Hi Justin,
I tried to cc comments about the 4G Nano to the list this weekend, but
my post here bounced for exceeding the size limitations, since I went
into excruciating detail about which menus worked and which didn't.
Basically every menu that you need to hear is spoken, and there is far
more information than the i-Tell will report. Setup is accessible out
of the box. You need to VO-right twice from the source table to go
through registration and setup once the device is connected. If
VoiceOver is turned on when the Nano 4G is attached, the menus will
automatically come up with the boxes to activate spoken menus checked.
The 4G Nano will use the designated system voice under Text-to-Speech
in your System Preferences Speech menu. To change the Voice on the
Nano menus, change this selection and re-sync your Nano.
The most important accessibility related tip is how to select the
language for your nano 4G the first time you use it because this menu
is NOT spoken. Your Nano should arrive correctly positioned for
(English) use. If you want to be sure you're at the right position,
move your finger around the scroll wheel all the way counterclockwise
until you can't hear any more clicks. That will put you at the
setting for English (U.S.), and you can select it by pressing the
center ("Select") button of the Scroll wheel. (If you can't hear any
clicks at all when you try to move your finger counterclockwise,
you're in the correct position.) The next position (one click
clockwise from this) is supposed to be English (U.K.), which is
appearing as a separate selection for the first time with the 4G
model. Do not try to use any other settings, or your 4G Nano will not
talk.
Once it's set up, the menus work quite well, and give you multiple
ways of accessing the iPod contents. This means that it's just as easy
to browse of find your music under the categories of genre, composer,
artist, album, etc. It's a bit like the organization of the iTunes
Library with the browser, where you select a category like Music or
Videos, then put up the Browser and quickly drill down by artist and
album.-- or, you can go directly to a list of all the songs.
The wheel action allows you to scroll quickly through the lists, and
the menus don't gabble when you go fast -- only when you slow down.
Also, if you're playing music at the time, the playing volume will
drop so that you can more easily hear the menu information.
Pressing the center of the wheel selects a menu item and moves you
down menus; pressing the top of the wheel moves you back up menus
(until you hit the top level that says "iPod"). Moving your finger
clockwise around the wheel takes you down through a list of options
(you'll hear the clicks and the menu selections), while moving your
finger counterclockwise takes you up the same list.
For example, to listen to an Audiobook, I'd start at the iPod menu,
choose the first spoken entry of "Music", press the center of the
wheel for the music menu, scroll my finger clockwise down past the
playlists, artiists, albums, songs, genres, and composers to
"Audiobooks". I'd press the center wheel and scroll down an
alphabetical list of audiobooks and make my selection by pressing the
center of the wheel. If this is an Audible or iTunes book with
chapter markers, I can scroll down through a list of chapters and
select which one to play by pressing the center of the wheel. If I'm
returning to my listening, after having previously stopped (with the
play/pause button at the bottom of the wheel), I'll have the option of
a "Resume" listing at the top of the list of Chapters. Also, from the
top level iPod menu, I always have access to my current track, whether
paused or playing, by scrolling down to the bottom of the menu for the
"Now Playing" selection. If paused, I can resume play by pressing the
center of the wheel. The forward and back controls at the right and
left sides of the wheel work like those keys in iTunes: holding down a
forward key will fast forward you within a track and tapping the key
will advance you to the next track. In a chapterized audiobook the
tap will take you to the next chapter marker. Volume is controlled by
scrolling clockwise (to increase) or counterclockwise (to decrease).
When held horizontally, you'll hear "Cover Flow". This is a visual way
to flip through your library, and the scroll wheel is used to select
album art. You could use this as a kind of random play, and in fact,
one of the shuffle play modes involves hold ing the iPod horizontally
and shaking it. You hear a burbling kind of noise, and the music
that's playing changes. To identify the track, you can tap the center
of the wheel and the title will be announced.
If you get tired of hearing "Cover Flow" each time your tilt your
nano, flip on the lock switch at the top left edge of the Nano by
pushing it to the right. (Your iPod will continue to play in its
current menu -- just as play in iTunes will continue to the next track
in the Songs table, however you'll have to unlock the iPod to use the
wheel controls again.)
You can access equalizer preset settings under the playback menu under
"Settings" by scrolling down the list. Basically, the controls you
don't have access to are interactive of continuously variable items --
anything that would require a large or unpredictable number of spoken
word sets -- like individual podcast episode descriptions. For this
reason you also can't customize the menus by deleting some menu items
or moving them to another menu. In the case of the language setting
list, I suspect the fact that a number of languages with non-latin
characters (Japanese, Greek, Russian, Chinese, etc.) are interspersed
through the list is the reason this list isn't voiced.
You don't have information on the space usage from the Nano Menu, but
this is given in the device's Summary page when it is connected in
iTunes. There is also no battery reading (the device is rated for 24
hours of audio play time), but you do hear status information
("Charging", "Charged", and "Low Battery').
The menu items that aren't accessible are under the Extras menu --
these are clock, alarm, address book, notes, contact lists, and games.
Be careful about exploring and clicking, because in some cases you
will hear menu items announced, but not be able to hear the setting
values. One example is a lock screen function under the extras menu,
described in the user guide:
The Nano 4G user guide manual
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/iPod_nano_4th_gen_UserGuide.pdf
If you click your wheel in this menu, you could set an inaccessible
combination to lock your nano.
Hope this helps, and that I haven't exceeded the post limits again.
Cheers,
Esther
On Sep 18, 2008, at 6:38 PM, Justin Harford wrote:
Hi
Well that makes a great promotional, but could someone write about
how well it actually works? What we can expect when we purchase it,
bugs, purks, of course it talks but what else is there to know about
it.
I have been wanting to try one of these things out for a while now
but can't seem to figure out how as you have to set it up through
your itunes library and you won't find any such unit at an apple
store.
