Dear Esther,
Thank you for these comments regarding 4G nano. I have resolved to
purchase it. I was thrilled with my 3G nano but I'm looking forward to
the spoken menus. Well-done Apple!
The problem I ran into when I purchased my first nano was setting the
langue. Because I was unaware what was being displayed, I
inadvertently set the language to German. It took my sighted friend
some time to work out how to change it back to English. He had no
previous experience of Ipods so you can imagine us both: one totally
blind, and the other with no experience of Ipods and their menus.
You were explaining something about setting the speaking voice. Would
you mind taking me through those steps from the moment you plug it in
for the first time? I want to preserve Alex. He's really precious to
me. You can see from what I've just said how computers and computer
generated voices can acquire a personality. Smile! This is Statrek
stuff.
With my best wishes
Simon
On 12 Sep 2008, at 14:02, Esther wrote:
Hi Scott,
the new ipod nano 4g is better then I had expected.
The menus talk not all of them but the ones we need do actually
speak. There's no clipping the speech sounds brilliant and it just
keeps up with you when you move your finger around the click wheel.
It's absolutely fantastic a couple of issues i'm reporting to apple
such as no way of obtiining battery status info but other then this
totally usable.
it's hard getting used to the click wheel but after you have all
heard my presentation, you'll all want to disguard your ipods for a
4g nano guaranteed.
i'm really very very impressed and i think we'll have more ipod
users before we no it.
OK, I couldn't resist when I found my local Apple Store had these
in. I agree the 4G nano is really nice. (But I don't want to
discard my 2G nano at all!). The iPod even announces "Charging" and
"Charged". It announces almost all the menus (except for the
"extras" and some of the "settings" (the summary status of your
space usage that you get when connected to the iPod isn't spoken,
nor are time settings or other peripheral items that interactively
change -- you get status on clickers and font size for low-vision
users, but you don't get information on backlight adjustment, for
example). This also means that you get equalzer access, but you
have to choose among the equalizer presets. You also can't
interactively configure the menu displays by deciding to eliminate
categories, for example.
However, Scott's right that in what you want to hear the menu design
is beautifully done. If you've used the click wheel before you
probably won't have problems. Some of the functions I'm used to
having on the click wheel have been passed to other menus. For
example, in audiobooks and podcasts, I was used to changing speed
(if I used this) by additional clicks on the center of the wheel.
This function is now settable only in the Playback submenu under
settings, not in the individual audiobook or podcast tracks.
There are a few pointers that would help in the original set up --
for example, I didn't know how long the first sync would take, and
moving focus to the iTunes player status menu (VO-up arrow twice
from the songs list region or, in this case, where the iPod setup
information is) helped, if you move your VoiceOver cursor off and on
this field to update.
You also need to know that once you've connected your iPod you have
to VO-right arrow twice to the registration field (which is
perfectly accessible, provided you know it's there).
Also, before the iPod starts talking, you have to choose your
language, and these aren't spoken. The top of the list (your
default position) is U.S. English. (There appears to be a UK English
setting as the second item, according to my reading on the web.
This is new, but I have no idea what difference it makes.). So just
click the center of the wheel after making sure you're at the top of
the list (counter clockwise top position). At that point you will
hear Alex announce the top level menu (Music, Videos, Photos,
Podcasts, Extras, Settings, Shuffle Songs). After that, you're
golden.
Cheers,
Esther
