Hi Ben,
The quick answer is that just about every function that you'd want to
hear speaking works on the iPod Nano 4G. The Extras menu items (where
you use the iPod to play games, access it for contact lists, calendar
functions, stop watch, alarm clocks, or to read text notes aren't
accessible. Under the Settings menu you can't interactively custom
configure your menus -- that means you can't decide to delete certain
items, or move them up to the main menu level, etc. or do anything non-
standard about shifting where items appear. But all the standard
items that you need to speak, will speak, and they work just fine
under the default organization that most people will be using. anyway.
It's much easier to have discussions over the few bits that aren't
accessible. or which are partially accessible, which is why you've
seen snippets in the recent discussion -- the basic premise is that
most things just work. The items in the shaded areas of mostly
working have to do with dynamically updating items. You can't
interactively adjust the equalizer the way you can in iTunes, but you
can access and apply a large number of equalizer presets that give you
most of this functionality. This is also why you can't get a report
on battery level status, except as status alerts like "Charging",
"Charged", and "Low Battery" warning. That's probably a more
significant issue. There's a "Cover Flow" mode, where you tilt your
iPod to hold it horizontally, where menu reports aren't spoken.
Instead, if you scroll the wheel, visual images of the covers of album
appear in the screen, and pressing the selection key (the center of
wheel) chooses that album or flips it to visually display available
songs for selection. This mode might be usable for low-vision users,
but not for blind users. Locking the iPod when you are holding it in
the normal, upright position will keep it from going into Cover Flow
mode, but you will have to unlock the iPod (by pushing the lock switch
at the top left of the Nano towards the left to unlock, to the right
to lock) to enter new commands.
The only inaccessible menu item on the Music menu is the "Search" menu
at the bottom that lets you input names of songs by choosing letters
"A-Z" with the scroll wheel to find songs and selecting them by
pressing the center of the wheel. You'll only hear 26 clicks!
Here are links to two posts in the archives that cover most of the
accessibility issues in the menus (rather exhaustively, so it's
actually easier to use the above summary). They were under the thread
"Accessibility summar of Nano 4G menus:
http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40macvisionaries.com/msg42108.html
(original post)
http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40macvisionaries.com/msg43186.html
(recent report of a few new features and replies to some questions)
Another post that gives the link to the Nano 4G user manual and
describes how the Nano 4G is used in practice:
http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40macvisionaries.com/msg42045.html
You can also listen to the MacWorld Video podcast on the 4G Nano with
spoken menus from the iTunes Store:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=207054170
and look for the September 19 episode where Don Frakes demonstrates
the accessibility features of the 4G Nano
or go the MacWorld RSS feed at:
feed://www.macworld.com/weblogs/mwvodcast.rss
if you have difficulty getting the podcast from the iTunes Store
if the iTunes Store address doesn't work for you
And again, the Nano 4g guide is at
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/iPod_nano_4th_gen_UserGuide.pdf
Cheers,
Esther
On Oct 3, 2008, at 12:50 PM, ben mustill-rose wrote:
Hay, I also have a question if anyone has the time to answer.
I'm pretty much disided on getting the 16gb nano, but would someone be
able to tell me exactly what doesn't talk and what functionalitty we
loos out on by not being able to use the non talking items?
I've searched the list and I can't seem to find a complete list, just
snippits of info that people have mensioned.
Chears.
On 03/10/2008, Esther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Hi Will,
The iPod nano 4G speaking in French is at:
http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=_Z1d2fFlTqk
I just did a search at the Mail Archive link by entering the terms:
from:"Anne" YouTube nano
when I tabbed to the search field, and her post giving the link
popped
up as soon as I pressed return.
If you want to transform this into a .m4v movie that you can put onto
your iPod try using TubeTv:
http://www.chimoosoft.com/products/tubetv/
You need to grab Perian to extend the formats that QuickTime player
will recognize, but you don't actually have to run anything or learn
about using Perian (which can access flash content from YouTube and
new sites like CNN). TubeTV will turn the YouTube video that Anne
linked into a 11.7 MB video file that you can add to iTunes as a
movie
and put onto the Nano and play. This is all accessible. I don't
usually do stuff with YouTube so probably other list users can give
you more feedback about these kinds of imports.
Cheers,
Esther
On Oct 3, 2008, at 11:22 AM, Will Lomas wrote:
i am trying to find a demo of the i pod nano talking french
is that on you tube did you say ester?
--
Kind regards, BEN.
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
msn: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
web: http://www.bmr.me.uk (under construction)
