They will have the time in time. Others have mentioned this approach as well and there are a number of wave guided menus out there in the wild but none that are user definable as this is.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Scott Bresnahan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of Mac OS X by theblind" <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, September 19, 2008 1:00 PM Subject: Re: Lioncourt.com Review: Shake, Shuffle, and Roll Hi, I thought I'd describe what I know about the accessibility feature of the iPod nano in the hope that it helps listers understand the limits of the technology. First and most important, there is no text to speech engine on the nano. This is why it doesn't work out of the box. When you enable the feature in iTunes, iTunes builds audio files of your system voice speaking all the strings in the iPod menus as if it were converting a text file to mp3 or aac file. Then, iTunes will synch and associate that small file with the menu items. Thus, when you navigate the iPod menu, it plays back the associated file corresponding to menu name. This is very clever in that it doesn't penalize people who don't want text to speech by clogging up their iPod with Alex and the engine application. The bad part is it doesn't help with dynamic content like the current time or applications. I personally expect this technology to migrate to the classic, but don't expect it to move to the iPod touch. In essence, Apple built in an audio interface to the menu interface if associated files exist. Ironically, I mentioned this exact approach to a colleague who is now at Apple a few years ago. Maybe the shuffle will support jumping by audio book chapter next. :) --Scott At 9:38 PM -0700 9/18/08, 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. > >One interesting thing I did notice about the nano is that if it is >playing music and you start to move through the menus, the music >volume gets cut in half, presumably so that speech may be heard. >Pretty cool, but again, no experience actually using the speech. > >Regards >Justin Harford >On Sep 18, 2008, at 9:22 PM, Josh de Lioncourt wrote: > >> Thanks go to Shane Jackson for his review of the iPod Nano 4G and >>its speaking interface. You can read the review at this link: >> >> http://www.lioncourt.com/shake-shuffle-and-roll/ >> >> Josh de Lioncourt >> >> ...my other mail provider is an owl... >> >> >> -- --Scott
