The Canadian Council of the Blind Podcast

The settings app is what you use to configure your iPhone so it best suits your needs. You can do everything from choosing how bright your display is to adjusting security options and enabling accessibility features. There are hundreds of settings inside various branches of options. This cession will be the first of a two part exploration of what settings are available. The focus will be on overall orientation to the Settings app plus deeper dives into some of the branches of options.

In this lecture, we’ll continue our tour of various aspects of the iOS operating system. Topics will include the powerful spotlight search feature, the app library and home screens, how to organize and move apps on your iPhone, how files are stored, when to use the iPhone storage settings area, the files app, the philosophy behind iOS, and current developments.

Now that you understand what the VoiceOver screen reader does and know some basic gestures, it’s time to learn about the iOS operating system. We’ll take a tour of its main points of interaction with users. These include the home screens, notification centre, control centre, dock, status bar, today view, widgets, and spotlight search. We’ll also discuss what iOS does for its users behind the scenes. For a deeper dive, read the section of the guide called The iOS Operating System.

In part 2 of our exploration of Voiceover, Michael Feir will continue discussing various gestures and techniques for getting the most out of Voiceover. We will learn how to reach the home screens and other key parts of iOS. There are also a good many settings which can help you customize Voiceover to suit your particular needs. Features such as navigation styles, quick settings, rotor settings, and more will be covered.

Wayne Antle describes how to move contacts to different apps using drag and drop with voiceover. 

The key to a blind person being able to effectively use an iPhone is the Voiceover screen reader. This provides a means of controlling an iPhone without sight as well as feedback via speech or Braille. This lecture will discuss various aspects and concepts of Voiceover. The rotor, navigation by units, screen exploration and important gestures will all be discussed.

When you start using an iPhone, you’re entering a carefully crafted ecosystem of hardware, software, and services. Apple tries to make its customers feel valued at the same time as they seek to profit from them. There are many implications of this. It’s far easier, for example, to purchase and read books using the Books app included on your iPhone than it is to obtain books from other vendors like Kindle. The same holds true for music, TV shows, etc. We’ll examine the advantages and disadvantages of Apple’s tight control of the app store and by extension, of what you can do on your iPhone. We’ll also talk about the economics of owning an iPhone and getting the greatest possible use out of it.

In this podcast, Wayne Antle walks us through using the powerful voiceover help features available on the mac. 

NaviLens is a new and exciting cutting-edge technology which has been developed to provide blind and visually impaired people with more accessibility and autonomy in their everyday lives. Oran McAllister, Client Engagement Officer at NaviLens, gives a presentation about the NaviLens Codes and the amazing features of this technology. He gives a short introduction to the NaviLens code, how it came about and how it works, additionally he speaks about the many use cases of the technology around the world, from transportation infrastructure wayfinding to product packaging, as well as validation from many users and associations from across the globe. Furthermore, Oran speaks about how NaviLens can be used in the home, in associations, and in schools using the free NaviLens kits, in addition to telling us a little more about the future of NaviLens.