. A few months ago, I tried BrailleBack with my Orbit braille display. I was able to read and review text that was on my phone’s screen; However, when I tried typing using the Braille keyboard, weird things happened. For one thing, when I typed, TalkBack acted like I was deleting instead of typing. For example, if I typed the word dog, TalkBack would say “d deleted” “o deleted” and “g deleted.” What? I was trying to type, not delete. Google, would you please work on the BrailleBack feature? I’m sure some people who are blind and deaf would appreciate it and even some people who just enjoy Braille would appreciate it as well.

On iOS, I can telllllllll SIRI to send a text message to somebody. After that, SIRI will ask me what I want to say. I then tell SIRI what I want to say. Finally, she will read back to me what she heard and ask me if I want to send it. I can say yes, no or change it. That way, if she misunderstood me, I can either change the message or just cancel it. I can also tell the Google Assistant to send a text message by saying something like hey Google, send a text message to Lacy. Google will ask me what I want to say. This is good, but there is one problem. Unlike Siri, Google will not ask me before she sends the message. This might not seem like a big deal, but there are times when it could cause problems. Sometimes my students text me if they need to ask a question or cancel/confirm appointments. What would happen if I told Google to text one of these students and Google misunderstood and put in something off the wall such as a cuss word? Depending on the student’s personality, I could see one of two things happening. I could either apologize and they would not think much of it. On the other hand, they could think I am unprofessional and not want to work with me. As a work around, I actually open the Messages app and send messages that way. Then I can use TalkBack to make sure the message is correct before sending it. This works, but sometimes it would be nice to jusst quickly tell Google to send a message.

Another improvement that could be made is in text selection. When I am editing text, I can select text with TalkBack. It would be nice if I could also select text when I am just reading text from some place such as a web page. One use of tthis would be if I wanted to post part of an article into an email or Facebook post.

conclusion

Even though I discussed things that could be improved, I am planning to keep using my Google Pixel as my main phone. I am confident that Google can fix the problems discussed above. TalkBack has come a long way since it was first developed. When Android 12 comes out, I plan to do a follow-up post to discuss any improvements made.

The Apple Calendar app with iOS 14: Rita’s iDevice Advice for October 5, 2020

The Calendar app native to the iPhone is quite functional.

I have found that it is useful to use SIRI to schedule appointments in my Apple Calendar app.

You need to invoke Siri by saying "Hey Siri" and then quickly say something such as "schedule an appointment on my calendar for a particular date and time, plus say the word "Title" and say what the event is going to be.

When you want to schedule a Calendar Event, you can use SIRI.

Just say, Hey Siri, schedule appointment for Monday at 8 AM, titled, "order cat food".

You can share a particular calendar with another person thus you could check your calendar and get notifications as well.

You can set up to 2 alerts, which is useful, such as: a day before and then 30 minutes before.

This is native to the iPhone and you can link your gmail calendar as well.

—

This information was posted on the Tech Juggernaught Blog at TTJTECH.net

Voiceover Calendar Changes with iOS 14:

In the Apple Calendar app, when creating a new event, you will notice that the way you select start and end dates with Voiceover has been redesigned. Instead of just one picker, which must be swiped through, potentially taking a long time for you to find the date you want, you can now use a picker to select the month, then swipe right to see and hear all the days of the selected month by date. Simply double-tap on the date you want. You can even double-tap on the month picker to reveal a year picker, which makes it possible to quickly change the year of your start and end dates

Time Pickers:

In both the Calendar and Clock apps, when creating events or setting alarms, you can now simply enter times in the time edit field. Simply enter the time as a three or four digit number, with the hour first, followed by a two-digit minute. Enter this with no punctuation. Don’t worry about deleting what’s there, or anything else. It could not be simpler. For example, if you want an alarm for 7:30, just enter 730 into the edit field as soon as you double-tap on it. Want 9:00? enter 900. Eleven o’clock would be 1100.

After you enter the desired time, swipe right to select either AM or PM.

Check out this audio recording from Matt Vollbrecht with the Tech Juggernaught. TTJTECH.net

The Apple Calendar with Voiceover in iOS 14 has been the subject of much discussion since its release. Today, we teach you how to use it, and we demonstrate how easy it is to add events to the Calendar using Voiceover.

ios14-calendar-vo.m4a <https://ttjtech.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/ios14-calendar-vom4a>

Get Outlook for iOS

The App Library, In iOS 14: Rita’s iDevice Advice for September 21, 2020

Note: below there will be a link to listen to a M4A Audio tutorial posted by Matt Vollbrecht with the Tech Juggernaut at TTJTECH.net

How to Use the iPhone App Library

A new feature introduced in iOS 14 is the iPhone App Library. The App Library automatically sorts your apps into folders and also offers an alphabetical directory where you can search for any app you have downloaded. This takes away the difficulty of searching through your Home screen for lesser-used apps, and offers helpful suggestions when you’re not sure which of your apps would best suit your purpose.

In addition to being able to put Widgets on your home screen, you can now remove apps without uninstalling them. A new top-level screen called the App Library contains all the apps installed on your iPhone. Mastering the App Library is key to keeping a tidier and organized iPhone and quickly being able to find the app you want. Here is how the App Library works.

App Library organization: Once you install iOS 14, you will find the App Library to the right of your last home screen. Just keep swiping and you will soon be there.

Note: when running VoiceOver, perform a 3 finger swipe gesture (from right to left) to advance screens of apps, until you get past the last page of apps and then the App Library will appear with one more 3 finger swipe gesture.

You can also get to the App Library by selecting the Page selector, which is located just above the Doc and is represented by dots. If you have 5 pages of Apps, then there are 5 dots in the page selector area. You can flick up and down with one finger to go forward and backward through the pages of Apps on your iOS device. When you keep flicking up, you will go past the last page of apps and then there will appear the App Library. If you keep flicking down, you will arrive at the "Today View" which used to be Page 1 in prior versions of the iOS.

When you do get to the App Library, you do not have to organize this screen. All your apps will appear in little four-square boxes. The upper left box is always Suggestions. This will show four apps that Siri has determined you are likely to use based on the time of day, your location, etc. It gets smarter the more you use your iPhone, and the suggestions are calculated entirely on your device. No data about your app use, habits, or location is ever shared.

In the upper right you will find Recently Added, which is self-explanatory. It shows apps you have most recently installed. Tap the big app icons to launch the app. Tap the small four-square group to open the category folder. Beneath that are four-square folders that are auto-arranged by app category. Apple automatically determines to which category an app belongs, Each of these boxes will show three full-size app icon together with a little four-icon grouping in the lower right. Apple does not make it clear, but if you tap a full-size app icon the app will launch. If you tap the little four-icon grouping, you will open up a view of all the apps in that category. The category boxes themselves are not always in the same place. They will reorder themselves based on which apps you use most often.

Searching the App Library: If you do not want to open and close the app category boxes looking for the app you need, search is the way to go. Just drag down on the App Library, or tap the search box, to get an alphabetical index of all your apps. Tap the search box at the top of the screen, or swipe down anywhere on the screen, and you can search by name or scroll through an alphabetical list of all the apps on your iPhone.

Adding apps to the home screen: If there is an app in the App Library that is not on your home screen, it is easy to add. Just tap and hold on an app icon until you see the context menu, and choose Add to Home Screen. If an app already exists on your home screen, you won’t see that option. Long-press an icon in the App Library to add it to your home screen.

Adding an app to your home screen does not remove it from the App Library it will always contain all the apps on your iPhone. You can also enter jiggle mode and drag apps off the left edge of the App Library to place them on your home screen.

Removing individual apps from the home screen: If you want an app to exist in the App Library but do not want an icon on your home screen, that is easy to do. Tap and hold on the app until the context menu pops up. Choose Remove App and you will be presented with a popup with three options: Cancel, Remove from Home Screen, or Delete. Just long-press an app icon to remove it from your home screen. It will stay in your App Library, if you choose. Delete will remove the app entirely, but Remove from Home Screen will simply take the icon away, and it will still exist in the App Library where it always has been.

Removing pages of apps from the home screen: You can remove entire pages of apps (and widgets) from the home screen, too. Tap and hold on an empty space of your home screen to enter jiggle mode and then tap on the little page indicator near the bottom of the screen. Enter jiggle mode and tap the page indicators to disable or enable entire home screen pages. This will bring up an Edit Pages screen where you can select or de-select entire home screen pages. If you de-select one, it will no longer appear on your home screen, but all those apps will always be in your App Library. Your iPhone saves those layouts, so you can simply re-enable them later.

Downloading apps to the App Library: Once you get used to a minimalist home screen with just a few widgets and app icons, it is hard to go back to all that clutter. When you download a new app from the App Store, it will still appear on your home screen, but you can change that behavior. You can download apps without cluttering up your home screen. If you want new app downloads to skip the home screen and only appear in your App Library, open Settings, tap on Home Screen, then select whether you want new app download to appear in both the App Library and the home screen, or just the App Library. You can also choose to show notification badges (the red dots in the corner with numbers) on App Library icons. Remember, all your apps are always in the App Library.

—

More instructions for Accessing the App Library with iOS 14

1. Swipe to the last page of apps on your Home screen.

2. Swipe to the left one more time.

You are now in the App Library

1. Scroll down to see all the groupings your iPhone has created for you.

2. Tap on the small grouping of 4 in the lower right-hand corner of your screen to see all the apps in that category.

Use the Search Function

If you already know what you’re looking for, the Search function will help pull it up quickly. To search by name just:

1. Tap the Search bar at the top of your screen.

2. Type in the name of the app you’re looking for.

3. Alternately, you can use the alphabet scroller on the right side of the screen to search for an app alphabetically. You can also pull this up by swiping down when you have your App Library open.

===

Notes and link to Audio Recordings from Matt Vollbrecht with TTJTECH.net

just wanted to let you know that I have begun releasing a series of tips, tricks, and demos of various iOS 14 features with Voiceover. The first two are I think highly sought after – App Library with VO, and Calendar with VO. You can find them on my website, right on the main page, under the Latest Posts. I also suggest subscribing to following the Blog by e-mail, as more posts like this will be released over the next several days.

The web address is:

HTTPS://TTJtech.net

The new Home Screen widgets and widget stacks, the App Library, and how to hide Home Screen pages, all while using Voiceover.

ios14-homescreen.m4a <https://ttjtech.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/ios14-homescreen.m4a>

Introduction

Xcode is the development environment used to develop IOS, Mac OS, Watch OS and TV OS apps. Normally, Swift is used as the programming language. If you are blind and want to learn Swift, I highly recommend the 100 Days Of SwiftUI tutorial from Paul Hudson’s web site SwiftUI is Apple’s latest framework for developing user interfaces. The previous framework, UIKit can still be used, but this is more difficult for a blind person since it depends on story boards and dragging/dropping. Both are visual concepts. SwiftUI can be done completely by typing code pretty easily. This lesson assumes that you have a Mac computer running Mac OS Catalina or later. This lesson also assumes that you are familiar with VoiceOver navigation including interacting with objects. Whenever you see “VO” that means to hold down the Control and Option keys. Since Xcode’s simulator does not work with VoiceOver, you will need to Sign up for a developer account. in order to test apps on a real device. With all of that out of the way, let’s get started.

Installing XCode

Xcode can be installed from the Mac OS App Store. To open the App Store, press VO M to open the Apple menu then VO Down Arrow to App Store. Press Enter. To search for Xcode, press Command F. Type the word “Xcode” then press Enter. VO Left or Right Arrow until VoiceOver says “results for Xcode.” Then interact with the results. VO Left or Right Arrow until you hear the Redownload button for Xcode. VO Space on that button. After you press VO Space on that button, Xcode will not start downloading yet. You will need to VO Left or Right Arrow until you find the Redownload button again. Then press VO Space on that button again. After that, wait a minute to see if Xcode starts downloading. Xcode usually takes a while to download, so find something else to do then check back in a half an hour. After Xcode finishes downloading, an Open button will appear. You can either open Xcode with that button or open it from the Spotlight or the Applications folder.

Creating and Opening Projects

When Xcode opens, it opens with your list of recent projects and a button to create a new Xcode project. Once you create at least one project, you can interact with the Recent Projects table then VO Left or Right Arrow until you get to the project you want to open. Then press Enter. If you have not created any projects yet, you will not interact with this table. Instead, VO Right Arrow until you get to the option to create a new Xcode project. Then press VO Space. Once you VO Space on the button to create a new project, a box will come up that asks you to choose platform and template. First, VO Left/Right arrow in order to find the section that VoiceOver calls “platform radio group” then interact with that section. VO Left/Right until you get to the platform you want then press VO Space. For example, if you want to develop an iPhone or iPad app, you would VO Space on IOS. Stop interacting with the “platform radio group.” Vo Right Arrow until you get to the template chooser and interact with that. Then interact with the Application Section. Vo Left or Right Arrow until you get to App then press VO Space. Stop interacting with both the Application section and the template chooser. The platform and template you just picked will be the default from now on, so the next time you create a project you will not need to interact with the platform or template section. VO Right Arrow until you find Next then press VO Space. Another window will come up. VO Right Arrow until you find the box to type your product name. The name you type hear wil be the name of the app when you run it on a device. Vo Right Arrow through the options and make sure SwiftUI is the selected interface. Vo Right Arrow until you get to the Next button and press VO Space. Another window will come up that asks where you want to save the project. If you don’t want to change this, press VO Right Arrow until you get to Create and press VO Space. Wait a minute for Xcode to create your project.

tips for Xcode navigation

In Xcode 11, I was placed in one of the Swift source files whenever I opened or created a project. I noticed that in Xcode 12, I am now placed in a table with my list of source files. If you find yourself placed in this table, you can just interact with the table then VO Left/Right Arrow until you find the source file you want to edit. If you are brand new to Swift, go ahead and look for contentview.swift. Press VO J until you are in the source code editor. VO J is sometimes used in Mac OS apps to jump to different sections of a window. When you are in the source code editor, you can use the Up/Down arrow keys to move by line and Left/Right arrow moves by letter. Option Left/Right Arrow moves by word. Command Up Arrow goes to the top of the source file and Command Down Arrow goes to the bottom. Command Left Arrow goes to the beginning of the line and Command Right Arrow goes to the end of a line.

Before you run your code, you will need to have your IOS device that you are going to use to run your code connected to your computer at least for the first time you run an app. If you want, you can configure Xcode to use the device wirelessly after that. After your device is connected to your computer, set the destination in Xcode to that device. To do this, press VO M to open the menu. VO Right Arrow until you get to the Product menu. VO Down Arrow until you get to Destination submenu then press VO Right Arrow. VO Down Arrow until you get to your device then press VO Space. For example, I run the code on my iPhone most of the time, so I usually VO Down Arrow to iPhone. When you are done editing your code, you can press Command R to run the program. Hopefully, after a minute or two, VoiceOver will say “build succeeded.”. If you hear that message, life is good and you can just wait a minute for the app to open on your device. Often, especially when you are a beginner, you will get another message, “build failed.” When you get this message, you will need to figure out why the build failed. To get a list of error messages, press Command 5 to go to Issue Navigator. Interact with the table. VO Left/Right Arrow to go through the list. While you are on an error message, you can press VO J until you get back to the source editor. You will be placed on the line that that particular error message referred to. Try to fix the error then try running the code again. If you don’t know how to fix the error, you may need to review sections of the Swift tutorial you are using. If you still can’t figure out the error, try putting the error message into Google or another search engine.

The more you work with Swift, you will need to work on more than one source file in your project. To create a new Swift source file, press Command N. Xcode will ask you to choose a template for your new file. If you are a beginner and you don’t know what to choose, just choose SwiftUI file. VO Right Arrow until you get to the template chooser. SwiftUI may already be chosen. If it is, then you don’t need to do anything with this. If not, Interact with the template chooser and find SwiftUI. Then stop interacting. VO Right Arrow until you find the Next button then press VO Space. Type a name for the file. You do not need to include the .swift extension since Xcode automatically adds it. Find the Create button then press VO Space. When you have more than one source file to work on, you can press Command 1 to open the Project Navigator. Interact with the table. VO Left or Right Arrow until you find the file you want to edit. After you find the file you are looking for, press VO J until you get back to the source editor.

Adding Pictures and Other Files

Sometimes, you will need to add pictures or other files to your project. Adding pictures is a little bit diffferent than adding other files, so I will start with that. To add a picture, do the following:

1. Press Command 1 to open the Project navigator and interact with it.
2. Press VO Left or Right Arrow until you find Assets.xcassets then press VO J.
3. Stop interacting.
4. Vo Right Arrow until you find an option to add group or image set.
5. press VO Space.
6. VO Down Arrow to Import then press VO Space.
7. A box will come up that asks what files you want to add. Chances are that the files you want are somewhere in your home folder. To open your home folder, type the “/” key. Then type users/whatever your home folder is. Press Enter. If you don’t know your home folder is, open Terminal. Type “echo $HOME” then press Return.
8. Interact with the list of files and folders in your home folder. If you haven’t already previously done this, I recommend you press Command 1 to show the files and folders as icons.
9. Find the folder with the pictures then press VO Space.
10. Interact with the folder.
11. If you want to select all of the pictures in the folder, press Command A to select all of the pictures.
12. Vo Right Arrow to open then press VO Space.

To add other files such as .json or audio files, do the following:

1. Press Command 1 to open Project Navigator.
2. Press Command Option A.
3. What you want to add is probably in your home folder. Press the “/” key. Type users/YourHomeFolder then press Enter.
4. Interact with the Icon View collection which is the list of files and folders in your home folder.
5. Find the folder with the file you want to add.
6. Press Vo Space.
7. Interact with the folder.
8. Find the file you want to add then stop interacting.
9. Keep pressing VO Right Arrow and make sure the box is checked to copy items if needed. If it is not checked, press VO Space to check it.
10. VO Right Arrow to the Add button then press VO Space.

Conclusion

I hope this post helped you familiarize you with Xcode enough that you can follow one of the Swift tutorials on the web. The Swift Tutorial I am using is the 100 Days of SwiftUI tutorial. The idea is that you work with Swift for an hour each day. I don’t always follow that. I have a full time job and other things going on, so I skip days. Still, there is a lot of information in that tutorial and other articles on the Hacking With Swift web site.

For this lesson, we will open Microsoft Word, braille some text, then learn to navigate the document. We will use a computer running Windows 10, JAWS screen reader version 2020 and an Orbit Reader 20 braille display. Before this lesson can begin, you need to be signed into the computer and the desktop should be showing. JAWS 2020 needs to be configured to use the Orbit Reader braille display. Microsoft Office needs to be installed on the computer. JAWS needs to be running and the Orbit needs to be turned on. This lesson assumes that you know where all of the keys are on the display. This lesson also assumes that Word is configured to start in a blank document.
To open Microsoft Word, do the following:
1. space with all six braille dots at the same time until typing mode is enabled. JAWS will say typing mode enabled and the same message will show on the braille display.
2. Press dots 1, 4, 7 and 8 all at the same time to open the start menu. The Orbit Reader 20 user guide says to press space with those keys, but when I tried it the command only worked without the space key.
3. Type “word” without the quotes.
4. Press dot 8. Dot 8 is the same as pressing Enter on the keyboard.
After you type in the document, you can use the following commands to navigate:
Space with dot 3 or dot 6 moves by character.
Space with dot 2 or five moves by word.
Space with dot 1 or dot 4 moves by line.
Space with dotss 1 2 and three goes to the top of the document.
Space with dots 4 5 and 6 goes to the bottom of the document.