Dear listers
You may know of the daily 'Dot to Dot' podcast on all things Alexa. You can
obviously also access the skills and features we cover using the Amazon Alexa
app on your smartphone or tablet, and many of our listeners do do this and even
send in demos of skills using the app on their
Dear listers
We’re coming up to the two year anniversry of the daily 5min Echo demo podcast
‘Dot to Dot’ and it would be great to get some more contributors. We’ve had
many demos from listeners in recent months, but I’m always keen to have more
voices join the gang. If you’d like to submit an
Dear listers
My Mum is in need of an A P H cassette recorder of the larger desktop variety
that is in good working order to help her learn her piano pieces. If anyone has
one for sale please contact me off-list.
Thanks, Robin
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Tom
Before you give up on Downcast I had a problem with it recently of it crashing
a lot. I contacted the developer and he said that I probably had too many items
downloaded in my feeds and he was right as I had literally hundreds. I did a
clear-out and now it’s fine and dandy. Also running
Dear listers
Can anyone confirm if it is possible to make the VO cursor speak as it does in
Windows – i.e. as you arrow around it only speaks the character to the right of
the cursor. Jonathan Mosen mentioned in a recent post that this is possible but
I can’t see how to do it.
Thanks, Robin
Dierdre
It is frustrating but very useable once you’ve got to grips with it so I’d hate
for you to not take advantage of the books it will offer for the sake of some
frustration. Happy to provide more details if you need it once you’ve
downloaded it.
Thanks, Robin
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The following
Dear listers
In the last couple of days in the US (not yet in the UK but should be any day
now) the Alexa iOS app got an update so now, even if you don’t have an Amazon
Echo or Echo Dot yourself, you can call anyone with an Echo or even anyone who
just has the app installed and doesn’t own an
Kathy
Ah got you. So you just manually adjust the trim sliders till they match the
current play position and then trim. I was hoping there’d be a way of making a
trim slider jump to match the play position but hey-ho.
Thanks for all your help, Robin
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Kathy
Thanks for that but I must be being a little dense here as I can’t see how to
set the trim point to the current play position. Can you poss advise?
Thanks, Robin
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Kathy
Thanks for that. I took a look and have a couple of questions. Are you able to
set the trim position to the current play position or do you have to take note
of the current place and then manipulate the trim beginning or end position
manually to the same place? Also when you tap Done do
Dear all
We had a load of 8mm home videos that have been digitized into 90 minute long
videos that we now have in our iCloud Photos library. However 90mins is awfully
long and I’m hoping to be able to splice them up into the various scenes. I can
tell when the scene changes and so I think I
Dave
I’m afraid I’' don’t have one so can’t be sure. The podcast is called Dot to
Dot so I’m hoping it’ll be there in the list of search results on your stream.
Thanks, Robin
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Kay
Just search for ‘Dot to Dot’ in any podcatching app or go to
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/dot-to-dot/id1205291265
Thanks, Robin
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Dear listers
I’ve had feedback on VORail and elsewhere that people could only find the last
twenty episodes of my Amazon Echo demos podcast Dot to Dot and after a bit of
digging I’ve sorted out the issue so I thought I’d post it here too in case any
listeners are using their phone instead of
Keith
You don’t need to. Ignore pretty much everything on that page. Just click the
Download button (focus it with alt+L) and you’ll get the standard download
process – i.e. in IE press alt+N to go to the notification area and you’ll see
the usual Open or Save options. If you click Save it
Dear listers
Currently my wife and I share the same Apple ID for photos which means that we
both get a synched view of all photos and videos taken on all our iDevices.
However there are down-sides to this approach too. Is there any way we can
share all our photos without having the same Apple
Keith
I don’t believe they have any active noise cancelling capability and I’d say
that they block out as much noise as the earPods (i.e. very little) so you are
always aware of what’s going on around you.
In my experience they also leak as much noise as the normal earPods (i.e. not
very
Lois
It’s fractional but I’d say that the main part of the AirPods that goes into
your ear were is everso slightly larger in circumference and very slightly
rounder so that the bit that has the main speaker that points out to the side
is less pronounced and the whole is more circular as a
Dear listers
I got my AirPods today and have been playing with them for a couple of hours
now. The first thing to say is that there is some delay or lag which is
borderline acceptable. It’s just a fraction of a second but you can definitely
notice it. I think I’ll get used to it but may have
Sieghard
On the Watch you can actually do a two-finger double-tap and hold, wait for the
blurpy noise, then move your fingers up or down the screen to change the volume
of VoiceOver.
Thanks, Robin
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Ioana
The two finger magic tap does work but only when you’re in the Now Playing
screen. Get to this by pressing the Dock button on the side of the watch and
choosing ‘Now Playing’. If you don’t see it there then play something on your
phone using either the Music app or any app that plays
Jeff
You can change them if you go into the Watch app on your phone and then General
> Language and region > System language. I have mine set to English Australia
as I like Karen.
Thanks, Robin
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Dear listers
I asked Rene Ritchie (anyone who listens to Twit or Apple Talk or reads
imore.com will know who I’m talking about) who has a pair of AirPods on loan
prior to their launch to test them for lag when using VO on his iPhone 7. He
very kindly had a go and here is our DM exchange on
Jenn
Thanks for that. No – I have no volume limit set in the Music settings but we
do have this item which says ‘EU volume limit’ in that section which sets the
maximum volume to the EU recommended maximum level which might be the culprit.
I hadn’t noticed it before and I didn’t have it on.
Dear listers
I want to find out if everyone has the same experience as me when playing
something on their phone using earbuds or if it’s just something weird about my
phone. If you have one minute please do the following and reply either to the
list or direct to me with your response.
Please
Tony
It’s called talking Goggles and probably uses the Google Goggles engine but has
the nice additional feature of automatically talking whatever it recognises. It
does text and objects. I’m not sure how much it is (probably 99 cents) and is
by, I think, Sparkling Apps.
Thanks, Robin
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Larry
Hopefully someone will do a more usual demo of it for you but this is one that
was videoed at a presentation I did a while ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOGsQsRFN6g
Thanks, Robin
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After Alan’s excellent recommendation I can confirm that the extension cable
does indeed work. You can plug your EarPods into it and, whilst the remote
control of the EarPods themselves ceases to work, the remote in the extension
cable does. For whatever reason I had to reboot the Mac before it
Alan
Thanks for doing that research. Many others quite clearly state that they work
with EarPods and let the remote continue to function but I don’t want to fall
foul of that not being the case again so I’ve ordered this and it’s coming
tomorrow so I’ll keep you posted. It does seem a bit odd
Dear listers
I recently bought a male to female extension cable into which I can plug my
EarPods and the other end of which I plug into my Mac Mini. However it could
equally have been my iPhone. Basically I wanted to be able to use my EarPods on
my Mac but have an extra bit of length on the
Dear listers
We are all very familiar with the experience of roaming around our phone
screens by touch. I just heard on FSCast that Jaws version 18 will provide
mouse echoing as you roam around by touch on a trackpad, as well as
improvements to the touch interface for tablets, and that
Dear listers
You guys probably all knew this already but yesterday I stumbled upon a really
useful gesture in iOS. No idea if it’s new in iOS10 or been around for a while.
Do a three finger quadruple tap and you will copy the last spoken text to the
clipboard. You can check you are getting the
Dear listers
With iOS10 Siri is now able to work with VOIP apps (e.g. make Skype calls) and
make payments and book a table etc. Several categories of app are covered. As
far as I’m aware this includes media apps and I’ve tried various ways of asking
Siri to play a podcast in Downcast or a book
Julian
Are you on the public beta programme? I was and I found that I had to go into
profiles under general settings in the Watch app and delete the public beta
programme profile and then check for updates again before it showed the update.
I might have even had to reboot my phone first too, I
Dear listers
I’m now running watchOS 3.0 and things are indeed much snappier which is great.
I was wondering if there was any more choice in the voices in watchOS 3.0 and
so I looked on both the watch itself and in the Watch app on my phone and I
can’t see the speech settings anywhere. There
Chip
If you have an Exchange account which I do for work then you just choose that
account from the list of accounts under the Mail settings and say that you want
to synch calendars.
Thanks, Robin
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Dear listers
Since iOS10’s new feature that reminds you when to leave in order to get to
your next appointment on time my phone has been telling me to leave a couple of
hours before appointments for which I have set no location at all. It thinks
the location is somewhere near Reading here in
Dear listers
I avidly followed the Apple event yesterday and have listened to several
commentaries on it since (including the excellent Blind Side round-up) but,
unless I missed it, I still am unclear as to the physical design of the
Airpods. I’d love to know *exactly* what they look like in
Dear listers
These probably won’t materialise as I’m currently running the fifth public beta
and they aren’t included in it, but I’d dearly love to see two tiny tweaks in
iOS10.
Firstly when you increase the volume whilst listening to something, after a
certain level it starts to announce
Dear listers
Thinking about what utility an Apple Pencil could bring to iDevices for VO
users, it occurred to me that a way of roaming around the screen and being able
to activate an item then and there without having to first lift your finger up
and then double-tapping the screen would be
Dear listers
You’re probably all going to come back and tell me this has been in iOS forever
but I’ve just discovered that, on my 6S at least, swiping left or right with
four fingers switches between running apps. I know this has worked on an iPad
Air 2 for a while but wasn’t aware it was
Chip
Thanks for the review – extremely interesting. What I’d like to know before
going ahead and buying them is whether there is noticeable or acceptable lag
when using VO on either your phone or Mac. If there was even a quarter second
delay that would be unsupportable in my experience.
Also
Keith
I use it all the time to listen to RNIB Talking Books. It isn’t the easiest app
to use and it has some eccentricities but it is accessible.
Thanks, robin
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Dear listers
I had a dabble using iBooks on the Mac and it seems like it’s hit and miss
about keeping your place when reading. I know the two finger downward swipe on
the trackpad to start reading from current position but I’m not sure if this is
the best way of starting and stopping reading
Christer
I think I must be doing something very wrong as I can’t see the speech option
and also I can’t see any keys at all when the Fleksy system keyboard is active.
Help!
Thanks, Robin.
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Krister
I think my main problem is that, when quickly tapping out a word on the
keyboard and aiming for keys on the top row, I don’t know when I’m tapping off
the top of the keyboard and hence either the letters aren’t being registered as
part of the word or I’m even actually tapping things
Dear listers
I’d like to use Fleksy on my phone to help with typing but I can’t get to grips
with using it as a system keyboard. Am I supposed to stay within the realms of
the keyboard when both typing and swiping and should it be reporting each word
that is entered?
I’d really appreciate
Sandy
I know that there are people using the system keyboard version with VO
successfully as it’s been mentioned on podcasts and I think on this list too,
so hopefully someone will assist us in our pitiful plight.
Thanks, robin.
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Dear listers
I got this tip from a mainstream tech podcast and it has increased the speed
and responsiveness of my watch significantly. On the watch go to Settings >
General Accessibility > Reduce motion and it stops all the animations on app
startup and fancy transitions when you move
Christina
It’s Talking Goggles you want and not Google Goggles although I wouldn’t be
surprised if it used the same engine. Talking Goggles is the one that will
automatically read out what it recognises. It does need light but you’ll see a
Flash button at the top of the app screen so try
It sounds a lot like Talking Goggles by Sparkling Apps which does something
very similar recognising both objects and text using a live video feed but
Talking Goggles automatically speaks whatever it recognises. It isn’t perfect
but I’d be surprised if any app is. Do check it out.
Thanks,
Dear listers
Slightly off topic so feel free to scrumple this email up and throw it in the
bin but I would dearly love to be able to arrow (or VO arrow) down through
menus on my Mac and have them wrap to the top again. I have a Mac Mini running
El Cap and it does it fine on that but in
Could it be the ‘page loading’ sound (a sort of ticking noise) that you get in
Safari and that, for whatever reason, there is an element on the page that is
continually being reloaded? Just a thought. Oh and, yes, you can get previous
episodes in Tune In Radio.
Thanks, Robin.
--
The
Dear listers
I asked this a while ago but got no takers so rewording/resubmitting to hope
someone has the answer. How can we swipe between running apps with VO running
when, I believe, people usually force-swipe left or right to go back/ forward
between running apps without VO?
It doesn’t
Dear listers
I think that users who are not running VO are able to ‘force swipe’ between
running apps on the iPhone 6S. I can’t seem to be able to do this with VO
running. Can anyone advise?
Thanks, Robin.
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Dear listers
I am using Windows in a virtual machine on two Macs. On my Mini I’m using
VMWare Fusion and on my Air it’s Oracle’s Virtual Box (not at all VO accessible
so I wouldn’t recommend it but work chose it because it’s free so hey-ho) and
in both cases it’s impossible to use the laptop
David et al
Talking Goggles still has a live video mode. Just click on the Record button
and you’re in it. I don’t know if it is actually saving a recording but you can
click stop to stop it ‘watching’ for items. You can also switch to the still
camera mode as you quite rightly say.
Thanks,
Trea
Thanks for that tip and I did indeed find it via the store in the Apple Watch
app which I didn’t think to look in. It seems to differ from the main app store
in as much as it only shows apps that have an Apple Watch component and it
lists the screenshots in reverse order to normal – i.e.
Trea
Thanks for the heads-up. I can’t find it in the UK app store. Do you know if it
is available or what I should search for?
Thanks, Robin.
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Trea
Thanks for the heads-up. I can’t find it in the UK app store. Do you know if it
is available or what I should search for?
Thanks, Robin.
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Dear listers
I don’t know about you but one of the features I think will help us VO users
particularly is the ability to slim down pages with the new ad blocking
capability of iOS9.
I have installed Crystal and found that when I go to Settings/Safari/Ad
Blockers and try to activate it (to
Dear listers
I’ve solved my own query. I had restrictions turned on
(Settings/General/Restrictions) and these included restricting sites in Safari.
I turned these off and now the ad blockers are no longer grayed out. I’m using
Peace by Full City LLC (Marco Arment) and it seems great.
Thanks,
Dear listers
I know that when VoiceOver is running on Mac OS X you get a border around
whatever has focus, and the other day someone told me that this is the case on
the Apple Watch too. I’m guessing it might be the case onthe iPhone as well. I
can’t see a way of turning this off and was
Dear listers
Is there anyone who knows of a good guide to using Fleksy as a system keyboard
or would like to write/record one? I have it as one of my keyboards but every
time I try to get to grips with it it disconcerts me entirely too much and I
can’t get the results I need. I am familiar
Dear listers
Sorry that this is a little off topic for a phone list but I’m gradually
getting to grips with OS X and one Q I have is whether there are hot keys for
easy jumping around sections of an app – a little like F6 in Windows. For
example many apps have a sidebar and, whilst you can use
Richard
Thanksf or that update. I tried PaceDJ as someone recommended and it works a
dream. No crashing and it effortlessly reviews your library and allows you to
play songs of a similar B PM. You can even set up playlists where they start
slow for X mins then get faster then slower again etc.
Dear listers
Someone recommended Offbeat which is an app that sorts all your music by beats
per minute – ideal for running or, in my case, rowing. I downloaded it but it
always instantly crashes. I’ve deleted and re-downloaded it to no avail. Has
anyone successfully got this to run or if not
Harry
Thanks for that. Does that mean, however, that we must always have typing style
set to standard across all instances of the system keyboard? I much prefer
touchtyping. Could we have typing mode included in the rota nd, when we’ve
chosent he Fleksy system keyboard using the Globe key we
Dear listers
I’ve updated the firmware on my 2nd gen Apple TV and checked the iCloud Photos
app as well as settings and can’t see how to make the new iCloud photo library
come up rather than the usual photostream photos. Am I wrong in assuming that
the TV has been updated to give access to the
Dear listers
I’ve had this issue for many months and I hope with each new iOS release that
it will be sorted but no luck as yet and I was wondering if anyone else
experiences it and may have a fix. Siri can hear me if I get close to the
phone’s built in microphone but not when I speak into the
Dear listers
Apols if this is off-topic but it relates to the new Photos app for OS10 which
arguably has everything to do with iOS too as it now makes for fantastic and
seamless synching of photos and videos across all devices.
I have imported all my photographs into Photos and came to do the
Dear listers
I have a feeling my 8.0.2 install is more buggy than it should be. I get
strange Siri behaviour where often she doesn’t speak or her speech is cropped.
I also have an issue where she doesn’t recognise the mic in the earbuds even
when it’s plugged in but can hear the built in mic.
Pete
Alas yes they are firmly plugged in. If anyone is experiencing this problem
I'd appreciate knowing. Perhaps it's just my device.
Thanks - Robin
On Friday, September 26, 2014 4:25:35 PM UTC+1, Robin Christopherson wrote:
Dear listers
Apologies if this has already been covered but I’ve
Dear listers
Apologies if this has already been covered but I’ve not been able to read every
post recently. I’ve just downloaded 8.0.2 and the following still appears to be
an issue; when using Siri with earpods plugged in it doesn’t hear what I say. I
have to hold the phone near my mouth as it
internal mic
regardless of whether I have the earbuds plugged in. I should say of course
that the audio is continually coming through the earbuds as usual.
Thanks
On Friday, September 26, 2014 4:25:35 PM UTC+1, Robin Christopherson wrote:
Dear listers
Apologies if this has already been covered
Dear listers
There has been lots of discussion about the KNFB Reader and it sounds excellent
but how are people finding it in automatic mode? It would seem to me that if
the software can decide when you’re framing the picture well without you having
to query it yourself manually each time would
Brian
No problem. Re Siri’s volume – it does seem quieter than audio and possibly
than VO generally but not unduly so. Try upping the phone volume as Siri is
talking as you say and that will make sure that it is as high as you can make
it.
Re waterproofness of the speaker band – no idea I’m
Brian
You need to double click the middle button to launch Siri. Also my speaker has
decent volume so make sure it’s up high on the phone and then the highest
volume on the speaker will be good.
Thanks – Robin.
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Dear listers
I saw that Metrognome has done some more excellent ringtones that are free to
download – however they are all full song length and MP3s so I took the one I
liked best and edited down to ringtone length and converted to m4r. Feel free
to download it from here:
Dear listers
I was approached by a company who are creating a facial recognition app for
Glass and who are able to provide loan pairs of Glass running their beta
software over the next couple of months. They are in the UK and would prefer UK
blind or VI users to help, but would consider
Dear listers
I believe I heard the fab guys of the Maccessibility podcast recommend Words
With Friends and I downloaded it and can’t immediately see how to play it. I
know that visually there is a grid there and that you drag tiles to spell a
word a la Scrabble but the grid squares don’t seem
Thanks Sieghard and Wayne. Certainly last time I used it tapping ‘Next cross
street’ put it in a mode whereby it was constantly monitoring and announcing as
you walked. It would make a squelching sound every five seconds or so to show
it was constantly updating and whenever it had fresh info it
Dear listers
I used Sendero Lookaround today for the first time in ages and was mystified
when the ‘Nearest cross street’ function seemed to have changed to be a
one-time instruction (i.e. tapping it gives you a one-off report of nearby
intersections but doesn’t then continue to report as you
Wayne
Sounds like it is just me then, which is good because it means that others
aren’t bothered by it and also that I might be able to sort it out. I’m using a
5S and it only happens on the lock screen. It announces whatever last had focus
on the lock screen (a notification or album artwork
Dear listers
I recently listened to the Maccessibility round table podcast where they
discussed iOS7.1 and they mentioned about how the ‘Screen locked’ message isn’t
repeated which is great, but none of them seem to feel the need to mention
that, unlike in iOS6, when you change the volume on
Dear listers
I’ve just noticed a new feature which I’m really pleased about. Before one
would have to unlock the phone to be able to play and pause audio with the two
finger double tap gesture but now all you have to do is wake up the phone by
pressing the home or power button. This is
Lois – I am 100% sure that this didn’t work for me on earlier versions of iOS.
It may have worked for you which is great, but I always had to either unlock my
phone and perform the gesture or find and use the play pause button on the lock
screen. It sounds like some users still aren’t getting
Dear listers
For no particular reason I thought I’d try some different Siri voices as the UK
Daniel one seems so slow and there’s no way of altering the speed. It’s not
that I thought that different voices would have different speeds but I was just
curious. Anyway, the American female voice
Thanks for those responses. Ironies of ironies, as soon as I found an
expressive American lady for Siri 7.1 drops and we now have an expressive
female voice for UK English too. I think the chap remains as unmoved and proper
as always but she’s extremely perky indeed.
Thanks – Robin.
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Dear listers
I have a great idea for an audio game which could also have graphics so good
for both audiences. If there are any developers out there who would want to
help me make it a reality please get in touch off-list.
Thanks – Robin.
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Okey-dokey – mystery solved. In the Notes settings there is indeed something
that says I’m using Gmail to synch my notes. Who’d of thunk it?
Thanks – Robin.
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Dear listers
Who can explain this weirdness? I recently set up my Gmail account on a Win 8
machine in Windows Live Mail (it has a nice smart setup so when you put in the
details of a Gmail account it automatically finds all your server settings etc)
and then, completely unrelatedly, took a
Dear listers
When I have Skype running and my phone is locked I can't answer a call
quickly enough and people hang up. As a consequence I don't know the
steps involved or if there is a quicker method. It takes me a few
seconds to take my phone out of my pocket and unlock it and, as I say,
by
Dear listers
I updated the Box app and now it seems to be totally inaccessible. Can others
confirm this or is it just my install going a bit floopy. BTW don’t upgrade if
you haven’t already just to try it out for me!
Thanks, Robin.
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No – not Dropbox. Box came out after Dropbox and is to all intents and purposes
identical in what it does. The app is almost identical too and, until now, was
just as accessible as Dropbox. I use it alongside Dropbox as at the time it
launched they were giving away 50Gb of space so I got me a
Dear listers
It’s my daughter’s birthday coming up at the beginning of Feb and I was
wondering if anyone had any idea when new iPod Touches were due. I’d hate to
get it and the next day a new gen pops up., Reports of any rumblings at all
would be gratefully received.
Thanks, Robin.
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You
Dear listers
We had a car charger that fits into the cigarette lighter socket (probably
called something less contentious these days) and it was chunky enough to make
me think it had some sort of transformer in there. It is the old 30pin cable
and thus doesn’t work with my 5S so I bought one
Ron
It can still be software-related and still only affect some people and not
others, for the same reason that your screen freezes and I don’t seem to suffer
from that problem at this time and we’re both using a 5S. I could be horribly
wrong, of course, but I’m hoping for the many people out
David
Many apologies but I should have said that the first thing I did when it
happened initially was to reprogram my fingers with sighted assistance as I
wanted to rule out that issue. In my initial email I mentioned that the podcast
iFive for the iPhone flagged this behaviour and that’s a
Dear listers
I really do think this is a software issue and nothing to do with the sensor or
the roughness, smoothness or oddness of ones finger or thumb pads. The reasons
why I think this are because firstly Apple wouldn’t, in my opinion, settle for
a technology that only works for people
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