The Canadian Council of the Blind Podcast

November is Diabetes Awareness Month. On this special evening meeting we are pleased to welcome Heather Walkus, National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities (CCD), who is a user of the Dexcom 6 continuous glucose monitor system. Heather will present to us her experiences about its accessibility and usability for our community.

More info, https://www.dexcom.com

Using a smartphone with a visual impairment can sometimes be frustrating and difficult. At Hable, we like to make this easier for you. The Hable One is the easiest Braille keyboard to control your smartphone.

Do you use Voiceover or Talkback on your smartphone and struggle with swiping gestures? Or do you find on-screen typing cumbersome and takes up a lot of energy? Then the Hable One is probably of interest to you.

This week, Michael Feir focusses on hardware. He will explain what differentiates one iPhone from another and why it matters to you. From microchips, cameras, memory, and storage, we will talk about what is under the glass. Michael will also discuss accessories you may wish to acquire for your iPhone. From cases to keyboards to chargers, we will talk about how to shop for them and what to be careful of when you do.

Before we pull back and look at the larger picture, this month’s lecture is my attempt to give you the equivalent of a quick start guide. Sighted people will typically have access to enough instructions so that they are able to start exploring and enjoying their iPhones with a minimum of fuss. They are given very basic navigation instructions and directed to the app store among other resources. Blind people lack such resources which take their very different experience into account. This lecture will attempt to provide enough knowledge about key aspects of iPhone use to allow you to start doing things. Topics such as Voiceover, typing on your iPhone, setting up an iPhone totally blind, obtaining the iPhone user guide from the Books app or on the web, and much more. People may wish to read the Quick Start section of the Personal Power eBook before attending the lecture.

the Unseen Touchscreen online course will give the information needed by blind iPhone users to make the most out of these powerful and versatile devices.

Wayne gives us a walk-through of the voiceover settings on the Mac explaining what each setting does

Description: Two years and literally thousands of changes later, the second edition of Personal Power is now available. It is an eBook which I wrote and am giving away freely. Basically, the book takes people from setting up their iPhones to thriving in the iOS environment. It teaches how to use Voiceover, the various parts of iOS, and a whole lot of apps.

. The link to the guide is:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-1GAc2-HM1drA0GEj4fEBgQxIh4bHSKC

We all get distracted by our iPhones. The answer used to be to turn on “do not disturb”. This would prevent notifications from being announced and prevent pretty much everyone from contacting you. Apple has improved upon this with a new feature called “Focus”. That is where “do not disturb” went to hide on everyone. It is now one of several different focus modes. You can take far more control over what apps can disturb you. and who can contact you when you are busy. There is more of a learning curve which comes with this increased flexibility. Together, we will explore how to customize and even create your own focus modes. We will also learn how to take control of this new addition to iOS.

Caroline has used both Apple and android phones. She joins us to present on the pros and cons and features and her decision to use an android phone at present.

As a follow-up to our presentation on using Siri a couple of weeks ago, we explore the Siri shortcuts app and show how to create your own shortcuts for Siri to use.