Steven and Timothy talk about Apple’s September 10 media event. Topics include Steven’s thoughts on the show from inside the room, Apple Arcade, the importance of See for representation, and the new Apple Watch and iPhones.

Show Notes:

See trailer

Steven’s piece for iMore with his thoughts on the event

Timothy’s blog post on Apple’s services strategy

Steven Aquino:

Twitter: @steven_aquino

Website: stevensblog.co

Timothy Buck:

Twitter: @TimothyBuckSF

Website: timothybuck.me

Podcast: unco.fm

Episode Transcript

Steven Aquino: Hi everyone. Welcome to Accessible. I'm your host Steven Aquino, and with me as always is my friend and co-host Timothy Buck.

How are you doing? 

Timothy Buck: I'm doing really well, Steven. Really excited to be here for this post-Apple-event episode. These are always my favorite. So I'm a I'm really excited about this conversation. 

Steven Aquino: Yeah, so as we record this it is Saturday, September 14th, and the Apple event happened this past Tuesday, and I was there I was in it and it's.

Excuse me. That's why I need a cough button, and I have a lot to say about the new iPhones. The iPad and an Apple Watch. It's going to be an exciting show. So why don't we just dive right in since I don't think we have any follow up from the previous show. First, I kind of just wanted to give my general thoughts.

On the whole thing in the last several days after the event you've heard people on. Podcast kind of talk about the event being fine and the event being, you know too much, you know. Apple. Congratulating itself and you know too much clapping and there's this there was this whole brouhaha on Twitter about whether certain people like, you know, clapped or cried and I know Jim Dalrymple wrote something taken down somebody who was critical of someone else.

So I thought the event was fine.

You know it. I've been to an I've been to these enough now like that. I know how they go and I know what to do expect. and I think. You know. This event was pretty much normal of Affair. You know, Tim Cook came on stage and he talked about how Apple makes wonderful tools and I thought that was cool and then know he he handed it off to people for the different things and I thought it was fine. 

The only thing I'll say is number one. I tend to read a lot. You know my thoughts and stuff, you know as I'm in the room I tend to do that during game demos and you know any kind of demo because I think the demos are sort of dull and then also. You know, I thought the event was shorter than it was then they typically are. When Tim Cook's came on stage to end things and you know, he said. To you know, head over to the Hands-On area and stuff. I I stood up and I checked the time and we're about half hour 45 minutes shorter than we usually run. Apple events typically are about two hours and this event from my rough calculation just staring at the time was about an hour and 40 minutes. 

Timothy Buck: Yeah, it was definitely shorter it felt as if there was something missing at the end or maybe it was like I feel like they're they have gone over two hours in the past. So it when we were coming into this event, it seemed like there was a whole lot that they had to announce and it was moving really quickly and I was like Wow there must be some more stuff coming and then it just sort of ended and.

They didn't use that last 20 to 30 minutes. They have in the past which kind of stood out is a little different and not good or bad but it was surprising for me. 

Steven Aquino: Yeah, I was half expecting them to you know, I think what was the last thing they did. I think they did the retail update and I thought you know after that was over that Tim will was going to cook come out and say we've got one other thing and you know, that would have been that tile thingy but that didn't happen.

So I was a little you know, I was so much shocked at you know that the event was so short from the tip of two other ones. That's pretty much all I have to say about the event itself, you know, you know again there was an op-ed in the times about how Apple should stop doing. These events and that's how the whole Twitter thing got started with people and Jim Dalrymple had that article that he wrote.

I don't really, you know have anything to say to add to that whole thing except that you know, That the event on Tuesday was pretty much. You know. Your average event like it was fine. I didn't see anything wrong with it. You know again, I've been to. To these now, you know enough time that I know how it works and what to expect when I'm there and you know talking to Apple so on and so forth.

I thought it was fine. So Tim, did you have any thoughts on that? 

Timothy Buck: Basically my thoughts on it are that it's a piece that we should just forget about. It was one person's idea. I'm sure they knew that a lot of people would be upset by it and it really didn't. And won't change anything Apple is going to continue to have events because millions and millions of people including investors and customers and yes also journalists are interested and so will all of the companies who have smaller events.

So yeah, I I feel like it was just kind of a blip on the radar that got people upset, but we'll forget about it because it has no real impact on the world and isn't really that important of a piece. What is interesting and something that will impact a huge number of people this year? 200 million at least we'll be buying phones from Apple this year and a bunch of the other things that they announced this week.

So do you want to jump into the event? I think you had like an order of operations. You wanted to follow to discuss the event. Yeah, 

Steven Aquino: So I kind of wanted to talk about everything roughly in the order that they were announced so... You have Apple Arcade. You have See. You have iPad. You have Apple watch, and then iPhone. So why don't we start with Apple Arcade.

Okay, so here's the thing about Apple Arcade. For me. I am not. Of all the services that Apple hasn't been announced. I'm not so excited by Arcade and it's not because of. You know anything that Apple did or didn't do it's it's just that I've not a big gamer. You know, I I don't I have a folder of games on my phone all the popular ones that you know that people know from over time. Like judo jump and I don't know. Paper toss and I don't know, you know other things but I rarely open that folder and open those apps so I gotta say like Apple Arcade like. doesn't really thrill me. I'm not judging it. Just you know. As a thing, I mean, I think it's you know better serve as I think it's it's good and you know people are going to. You know, hopefully people will enjoy enjoy it and stuff, but for me I'm not big on playing games 

Timothy Buck: I wrote a piece on my blog about this and I will TV plus that I'll link to a few things that out to me about it that are interesting and and I have one big question particularly for this show in this audience, which is. Are all of these games going to be accessible because if they are if like one of the requirements right that Apple puts on the developers that they are paying to build these games is to make them accessible that could be actually really really cool.

Right? So one of the benefits just for the general public at large is that. If I am a family I can have a family it's you know, say a few children and I like to play games and my partner likes to play games. I could pay, you know, five dollars a month and get all of these games to play right and you know, I could.

Block down my kids devices to say, okay. Yeah, you can't buy anything on the app store without me giving you the okay, but you can you know download any of the free ones from Apple Arcade without me needing to give you the okay because it does are free. And those are great right and and unlike a lot of other free apps.

There's no like. I would be able to know that my kids not going to get into a game and then hit a wall that is like impossible for them to move forward because there's some mechanic in it where it's basically, you know, you know a money it just a money-making thing that not just like a pay wall because payrolls are good for developers and for ecosystems, but.

It seems as if this is in direct response to some of the most popular games on iOS being very how did I put it? Like Casino informed I think is the phrase I use Casino informed like there are a bunch of games that are like that that the mechanic of the game is is based on how do we put people in situations where they really excited about the game and they feel like the next thing they have to do is spend, you know, $30 on Gems or coins or.

Whatever and as a parent, I wouldn't want that to be like the type of game that my kid plays because in there asking me for it all the time or even as an adult and I'm put in a situation where I'm about to spend $30 on gems. This idea is is cool because it seems like it's a direct response to the those games and those games are there because it like the financials were right and the financials of the app store has meant that a lot of other really really good types of games have just not been financially viable, which is bad and I'm excited to see that a lot of these other types of games that maybe wouldn't make very much money or wouldn't do very well are.

Be created and along the same lines like having this little garden of games that I know are going to be good. And I know my kids aren't going to get suckered out of a bunch of money for and I'm not going to get sucked out a bunch of money for or aren't going to have tons and tons and tons of ads like if they are also all accessible.

I really hope they are then this could be like a wonderful way to you know, get kids who need or or adults or anybody who likes to play games who need the certain accessibility features to not have to necessarily. Look around and try a game and figure out it's not going to be something they can play and you know instead they can just go here and have you know, a hundred plus games that they know are all going to work with accessibility features, they need and all of that for a set price with without the ads and without the scamming practices and without the all of that kind of stuff again, I'm making an assumption there and I think like if.

Have a chance to even in talking with Apple to ask them that particular question. I would love to know like that would be huge and that would make Apple Arcade even more interesting to me. I have no idea if I'll actually get it because like you I don't play games, but I think the idea of it is it's cool for for families in particular.

Steven Aquino: So so I asked them and they were pretty tight lipped you know, they didn't say either way. They just you know kind of in their Apple way. They're like, you know, that's a great idea. And so I don't know if they are holding something for an event or I have I don't know. But what I do know is and I want to say like I'm not making excuses for Apple here or game to developers, but you know when you look at games at you know, what that's an app.

You know for people with disabilities. You know Finding accessible game has been really hard not only on iOS, but you know everywhere. And I'm not a game developer at all. Not even a software developer but I can say with certainty that like when you know at a higher level making a game is not like making a normal app in that. When you're talking about a game when you're talking about the type of like high-end games that that Apple seems to want for arcade. You're talking about like highly custom you eyes with like really. Heavy. graphics and stuff that are necessarily conducive to the typical accessibility features like voice over and you know zoom and and that ilk.

And that's because like. you know again like did these these type of games that Apple is is having is like, you know heavy on the custom stuff and you know in the visuals and it's hard because you know again like it kind of Harkens to like this whole idea of well game developers don't really think of accessibility with as I thing when they're doing this, right and it and it kind of goes into the whole larger thing of like, you know. Raising of awareness for accessibility and teaching people and so it's what I'm saying is it is when you talk about accessibility in games, it's really a complicated issue. 

Timothy Buck: Yeah, I agree. And I think that is why this stood out as interesting to me like specially with from the accessibility perspective is either they have already done this and it should be something that they really push as it rolls out as something that's unique about it. Or they haven't and this is something that Apple should really focus on and try to to turn Apple Arcade into that.

This is very different than every other type of app on the app store. All the other ones. They can say hey use these accessibility features that are great, but they can. At this point, right? They don't require them to do that to add all of that additional stuff. That's something that theoretically they could do, but.

In this case, they definitely could do that. Right they are paying for the apps to be built. They own the rights to the games and. They are paying the engineers and designers and product people and all of that to create them from these different Studios and they could say yes, it costs more to make these accessible, but we are going to prioritize that and if they haven't done that I.

What you're saying is, correct. There. There are a lot of reasons why maybe they haven't and I don't know all of them, but I would say moving forward. I I really hope and wish that Apple and you know even just game studios in general would prioritize this as something that important we saw just you know, Nine months ago or so Microsoft released a new controller to make a bunch of the games on the Xbox more accessible.

Didn't you know, it was a hardware thing. It was it's not there's not the same thing that we're talking about here, but it was a big step and I think like it would be cool to see Apple. Take a big step in making games more accessible to different people and Apple Arcade. Could be one of those steps.

And again, we don't have an answer. They kind of didn't answer it which makes me think that probably isn't something that they've done in full. Or maybe I'm wrong and maybe they did do it and they just not ready to talk about it yet. And that's part of their like rollout plan. I've had I'm 

Steven Aquino: sorry. I'm gonna guess I'm going to hazard a guess and I'm going to say the reason why they smiled at me and didn't say anything is because they're not they're just not ready to talk yet. 

Yeah. 

Timothy Buck: Yeah, I think like isn't released yet until what like few weeks. Right and they do in their whole tour of people going on chose and talking about it and.

Getting the at least for Apple TV plus and for this I know they release their video about it just like yesterday that will link in the show notes. So it's still on there like tour of announcing when it'll first be available. 

Steven Aquino: So I did want to add just a couple things before we go on to see you had just said about the Xbox Adaptive Controller and when I talk to Apple after the event in the hands on that area and I said, you know ask them, you know, does you guys have you know, Xbox and PS4 controller support in iOS 13, so does that include? The the Xbox controller because that would be really cool with you know arcade and they said "no".

So so as of now as of when iOS 13 is out, you know, you can use your Xbox controller and stuff. You can only use like the controllers that like came with your Xbox, you know, the. The standard Xbox PS4 DualShock. I mean, I don't know what they're called. I have one but I don't even know what they're called.

The other thing was I got to in the Hands-On area. I got to try. I think it was Frogger. I think I can't remember. What 

Timothy Buck: yeah, there was a game like Frogger called Frogger. 

Steven Aquino: Yeah, so I it was on an iPad in the Hands-On area the tend to iPad actually and the the Apple Store gal. She gave me an Xbox controller and she said here, you know, have fun with it.

I'm like, okay, and I gotta tell you like it was really hard to see like where I where I was going and I think I died a couple times like, you know. I couldn't see where I was going and the dinner face on screen was not helpful because again, it's all custom and like you can adjust the font size and such and and the to do it the other issue is that.

The Xbox controller doesn't have any like haptic feedback. So like if I hit a wall or I died or something, you know II couldn't tell when something happened, right? So that that was not fun and then, you know being on an iPad on the table and everything. My nose was almost touching the glass green.

It was really hard to see because it was relatively small. It was far away, you know, so I couldn't hold it and I couldn't really see it. So well, so what what I'm saying is like, you know. Apple Arcade, you know, the whole experience has a long way to go even in my two minutes in the Hands-On area that you know needs to be worked on.

Timothy Buck: Moving on from Apple are arcade to Apple TV. Plus I don't know if we really had a ton to talk about it in general again that article I wrote the other day on my blog will be linked. I talked about it at some but as far as accessibility focused things, I think you wanted to talk about.

The show they debuted the trailer for called see which obviously has accessibility implications. What were your thoughts on that? 

Steven Aquino: Yeah, so. I should start this by saying that at the services event in March. Apple actually introduced me to some of the producers and consultants on See who were there, you know as VIPs, right?

And you know, they told me just you know after, you know off the record, like, I wasn't going to read a bit to thing about it, but they they were there they... Apple consulted with them throughout the show to to ensure the authenticity of blindness. I don't know how they did it. I don't know who they talk to.

I don't know the ins and outs of it. I just know that just as what Tim said on stage was that you know. Apple consulted with people right? So going to Tuesday's event if you haven't heard about it or whatever See is a show where it's set in a post-apocalyptic world where people have been blind for a centuries after some sort of event and throughout that time like the thought of people ever having to you know, ever having eyesight is is a hotly debated topic because again, like people have been living without it for so long that you know, it's just not something that they it's not something that they considered to be real. 

I think the shows the the whole concept of the show as far as I can tell is the one of the families in the the show has a child who has sight and I think there's some conflict that revolves around like you know is this child going to like lead us to death or ruin or something because he can See.

 I mean I could be totally wrong about that. But that that's kind of what I got from the trailer. So before I get into the whole accessibility angle of it like Tim. Did you have any thoughts here so far? 

Timothy Buck: Hmm, so. I feel like this could go. I've heard I've heard people like describing the plot in ways that make it sound really bad and like really not kind to blind people and like I think I don't know enough about it to know if that's actually true. But like the main differentiation I want to point out is like people are talking about it as if. Like I heard somebody say that the story was basically everybody on earth goes blind and then we go back to because we can't see any more Humanity goes back to like.

Acting like neanderthals and like that is like was that their whole thing like that wouldn't actually happen but and I have no idea. I'm not I'm not like the person who should be talking about this for sure. So I'm going to shut up but like that was one of the- like perspectives on it and I again, I just watched the trailer during the during the announcement and I haven't seen anything since then. So I don't even remember precisely what the plot is. But if the plot is like that I think that that's probably bad and if the plot is like some other thing occurred that caused civilization to be like setback right like some other thing happened and then.

As a repercussion of that other thing we were also all blind that sort of changes the the point of the show, right? It changes the meaning of all of those things and at that point, I'm just going to shut up because I don't know anything else 

Steven Aquino: So so there so you know everyone I've talk to like or I know on Twitter like I mean, I won't name anybody, but like the normal Apple people that you would know and and like a lot of the other common traitors, you know that don't that that are not media, but you know, like they talk about Apple. You know, everyone has sort of said yeah, I saw the trailer and the show's is going to suck.

It doesn't like it doesn't look good or you know, I wasn't interested in it. Doesn't seem like it's going to be a top show and you know. That's fine. Like that's that's that's totally cool. Like if you if you see the trailer for See and you think it sucks or you're not interested in. It because you know as art because like whatever like that's totally fine, but for me and I'm guessing for others...

So so I actually wrote a book about this for iMore or I wrote my thoughts on the whole event and everything and I talk to about See. I think there are two truths to this. You know, as I said, like you can see See. You can look at See as a show as art as you know, a as entertainment, right and you can judge it on the trailer and on the acting and on the you know and everything else and you can say. this show sucks, right they show I don't care about it. I want to know people do that all the time. I mean, I do it right, you know, but on the flip side of that like i think there is a bigger. Story here, and I think it's why Apple got involved with like consulting right is that if you take it from from an accessibility angle from a disability angle, it is a huge deal that these disabled people in the show are the people who the people who raised the show are putting disability first. so. So if you if you look at how the word in general and the history when people like look a disabled people when they when they use them, you know in a show like it's always. It's always about like, oh he got into an accident. He doesn't have his hand anymore or oh like he was born with Down Syndrome, like how is he going to overcome that or you know? How inspiring is it that? Like he can do anything like like disability has always been looked upon by Hollywood. And and by Society at large as something that is sad. That is terrible. That is is something to be overcome.

As opposed to just being a part of who the people... Just as sorry... As opposed to their handicaps being part of who they are, right so. You know if you take if you if I can use myself, you know as an example like. People have told me like I've overcome a whole lot in my life. And I have I've overcome a lot of stuff a lot of terrible terrible stuff. But people always throw the fact that I have a disabilities as something that I have to overcome instead of just accepting the fact that i am disabled and and you know that I've learn to adapt and it's just who I am, right? 

So when you take that context to See like. The fact that they're starting the show with the whole world not having eyesight. It's just that they don't have it. They can't see they they don't even think that having sight, you know ever ever was a thing like that is a huge deal for represent station and I think when you when you judge the show, I think you know again, it's fair to judge it as art but I I don't want people to lose sight of the fact. No pun intended that you know this representation angle to it, you know is a huge step for us.

Yeah, 

Timothy Buck: I think I think it's smart of you to differentiate those two things because it could be a there are a lot of wonderful films that do not have. That representation and there are and this could be a terrible series, but the representation still matters, right? And so ideally it will be both a really good series and have accurate and like good representation.

But that again, I'm not the person to really tell you on either of those things whether it's a good series or whether that representation is accurate and and and good so I I'm excited to watch it. I mean one of the things that stood out about Apple TV plus is it's free for everyone who gets a phone or an iPad or a.

Apple TV or a I think it was iPod Touch actually, too. For a year and so that means I'm gonna try it out and maybe all the shows are terrible and I don't watch anything on there again, but at least check out this series in particular because I want it to be good and I really hope that it is and if it is both good and has solid representation. Then that's a big a big big win. 

Steven Aquino: Yeah. So, you know again like just to finish it off before we get on you know? I think that. I think that. I mean if you know Apple if you if you talk to well, it shouldn't say if you talk to Apple because not everybody talks to Apple. But if you know Apple like that Tim Cook said when he introduced. You know See right when he talked about see like the fact that he said that the company consulted with people right on this. I think it speaks to their I think it speaks to a their institutional like fondness for us and then B like they see that this is a big deal for representation. And I think they can see that in part because they have people at the company who you know don't have... You know.. Who are blind and you know, so so what I'm saying is just I think that Tim Cook saying that was not in an aside. I think it was very intentional that he said that. So. I think we're done. 

Timothy Buck: You want to move on? 

Steven Aquino: Yeah, next on the list is the iPad and you know, sorry, go ahead.

Timothy Buck: I was going to say I don't really have anything to say about the iPad. It's good that they've updated the low end line to have a faster processor and it's a good price that you know, I think it was 329. That's close. If not, right and it works with the pencil and with the keyboard now, so all of those things are good and it's not something that I think is going to really.

Be something that I would buy but it's good for the market that and for Apples lined up at there's a cheaper device out there. Now that that is a little bit more full-featured but that it does kind of all I had to say what it what are your thoughts? Yeah, 

Steven Aquino: You know, I don't really have a whole lot there either. The only thing I can say is when when I heard about this new iPad, you know ahead of time. You know, I thought when I heard people say that it was going to be new and 10.2 inches and I had an idea in my head that like they would take the design from the iPad Pro and then kind of use that for the new iPad, but then I you know, I they showed it off and I'm like but you know, how would touch ID fit in the new in the new iPad Pro style. Like how would that fit in this new iPad? So I guess it. You know, it's fine. Like I mean, the iPad is fine. Like I don't have anything to say about it, but I guess all I'm saying is that I. I thought that we would be getting the all screen design of the iPad Pro but I suppose that design would be more expensive and also I'm not sure how. It would work with Touch ID. So there you go.

Timothy Buck: Next in the line up was the watch 

Steven Aquino: Apple Watch Series 5.

Timothy Buck: A high level overview of the changes right were always on display. That was something that wasn't really leaked. So that's cool. It's something that a lot of people have complained about about the Apple watch.

It's version one and they have made that change. So that's great. It's something that I would have liked to have earlier on obviously, they they didn't make that choice until now think it's a really good change and makes it a better watch. It's faster. It has more space. I believe it has 32 gig hard drive on it.

Now. They didn't really mention that but it it does there's a. Yeah, and I'm trying to think other things that they specifically mentioned that were cool just off the top of my head. There's a bunch of different material materials. They're clearly spreading the lineup out again for different types of people who want different types of materials.

I like that across all the different price points the series 5 has the same functionality and all of them. It's. You know different metals and different bands. I think that's a good decision here because then it makes like decision-making purely down to style right? I think like a lot of people just love is a cheaper style and the the lowest end style because it you know has a band that they want and some people who you know, maybe fancier.

Spend a lot of time in suits and stuff. They might end up buying the more expensive one. And that's fine with me. That's not going to be me buying, you know one of those so, I don't know. I think it seemed like a cool update when I first like just after the event. I was like, maybe I should update from the series for but after I let it.

Go buy a day or two. I realized you know, I don't really need it. It's a really solid update and I think if you have a series 3 or series especially a series one or two these two it would make sense to do the upgrade but with the series for probably not I think you should just stick with what you got.

So those are my thoughts on it. Did you have any accessibility Focus thoughts on the new watch like what what stood out to you as actually like I don't know any thoughts on that. 

Yeah, so. I well first of all, I really am tempted by food five. And I have a four and it's totally fine. Like I before it's great.

It's it's fine and everything, but I am really tempted by serves 5 and it's because of the all freeze on school green. I you know. I wrote about this fry more and actually speaking you can buy more my event article my event thoughts article is up now. So if you will put that in the notes, but.

When I said in this in that article was you know. Because of my cerebral palsy and the partial profile analysis on the right side, sometimes it's hard for me. So, you know, it hurts even to turn my wrist to tell time and to you know, check the. Check, you know stuff and I think the always-on screen is going to help that a lot because it's going to take away that tiny bit of friction for me too, you know, so having to like flip my wrist hard or you know, Tap the screen with my thumb was my finger. I mean. I've had an Apple Watch for over four years and it's not been a huge deal to raise my wrist and tap the screen but you know, I can do it and all that but like what I'm saying is.

I can feel that tiny bit of friction, and I'm sure for other people who have. More severe needs than I do, you know, they might find it even harder. So having this all always-on screen is. You know going to be helpful, I think in that regard. The other thing and I didn't write about this in the story because I didn't want to say anything about it until I actually have the Apple watch is.

I had a concern when it was showed off if the screen was going to be. High contrast enough. for people who are.

Julie impaired to see the time and the date and stuff right because in the Hands-On area from what I got is when you. When you turn your wrist to tell time the the screen is like it's on but it's it's on but it's it's it's I mean, obviously it's on but it's it's very like to dim. I don't know how to really describe it other than to say it's sort of dim and then if you tap the 

Yeah, I can I can speak to it. Yeah, so so I kind of read a decent amount about how they're doing this because they're not just dimming the screen right? So obviously they didn't think that they could just literally leave full brightness.

Watch screen on all the time because that for battery life reasons would be bad. And also I think just for usability reasons could be bad because if you're in a dark room, then your wrist is just. Glaring light everywhere and that could be bad. Right but the way that they're doing this is when it would typically screen with typically turn off.

They are doing two separate things. So one thing they're doing is they're removing things from the screen that would need refresh more than once a. So like the second hand on the watch for analog watch faces that they take the second hand off so that they can only refresh the screen once a minute to move the minute hand and that allows them to save a bunch of battery.

And then the other thing that they're doing is they're moving it to monochrome. So they're removing all color. And so there's there's a bunch of watch faces that have like default backgrounds. Like tan or or or white or or blue or you know, you can set them to all these different things right or a photo and what they're doing is there.

You know turning that to Black so like if you have a blue background or a tan background, they're actually flipping it and they're making the background black. So the vast majority of pixels on an OLED screen or off and then they're just having like a white basically a light not even fully white a dim White.

For all of the rest of the display to show you whatever is on there. So that could be complications like know the weather numbers for weather or you know, the obviously the time and that kind of thing and it's actually several different things that they're doing and that is a good question. I think hopefully there are some sort of accessibility setting to say.

Like how much contrast there needs to be so you can actually see what's on the display when it's in that mode. I haven't been able to obviously play with it and see but it seems to me that at least the first two of those things would be. Fine, right those those battery saving things are not going to impede accessibility at all, right removing certain things from the screen and flipping it around so that there's more black on the screen.

Those things are going to be fine for visibility and and the one. Is need some sort of variability would be how dim does it actually make the what it ends up putting on the screen and I don't have an answer for that. I've only seen the videos. 

Steven Aquino: So I heard. I was told that there is no setting for contrast ratio for for this. To your point about the technical stuff. I was told that Apple's just doing everything in software. I mean in watch OS software to to control all that so the but you know, as of now, there's there's no there's no accessibility setting for that. 

Timothy Buck: Well, I know what whenever that's the thing that I'll be interested in. Seeing and hearing about is for you in particular. How does it is it is it helpful and then for those of you listening I think. If you end up getting a one of these or going to an Apple store and playing with it, we'd love to hear if the always-on feature is actually beneficial to you and is accessible to you because I would hope that it is and it may be sort of by definition the way they're making this work.

It will not be accessible to certain people because they're dimming it and some people need that full contrast in. To see it and that that would be kind of a bummer but is will see that I guess with time as more and more people get these and get to play with him in Apple Stores and send us feedback over email so or in 

Steven Aquino: Twitter, you know, that's cool like if your out there and you're hearing this if you you if you ordered one. I didn't. And if you go to a store, even if you have any thoughts about it, you know, we're on Twitter and email. We'll talk about that at the end of the show is always but but. We would love to hear 

Timothy Buck: Completely agreed. I feel like we're running really long. Maybe not really we had a little bit of a break in between but but we still have we still have the phones to talk about two different phones. 

Steven Aquino: Yeah, so. iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro and you know what?

I don't know. I mean, I've been really racking my brain. Trying to figure this out like. It hasn't really hit me yet. What the what the accessibility use cases for these phones? Like I think they're cool and everything. I'm impressed by the camera updates. but I don't know like if anything is really like stands out like we just got done talking about Apple watch and and the new screen. And that's like it jumped out is me as being you know accessible but for Apple watch I mean for iPhone. I don't know you know, I mean, I guess you could make a case for like losing 3D touch and you know haptic touch now like. But I don't know it's just I mean I have the same thoughts about the iPhones as every one else does. I mean, I think they're cool. I'm on the iPhone upgrade thing. So I'll probably get a new one just speak because I can but you know for accessibility, I don't know yet. I really don't know 

Timothy Buck: Obviously like things then being faster. That's wonderful. I think the new cameras obviously wonderful.. Apparently in this is this is something that is just anecdotal based on people who are at the event. Apparently. The pro line is a little bit less slippery slippery than the xS or 10s has been did you find that true? 

Steven Aquino: Yes. Oh, I got to see an iPhone 10s. Excuse me. I got to do an iPhone 11 plus in the Hands-On area 

Timothy Buck: Pro 

Steven Aquino: Pro pro pro and. I don't know how to describe it. But like if you have your 10S or even a 10 are like and you hold it and it's like very soon so slippery on the back side the the eleven pros have sort of a very different like it's still smooth, but it's more. What's the word? I'm looking for more like textured. There's there's. 

Timothy Buck: Grippy maybe? 

Steven Aquino: Yeah. Like if you know if I put my 10R and my the iPhone 11 side-by-side like holding him, you know in each hand like, you know, I could tell because because the new phones have the the new. that they have this like grippy kind of stuff. 

Timothy Buck: Yeah, so that it gets is sort of an accessibility thing. That's cool. 

Steven Aquino: What does Apple call that? Do they call it something?

Timothy Buck: I don't know 

Steven Aquino: I'm gonna check...

Timothy Buck: Some new kind of glass or something. I don't know

Steven Aquino: I’m trying to think. Let me check 

Timothy Buck: While you check. I think there was one other thing that seemed accessibility related that I wanted to bring up.

Shoot. I'm going blank. Oh the the you one chip, so they didn't talk about this. They put it on the screen and they put it on the website. They have included a U1 chip in both of these new phones. And basically what it allows for is for really really precise location of. A device and so a lot of the rumors before the event or that Apple was going to create these little tags that you could put on your keychain or whatever and it.

The Assumption now is that those tags if they ever become a thing will have this you one chip in them and that basically what it allows you to do is when you're looking for a device or or whatever you it should be able to point you to it exactly even inside. So not just like oh it's in this building but be like, oh it's that direction and you can head in that direction and then.

Again, this is all an assumption because they haven't really released all of this stuff. They've just included the chip that has this functionality, but people are assuming that. There will be some sort of like balloon saying or Arrow or whatever that they show and say like your are pods. If the new are pods end up having this chip in them are here and like could point to the couch cushion that they're sitting under that.

Again is not a thing that is actually released not a thing that they've actually announced but these phones will have that in it and it stood out to me as if our assumptions here are true and they do end up putting this in, you know, the are pods and these little tags if they release them and iPads and Max and all their different devices that there could be an accessibility benefit thereof.

You know helping you find your stuff when you can't figure out where it is. I know that would be a huge help for me. And it also could be a huge help for for for people who have accessibility needs as well. Yeah, that's 

Steven Aquino: That's actually a really good point something that I think about. Because they didn't talk about it on stage so it was kind of an out of sight out of mind. 

Timothy Buck: I'm being pretty generous, right so like it has the potential right? There's a potential there. They actually haven't released that accessibility enhancing feature. It's just a thing that they theoretically could do now that they've created this really impressive chip.

So Apple if you're listening this would be awesome. We would like it if you did it, but as of now, we can't really give them the credit for doing it yet because they haven't 

Steven Aquino: So real-time follow up on this the iPhone 11 pro has a matte finished on the back instead of the shiny finish on the 10S and the 10R 

Also to your point on the you one Apples copy on the website says that the new Apple designed you one chip uses ultra-wide-band technology for spatial awareness allowing iPhone 11pro to understand its precise location relative to other nearby you one equipped Apple devices. With you one and I was 13 you can point your iPhone towards someone else's and airdrop will throw tires that device so you can share files faster. 

Timothy Buck: Yeah, so that's cool. It's like the I think it even says something after that of like this is just the beginning like this is obviously one use case, but they didn't put this chip in there just for this one airdrop use case. They're definitely going to use it for more things. 

Steven Aquino: I'm really interested like how this works this chip works because it. It seems really cool. Like just as a chip, you know. 

Timothy Buck: Yeah, it's cool. 

Steven Aquino: Yeah. So any-who. That was a real time fall upon that I thought that was interesting and I have still have the first AirPods.

I don't have the AirPods 2 and I think at this point my AirPods 1s are fine and I'll just wait for the for the 3s I guess but I'm interested to see like what this you one stuff does and hopefully we'll hear more about it in the October event. So to finish up on iPhone though I don't really have anything to say about it accessibility wise now.

Ask me that in another week or two that'll probably change. But as of now like I'm really hard up to find like a standout accessibility case for the new iPhones. Unless you want to stretch it and talk about 3D touch verses haptic touch. But you know, that's kind of out there. So that's my thinking unless you have anything else I think that's about it.

Timothy Buck: Yeah, I think that's it. This is a fun one. There was a lot to talk about. I always always like doing this with accessible in particular because unlike a lot of other shows. We're kind of get to focus what we're talking about. We don't just have to say the same things that every other show says. Recapping. Basically just restating what Apple announced and what we think about it, but we get a kind of focus it in on accessibility and that is that's fun for me. So thanks for doing this with me.

Steven Aquino: Yeah anytime and Again, I'm sure the next time we record I will have more to share on I will watch and series iPhone so. Just because I didn't say a whole lot about iPhone now doesn't mean I won't later on so just stay tuned. So with that said you can find me on Twitter @steven_aquino, and you can find timothy @TimothyBuckSF. He is also the host of ours sister show UNCO and speaking of UNCO, offhandedly your episode with Gui Rambo is up next in Castro. So. I'll listen to them talk about things that are going to be announced that have already happened.

Timothy Buck: Well I am I'm recording later today with Benjamin Mayo from 9to5Mac about what actually happened.

Steven Aquino: So you get a double-dose of the event today, don't you?

Timothy Buck: Yeah. Yeah, I do.

Steven Aquino: You can find the show online. The website is accessible dot fm. You can find us on Twitter at _accessibleFM.

If you would want to help us out we would have appreciate you rating us on iTunes. Do they call that iTunes anymore? I don't know Apple Podcast I guess. So yeah, just go there and tell us that we're awesome. It really helps us a lot. So. Until we talk again. I will see you, Tim. 

Timothy Buck: See ya. 

Steven Aquino: bye-bye.

Steven and Timothy return to discuss Steven’s new Retina 4K iMac, Apple’s September 10 media event, and more. Plus, Steven predicts when the next big thing from Apple will be announced.

Show Notes: 

Steven’s tweet about our being away

Steven’s iMac

Steven’s MacStories Piece—Hello, Computer: Inside Apple’s Voice Control

Introducing Voice Control on Mac and iOS (with Audio Descriptions)

9to5Mac on Apple Watch sleep tracking

MacRumors on AR Glasses

UNCO—The Future of Apple (Interview with Gui Rambo coming this weekend)

Timothy’s review of Terminology for TidBITS

Timothy’s review of Sip for TidBITS

Steven Aquino

Twitter: @steven_aquino

Website: stevensblog.co

Timothy Buck

Twitter: @timothybucksf

Website: timothybuck.me

Podcast: unco.fm

Episode Transcript

Steven Aquino: Hi everyone, welcome to episode 14 of accessible season 2. I'm your host Steven Aquino, and with me as always is my friend and cohost Timothy Buck. How are you, Tim? 

Timothy Buck: I'm doing really well, Steven. Nice to be back on the show. 

Steven Aquino: Yeah, we haven't done a show in a while. I wrote a tweet last week about that and I'm sorry for you know, any of you out there who are like what happened to accessible but you know life is been  tough and we're still here so.

We don't have any follow-up from the last show. So we wanted to just jump into, you know, current events and what's been happening to us since we were last here, and we have a lot to talk about so let's jump in. 

I at the end of July. I got a new iMac. I got a retina 4K the top end. I think it's $14,999. And before I get into like what it is and all that I kind of just wanted to say that overall I'm super happy that I decided to do an iMac because I think it really kind  of anchors my works space. And when I sit down at my desk, like I know that it's you know time to do stuff right like either do the show or write an article.

I'm real we  happy with the my iMac. So I guess I should get into why I chose the 4K and kind of the technical aspect of it.

Like said I got the the high-end 4k model. The only things  that I touched is the RAM and the SSD so i you go to apple.com you can order this and the stock config will have eight gigs of RAM and I think it's a terabyte Fusion drive and I decided to go with 32 gigs of ram, even though it's super expensive because "a" I wanted it to be future proof and "b" you can't open the door to add ram like you can on the 5K. 

And second of all as far as the the SSD goes. I was really tempted to kind of cut cost and go with the stock Fusion drive, but I decided at the end of the day that I should really just go for it and get an SSD. 

Timothy Buck: Which size did you get?

Steven Aquino: I went with the terabyte SSD. 

Timothy Buck: Did you... I'm just like playing around with the on the Apple site right now... Did you get the i7 or the i5. 

Steven Aquino: No, so I didn't touch the processor or the graphics.

Timothy Buck: Okay, so I think this... I'm gonna send you a link that I think should be the one that you got.  And we'll put this in the show notes if anybody's interested. Boom. 

Steven Aquino: So I you know, there's something I should say here. This iMac was not cheap and for what I paid for it you might think that I should that Steven you should have gone for the 5K, but I think for my eyesight and for my space like the retina 4K has been an awesome choice.

It fits the desk really well and my eyes don't get us lost in such a big screen as a retina 5K iMac and so I'm super happy with it. Like I don't regret not going to the 5K at all. 

I think it says a lot about me technologically as a nerd I think having an iPhone Xr, and then having a the retina of 4K iMac. Like all the Nerds talk about the 5K and how awesome it is, but no one ever talks about the smaller one and I don't know why I mean. It's no slouch, you know. But yeah, I'm really very happy with it.

And if you want a retina iMac, but you don't want the huge size and your space won't fit the huge iMac like I would heartily recommend the 4K. 

Timothy Buck: Yeah. It seems like a really good computer. I haven't really used one very much but. I guess I haven't used an iMac regularly since college when like one of the offices I work in all the time had one that I worked on. But yeah, I very much been on the MacBook Pro or MacBook Air trained since the very beginning so. What do you find... The one thing it seems like you mentioned was like having a place to do work is helpful. 

Steven Aquino: Yeah 

Timothy Buck: For like the mindset. I feel like that makes sense, like people productivity experts seem to like mention that a lot about like being able to differentiate from play and work and having a specific location where you do that is good.

Do you do anything other than work on that computer?  

Steven Aquino: No, like I mean I do come here when I'm not actually doing work to like surf and stuff. But I mean, I don't like download any games from the app store or anything. 

Timothy Buck: Yeah. 

Steven Aquino: I installed Parallels, so I have Windows 10 on here as a virtual machine.

Timothy Buck: What do you use that for?

Steven Aquino: Just to kind of keep an eye on like Windows. 

Timothy Buck: Oh, yeah, that makes sense.

Steven Aquino: You know. Yeah, I don't really... Sorry cut you off.

Timothy Buck: Oh, yeah, no worries. I was just wondering... You mentioned that the 4K screen was better for your eyesight. Have you found that like as... I don't know that... When I think about like higher and higher resolution stuff it oftentimes leads to things on the screen being much smaller.

So I guess. Is there a point where you feel like it is an actually helpful to have higher resolution? 

Steven Aquino: So yeah, so I guess I should talk about this I have done some tweaking to this to the iMac so. Whenever... And this this goes with it with any Mac I've used, laptop or iMac I tend to make the cursor the largest size that that it could be and then also I bump up the size of the dock.  

Other than that like I don't touch the screen resolution at all. I don't. I've tried it like on this iMac and I don't like how the scale... I don't like how the scaled Zoom..Screen looks.. I don't know how to say it.

But like you can change it and you can like fill more space and you know bigger and it doesn't look right. 

So I just use it as is and it's fine. One of the things that... One of the things that I chose the 4K model for is... I found like when I go to an apple  store or something and they have 5 Ki Max and I you know, look at them everything on the screen looks so far away like... The menu bar is like super far away. It's small. I can't like get up to it that well and everything is smaller, right because it's a bigger screen but with the 4K like everything feels more eye level... I don't know if that makes any sense, but.

Because the screen is not as big and not as high resolution like it's more comfortable.  I hope you get what I'm saying. 

Timothy Buck: Yeah, that makes sense.

Cool any other thoughts about the new iMac 

Steven Aquino: Pretty much like I kind of hemmed and hawed if I should order it or not? Because I didn't know if you know if October came like they're going to refresh it again. Because they refreshed it in April, I think this is new. This is from like the April update, but I went to MacRumors' site... Their buying site like four times before I order it and they said it was fine to order so I just went with it and it's fine, you know. 

Any-who happy with it. It's awesome. I think it's going to last me for a while, you know, it should with all SSD and everything. So, oh the thing is the only thing I should add to this whole thing is. I got the magic keyboard with with the number pad and I'm happy I did that because I like having the extra space.

The reason I say it though is because. Going from my touch bar MacBook Pro. I was kind of concerned that I would really miss the touch bar and what it does, you know for accessibility and I have to be honest like I do really miss the TouchBar a lot. You know for choosing emoji and and just like when I do email I can tap send on the touch bar.

I can do  things on the touch bar that I have to point click with on my mouse now or use keyboard shortcuts, so I am sad that I don't have a touch bar. And if Apple ever came out with a magic keyboard with a touch bar on the top of it. I would sweep that up. No heartbeat. 

Timothy Buck: I was actually about to ask that. That's cool.

I still haven't used like daily a computer with the touch bar.  But yeah, because I have the MacBook Air at home and then at work I still have the generation before the touch bar macBook Pro. 

Steven Aquino: Okay. Yeah.  Yeah, I. You know, I mean, I know people say and I've said it a hundred times in three years. People say the touch bar sucks.

It failed like and I guess you know in a sense that yeah, they're right it did fail because it's like it hasn't really caught on I think the way that Apple in tended it... But like and I'm only speaking for me but like as a disabled person like as somebody who uses a you know, os10 like I have found the touch bar to be so helpful in like even doing small small things like, you know searching for emoji or tapping send on an email right? Like I find it so helpful that I really hope that Apple just they don't throw in the towel on it, right and prove everyone right? And when the touch Bar, you know, if it dies people are going to be insufferable on twitter with their smug attitude like "oh, yeah it died because  it was really bad." You know?

Any-who.  But you know, I don't have a Touch Bar. For now and it's been fine. But I'm I am sad that it's not there. 

Yeah, that 

Timothy Buck: makes sense. 

Steven Aquino: Anyway, that's about all for the iMac. Next up is, I have a story... As we're recording this it's Labor Day, September second.

So on Tuesday the 3rd. I have a big feature story for MacStories that will come out where I  do a deep dive on voice control on iOS and iPad OS.

I wrote almost 5,000 words on it. 

Timothy Buck: Oh, wow. 

Steven Aquino: I pulled a lot. I tried to get a statement from Apple, but it turned out that I. I had a lot that I pulled from my WWDC stuff. That was still good. Like I took a lot of info from my story there and incorporated it into my story here and. I did some you know interviews with people who you use Voice Over and Voice control and talked about you know how it works with people like me who stutter. 

It's just a whole lot of you know, as I said, it's about 4600 words 4700 words. So it was about 5,000 words, give or take, and I'm really excited for people to see it and you know with everything that's going on at home this year like it was a miracle that I was able to to to do it.

And you know, I'm just super excited that it came out as well as it did and you know as you hear this it'll probably be out there, but yeah, 

Timothy Buck: We're not going to have this. I'm not gonna have this edited by tomorrow. So we'll definitely link this in the show notes and I'm excited to read it. That is one of the most interesting announcements.

I believe we talked about this in our WWDC follow-up episode. It seems like kind of a most interesting accessibility feature that was mentioned. They obviously like focused on it with their video and all that kind of stuff for anybody who doesn't remember you want to give like a to you like a quick overview of what voice control is.

Steven Aquino: Yeah. So what it is is like it pretty much like the whole essence of it is. Like you talk to your iMac or your iPhone right or iPad and you talk to it. You tell it to do something and it does it.  It's very like sci-fi like super cool like you're talking to your. Inanimate object and it's like doing stuff on screen.

And what it is is what Apple told me it was, you know, this is yet another tool for people who have certain physical motor disabilities too.  That they could use to control their their their their iPhone or iPad or Mac.  And it's not perfect. You know, it falters in certain areas, but for version one, it's really deep and you can do a lot to it to change it to make it how you want it and. You know, it is really another like sign that Apple like knows how to do software and like they know how to like serve this segment, you know, like it's really cool. 

Timothy Buck: Yep, it's a very cool. I'll make sure to put the link to their intro video. I think we had it in last episode show notes as well.

But I'll link that again in case you missed the last episode. It's got a really cool video that I feel like I've shown it to a bunch of people. Just because like it's impressive. It's pretty cool. Like you said it's sort of sci-fi and it's different than like talking to Alexa or Siri or you know, Google Assistant It's like because you're moving things around to the screen with your voice.

It just feels even more sci-fi. It's not just like speaking back to you the answers. It's making changes on the screen that you're looking at which I find pretty cool. 

Steven Aquino: Yeah, that's actually a great point and I didn't write this sentence in the article but now I should have now thinking that I should have. This Voice Control takes the whole idea of talking to Alexa or Google  Assistant and like it takes that idea and like takes it up a notch because like you're actually you're not just talking to the to Alexa right? And you know asking her how hot is it how hot. It is outside like you're telling your iMac or your phone to like do stuff and it's actually controlling the interface on screen.

Timothy Buck: Yep. 

Steven Aquino: So that's super cool. 

Timothy Buck: Yep. It's pretty sweet.  

Steven Aquino: So that'll be out. We'll make it in the show notes with when it's out. And moving on.

Timothy Buck: The iPhone event! 

I 

Steven Aquino: can't see the notes text. It's too small.  Yes, the iPhone event. So on Thursday I checked my email and I happened to see an email from Apple Events and under the subject it says "Join us on September 10th for an event at Apple Steve Jobs Theater," and I will be there in the room when they announce the new iPhones and apple Watch series 4 or 5. I guess we're five. I don't know and yeah  I don't really know what to say like about the new iPhones. I mean, I haven't really kept a close eye on like the rumor mill.

I know that there's three cameras in the new iPhone. The highest and iPhones. I know the 10r which is the phone I have. I know it's supposed to get a second one.  But other than that like I don't I don't know what's happening with the new iPhone. I guess I'll have to see you know.

Timothy Buck: Yeah, I what I find it kind of funny for years and years it was all about the iPhone in like what all the rumors were about and maybe I'm just like falling off of a rumor game, but I feel like for me, it's just a little bit less interesting because my iPhone is so good. Like I don't really know what it even the cameras. I mean like I sure I wish it maybe had like night sight like the pixel for night photos.

But otherwise like the daytime camera like during the day the camera is amazing. That it's plenty fast. I have no speed problems and battery is great. I mean I have the XS Max like I can see how like normal people out there care less and less about upgrading their phones as much because it's like even though I probably will upgrade.

It it's less interesting to me, which is weird. I think I'm actually more interested in the watch changes than I am in the phone. And I you know, there are rumors going around right now about the Apple watch adding a bunch of sleep functionality, which I'm super interested in like. I haven't taken the route of like installing a like a third-party sleep app.

I know a lot of people do that, but I don't know it just felt like too much work but if the if the watch came with that functionality built in I think that I'll link in the show notes to believe 9to5 has a piece on. And some of the things about  the third party sleep apps is like, okay. Well now I've got to remember to charge it like at a different time instead then when I'm sleeping. One of the things that the 9to5 article says is like.  Basically, the watch will remind you before you go to bed that you need to like charge. If you use it for the sleeping so it like I guess like the nighttime thing when it like remind you to go to bed.

It'll like remind you a little bit ahead of time like hey charge this now and then it will like remind you again when it's bedtime to like put it back on. Or that seems to be the basic idea. I read the article pretty quickly but like that is one of the things that I would want, right so I don't like forget about it. And then I wake up in the morning in my watch is dead. Like there's like little things like that that I feel like we're going to matter for this to actually work. Like the other one being like the alarm to wake you up only happens on the watch. And then if for some reason the watch were to like die while you were asleep it'll like still go off on the phone.

So like stuff like that. It's a little and and maybe some of the third party apps actually do these things but like having a built-in makes me more interested in actually trying it out. 

Steven Aquino: Yeah, I tweeted about this just. Separately, but an hour ago. I have no I have no interest in.  in sleeping with my watch. I think the sleep data is is cool. Like, you know, you get to see how you're sleeping and stuff, but I don't want to sleep with my Apple Watch.

Timothy Buck: Huh? 

Steven Aquino: I don't want to have to deal with charging the watch before I go to bed like and then remember it up put it on.  And then toss and turn in the night and then having the stupid thing on me.

Like I mean, I'm I'm not trying to say it's not good or anything. I just don't.  I just don't. I want to sleep with like I don't even sleep with my phone in the room.  Because well, that's not the only reason... 

I will when it's time for me to go to bed like I put my phone down and my watch down in the dock that I have on the desk which is in another room of our house and that's it. 

That actually 

Timothy Buck: seems really healthy. 

So that's actually good. I'm I should probably do that, you know.

That is a good advice. I like have it on my bed stand but it probably would be better to have it in another room. That's cool that you do that.  

Steven Aquino: So when when I want to check my phone when I get up I actually have to go into the office quote unquote and. Get it off 

So yeah I just wanted to say that  about iPhones. You guys should take this with a huge grain of salt because I have gotten review units of every new iPhone since the iPhone 6. Yeah, it was iPhone 6. I've gotten review units every phone since then and I'm assuming that'll be the case this year.

So like take that as you will but like I have to say I'm not terribly excited about the iPhone rumors that I've heard about like I don't know. I can't get too excited about having a third camera or  whatever else people have said about it. Like I'm sure they'll be good phones and I'll be happy to get a Hands-On time with him and stuff, but I just like I'm not like super super excited. 

Timothy Buck: Yeah.

Steven Aquino: I don't know if it is that bad. I mean, is that like. I don't know if I should even be saying that because I get review units. 

No, it's 

Timothy Buck: fine for you to say that I think it I think it makes sense. I'm I am interested in what it is.

I just think the way we're looking at this is the way the a lot of people are looking at it, right? They're not as excited as you we were maybe five years ago because the like types of changes are just different right and the types of problems that are being solved are less impactful on our lives maybe?  

I guess  maybe the reason that I'm interested about the watch stuff is like it seems like the changes tend to be like health-related. Which are really cool and that sort of stuff is like seems like the future of the watch... Doing more and more health related stuff and like that actually like has impact on people's lives and there's all the especially with the new hardware. I could see them adding other stuff like they added the EKG or ECG recently. Maybe that was last year? Like that has literally saved people's lives that kind of stuff is really interesting to me because it's like a new world and it's actually really impactful stuff. 

But apart from that like iPhone upgrade. There's going to be like what three different phones the new cameras on them, more powerful processors that are going to be amazing. But like that's basically all we know at this point and then the watches there's going to be an update there. Do you think that there will be any other hardware updates like trying to go through the types of stuff that there is there's the there's Macs. There's Apple TV. 

Steven Aquino: I think in a month's time like will be sitting here talking about an October event.

Timothy Buck: Right? Yeah and the October event will probably be what? Like the iPad and maybe Macs, Mac Pro,  

I'm guessing 

Steven Aquino: and probably MacBook Air. 

Timothy Buck: Yeah, all that makes sense. 

Steven Aquino: Yeah, but I don't know about iMac like I don't know if they would upgrade the iMacs because they just did it. They just did it in April. So I don't know. 

Timothy Buck: Yeah, that's interesting though. Like the I guess the one of the thing that everyone says is eventually coming and there's some really sketchy rumors that are probably not true that there's going to be some sort of a AR thing.

And maybe the let me look at the article. There's a there's a MacRumors article. It says iOS 13 code suggest Apple testing an AR headset. So I don't think this is suggesting that it will be released. But like that would obviously be like the big game changer. 

Steven Aquino: I'm going to guess and I don't have any people talking to me about anything like I don't have very many scoops and all that. I'm gonna guess that if these references aren't iOS 13. I'm gonna guess that whatever this this headset is that it's going to ship in the next six months. 

Timothy Buck: Wow! 

Steven Aquino: Because while six months to nine months because iOS 13 is just coming out right soon and I would think that like if these are references in 13 that this headset thing you would ship within iOS 13's lifetime, right? 

And if it wasn't announced for six months and it probably wouldn't actually be released until you know, 14 had been talked about. 

So I'm just going to go out. You know, I'm gonna go out on a limb, like people do it all the time on these Apple things.

I'm just gonna say like.  It's September now some time for second now. So like I could conceivably like be invited to an event in march where they announced this thing.

Timothy Buck: Wait, we have to put it we have to put a specifics on this here. So you are betting that by… what did you say? nine months from now, it will be shipped?  

Steven Aquino: Not shipped but... 

Timothy Buck: Okay, so... 

Steven Aquino: Like here's our thing because why would. Why would these these strings be showing up in iOS 13? 

Timothy Buck: Okay. So what I'm going to do is say Monday September 2nd, I'm going to create a little thing. Okay, Monday  September 2nd Steven bet. What are you calling it? Like "Apple AR glasses"...  

Steven Aquino: Yeah.  

Timothy Buck: To be announced so you're saying it won't be announced in one of the next two events.

Steven Aquino: Right I'm saying it's not going to be announced in in calendar year 2019 

Timothy Buck: K. So let me pick the date. Cool. Okay. I've got it saved. We'll see 

Steven Aquino: I mean, I mean, I don't know like 

Timothy Buck: I mean we're guessing we have no idea. 

Steven Aquino: I mean, I mean I have no idea like no one talks right like.  I mean, do you I mean, do you think that like.

The fact that these these code strings are in 13 like doesn't that tell you you do something. I mean I'm asking you like doesn't that tell you 

Timothy Buck: Yeah, I would say okay, it's tough because I could see it coming really soon. I could also see it as being like they're just testing it internally and so they had it in you know, the code base for when they were testing it internally and it just somehow slipped through and didn't get pulled out before it was released. You know, but I think your logic is sound so next June 2nd. I will have it to do that pops up that tells me that it's been nine months since you made this bet and wait.

What is the what are we betting I'm going to say no. I'm going to say either it will happen before 6 months from now or after nine months from now.  

Steven Aquino: It doesn't have to ship. I'm not saying it has to ship I'm saying.  I'm saying it has to like officially 

Timothy Buck: yeah. I know I'm... What I'm saying is it will either happen before 6 months from now. Or it will happen after 9 months from now that it will be announced so.

That's our bet 

Steven Aquino: Because I'm just saying because I'm just thinking that unless what you say is true. Like there's an error of some kind and they forgotten that the or they just put it in the internal builds of 13 because. 13 is the here and now like I'm thinking that the fact that these strings are in 13 suggest that these AR headset thing that Apple's doing is going to be announced / ship is within Thirteen's  lifetime, 

Timothy Buck: Right that makes sense, 

Steven Aquino: Which is like a year

Timothy Buck: I kind of hope it so it isn't that I think you're probably right.

It seems sort of lined up 2020 is the timeframe that everybody talked about several years ago and they were rumors first came out about. Are glasses so it wouldn't surprise me if that timeframe was right. It also wouldn't it would surprise me if it was one of the next two events, that would be huge.

I don't particularly think that that will happen, but I could see it being next year's fall events. 

Steven Aquino: I will eat my hat. But I have a hat here so I can... I will eat my hat if it happens at the October. 

Timothy Buck: All right. All right, cool. We have to I have to do something. Maybe you have to like... What do you what happens if you're wrong about the to about your bet here?

Steven Aquino: Gosh, I don't know. 

Timothy Buck: Okay. Well we'll just do coffee. If I'm right, you have to buy me coffee and if you're right, I have to buy you coffee.  All right. So, everybody, it's official everyone heard that 

Steven Aquino: Everyone heard that if we win or lose we're both getting coffee. 

Timothy Buck: Yeah, so anything else? We're going pretty long here. Actually anything else about the Apple event that you want to talk about? 

Steven Aquino: I actually should say this out loud because every year people ask me where my iPhone review is on day one. So when when the embargo is lifted and people start publishing their iPhone reviews like I get an email and I get tweet every now and then like asking me where mine is. And this could change but historically, I have never been one of the first reviews. 

Timothy Buck: Right you typically get the to review devices after the initial embargo lifts. 

Steven Aquino: So how it works is they'll call me down for a briefing and talk to me about the iPhones and they'll send me home with an iPhone or two.  But I don't like, you know, as I said, I'm not like the Wall Street Journal or Gruber or Jim  Dalrymple. I don't get first reviews. So. Just that could change. I don't know maybe Apple. I don't know. I have no idea.

Timothy Buck: If you're listening out there, Apple. He would like to be one of the first people to get the phone. 

Steven Aquino: I mean, it doesn't matter. But like 

Timothy Buck: I know I know.  

Steven Aquino: But yeah, so in case you're hearing this and you are gonna l ask me like, where is you your iPhone review? I'm probably not going to have one on September...

So yeah, that's the only thing I want to say about the iPhone 

Timothy Buck: There were a few other things I wanted to mention before we dropped. I started writing a little bit for TidBITS. So link a few of those articles. I wrote to app reviews for them. And I have a few more I think that will be coming over the next few months.

So that's kind of exciting and also The future of Apple for UNCO, my other show, is a series that I do interviews before and after each Apple event. That should be coming out an episode before the next event and also after so that's coming out soon. And then I guess the last thing I wanted to mention is The Future of Indie Apps is the next series that I'm working on. I have bunch of people who've agreed to do interviews. A bunch of names that you've heard of from Twitter and from the Apple indie app world. So that's an exciting one. You can check that out over at unco.fm.

Steven Aquino: I'm sorry everyone. Our Pig decided to join us. Pablo says, hi. He's not happy.

Timothy Buck: We should add a picture of Pablo today.

Steven Aquino: We will add a picture Pablo to our show notes. 

Yes, I don't mean to be short Timothy. I am real real excited that you are writing for TidBITS and happy that you're going to continue on there. And I'm super excited about your next screw that UNCO you know, that'll be cool.

Timothy Buck: Yeah, thanks, man. 

Steven Aquino: So with that said... with the pig the interruption... I think we're going to call it a show. You can find me online on Twitter @Steven_Aquino You can also find me online on my site where I sometimes write, on stephensblog.co. And you can find Timothy on Twitter @TimothyBuckSF and online  at timothybuck.me, and also his other show, the sister of ours, UNCO that can be found at unco.fm.

Until next time. We'll talk to you soon. Bye Tim. 

Timothy Buck: See ya.

Steven and Timothy return to discuss all things WWDC, including Voice Control, pointer support, and more.

Steven interviews Apple's Senior Director of Global Accessibility Policy & Initiatives, Sarah Herrlinger, at Apple’s Word Wide Developers Conference in San Jose. They discuss Apple’s approach to accessibility and many of the new accessibility features announced this year.

Show Notes: 

Apple’s WWDC Event

Steven’s TechCrunch Article

Steven Aquino

Twitter: @steven_aquino

Website: stevensblog.co

Timothy Buck

Twitter: @timothybucksf

Website: timothybuck.me

Podcast: unco.fm

Episode Transcript

Timothy Buck: Hello everyone. Welcome to Accessible, a podcast about accessibility in tech. I'm your host Timothy Buck. 

I'm super excited to introduce this episode. It's a really special one. My co-host Steven Aquino had the honor and pleasure of recording an interview with Apple's Senior Director of Accessibility at WWDC again this year, but before we jump into the show, we went to remind you that we have a Patreon over at patreon.com/accessible. If you want to hear more from us, please support us on Patreon. It's a huge help.

Without further ado. Here's the interview. 

Steven Aquino: Hi Sarah. 

Sarah Herrlinger: Hello Stephen!

Sound Person: All right, so we're already recording. So go ahead and feel free to start whenever you’d like.  

Steven Aquino: Great. Okay.

Well welcome to episode 12 of Accessible. I'm your host Steve Aquino, and I am here in San Jose at WWDC. We had the Keynote this morning with iOS 13 and watchOS and everything else. And right now I am with once again Apple's... Sarah your title is very long. 

Sarah Herrlinger: Yes. I'm the Director of Global Accessibility Policy Initiatives for Apple.

Steven Aquino: Yes. So Sarah I had you here last year, and we talked about what was new then. Hoping that you could kind of run us through some of the highlights of what is new.

Sarah Herrlinger: Absolutely, and it is a pleasure to be back on your podcast. This is my second time doing it, and I always enjoy being able to spend time with you and do this.  So, thank you. 

Steven Aquino: Thank you so much. 

Sarah Herrlinger: So yeah, this is it's a big year for us. We have a lot of really wonderful features to bring out to the world and we're really excited.

One of the things that we always try and do is to give some love to all of our operating systems and to all different types of users of our technology. So hopefully there's something in the operating systems to surprise and delight everyone. And so I definitely encourage folks when they get access to, whether they are people who download beta builds and start to give us feedback early, which we always love, or people who wait till the final release. But hopefully, you know, you'll find some things as you're moving around in the operating system and you'll find new fun features that are there for everyone.

Steven Aquino: So are there features that, and it doesn't matter which platform, but are there some things that are new that really stand out as your favorites? 

Sarah Herrlinger: Yeah, well, gosh, two of them that we talked about during the keynote today in different operating systems. One is a new feature called Voice Control, which is available in both macOS and iOS, and it is a feature which allows you to use. To run both your Mac or iOS devices using just your voice. 

So the idea is that it's there for navigation, for text entry, for kind of all the things that you would want to do. If you are powering your device using just your voice.  

Steven Aquino: Yeah, I saw that on stage, and I have to tell you I got really excited when I saw the accessibility literally icon on stage on the slide and Craig started talking about it.

You know and he seemed super enthused about it, and I'm excited to, you know, check it out, and also see what other people have to say about it. Is there anything across watchOS or iOS or tvOS that you're excited about? 

Sarah Herrlinger: Yeah, one of the things for watchOS which also was mentioned in the keynote today is the noise ap. You know, one of the things I think that is certainly of incredible importance is hearing health and ensuring that we keep our hearing health. And so one of the things now built into the watchOS is an app which will tell you if the ambient noise around you has reached a level that would be harmful to your hearing Health if you remain in it. 

So the idea being, if you for example happened to be walking past a construction site, that it would let you know that that ambient noise is more than your ears should be taking in and give you that warning to let you know that it would be good to move out of that area.

And then will keep track of that in your in the the health app, so that you can kind of have knowledge of kind of the environments that you're in and how they are conducive or not conducive to your hearing health. 

Steven Aquino: Is that something that has some sort of hooks with the made for iPhone  hearing  aids? You know, if you had a hearing aid, then you had an Apple Watch with that, like somehow, would your hearing aid know that you're in a loud environment somehow?  

Sarah Herrlinger:  Well right now the feature is built to support everyone. So it is not specifically tied to your hearing aid. But as a user of the watch you would be getting that information, you know, as would anyone else, but to let you know that as a hearing aid wearer you may want to certainly not do any additional damage and and move out of that area or do what you need to do in order to to keep your hearing health intact.  

Steven Aquino: Great. Well, I was really excited when the show first started and Tim talked about tvOS, because I just recently got an Apple TV at home. And I was really excited to see the new UI of the new tvOS. It seems like there's a lot higher contrast. The options look like real buttons, if you look at something like the TV App and Control Center. Is there something with tvOS, that's new that people should know about?

Sarah Herrlinger: Well, one of the things I'm excited about is we've done a redesign of Zoom to make it easier to use and easier to kind of control and navigate. So as you move around on the screen that you'll have more more feeling of control as to where they where you're moving across the screen and just an easier and easier time being able  to navigate the device while you have Zoom enabled. So I'm excited about that. I think as well just as the redesigns have happened. I agree. You know, I think as they there's more, as the contrast continues to improve and different ways that things are laid out in the UI. It can be really helpful to support different types of vision challenges.

Steven Aquino: Yeah, I know speaking for me, like even the Apple TV UI that we've got now, you know, I find it super helpful to have all the sounds on all the all the movement. So when you hover your thumb over an icon it kind of pops out at you. I think that's super helpful. So, you know, as of Apple TV fan, I was excited when I saw Tim talk about  the new tvOS.

Can you talk to us about you know, on a sort of a higher level, as much as you can about like what Apple sort of thought was coming into this WWDC, because I know the last couple of years you've really honed in on the fact that the tent pole features were built for everyone. 

But as a disabled user myself, it seems like this year you've kind of you've kind of gone all-in on sort of accessibility stuff, for accessibility's sake. Can you kind of talk about sort of your higher level like kind of thoughts on this? 

Sarah Herrlinger: Oh, I think in general in our goal as a team is always to make sure that everything that we ship we try and make it as accessible as possible. And that is really that foundational part that you were talking about at the start to make sure that anything that's made for everyone to use that really everyone can use it, but on top of that I think we also really try and look at what are additional ways that if we just did anything from a small tweak to an entirely different new type of assistive technology that that would expand people's ability to use our products and you know this year we've just we've had a lot of great things that we've been working on and it just seemed like a good year to kind of come out with a lot of really, some real great innovative new features that we've been, you know working on for a while now and really felt like it was time to get them out to the world. 

Steven Aquino: Yeah, I have to say, you know, people talk to me about, you know, Apple's accessibility software all the time. And I'm very, you know, forthcoming, that what you guys ship is, you know, deep, and it's it covers a lot of developmental areas, like hearing eyesight, physical. 

But you know kind of absorbing what you guys announced today and talking with you after the fact.  You guys seem to come up with all these new things that that I didn't even consider. I mean just as an example. We were talking earlier about Hover Text and you know, I've been harping on macOS not having Dynamic Type forever. 

Here it is Hover Text and it seems like it's not exactly the same thing, but it's in that same sort of vain, and you guys have done it in a really smart way.

Sarah Herrlinger: Well, thank you. Yeah. Yeah Hover Text is a brand new feature for the Mac which allows you to hover over text on the screen and by holding down the command key to have that blown up to 128 Point font, if that's the amount you want, all the way to, you know lower levels as well. But larger than what is standard on the screen and I think one of the things we also try and look at as we design is what's the best way to do something on one operating system might be slightly different on another operating system. 

So in this case rather than just implementing Dynamic Type. The goal of hover text is to be able to open up all of those elements of text on the screen regardless of their size while still keeping the look and feel of the the entire operating system, as it is originally intended, but still give you that flexibility to be able to have that increase in in text size as needed wherever that might be. 

One of the other things. I love about it that we have is a feature on the Mac is another feature that's speak text under the pointer and when you have those two things hover text and that included you can have giant text in the font type that you would like, in the color you would like, have it spoken back to you if you would like. So, you know in that way, we really try and look at what are all of the possible ways to customize this that would work best for each individual use case.  

Steven Aquino: I think that, you know, again like when I first sat down in the hall for the event, and I was getting ready to take, you know, everything in, and I was thinking to myself, if Apple does not announce Dynamic Type on that slide of all the ancillary stuff or I hear about it afterwards, I'm going to be really mad because that's something that I love and you know on iOS and like why should it not be on the Mac. 

Well in a true Testament to Apple software know, how you guys have again done it in such a way that makes total sense and is unique to the OS but is still in a similar, you know, style sort of, and I think it's super smart.

Sarah Herrlinger: Well, thank you. Yeah, it's one of the features. I'm really excited for as well. I think. With so many of the accessibility features. They have great applicability for so many different types of use cases. Even if someone doesn't self-identify into a specific disability type and something like hover text I think can be really valuable for so many users. So we're thrilled to have it out in the world. 

Steven Aquino: I I kind of want to Circle again to watchOS six. There's a lot there with the hearing stuff, there's a big emphasis on health stuff which you know, I certainly think has accessibility involved in it, too, but I wanted to see like what your thoughts were about the watchOS 6's  new haptic chime feature. 

Sarah Herrlinger: Yeah, but it's an interesting one because the there's the chime and then there is what we have referred to as taptic time for a while which actually was a voice-over feature for a long time, but it was so popular as a feature that it's been brought out as something for the general public as well.

So. That feature to to give you either a vibration to give you the haptic to tell you about to tell the time or to also use a an audio, you know, uh, chime of some sort as well is I think it's a great once again a great feature that can benefit anyone and so being able to very discreetly. Tell time I think it's a really fun new feature to add.

I'm excited for that and I'm excited that it's gone from being a voice-over feature to being something that is mainstream. 

Steven Aquino: I am not a day-to-day voiceover user. My eyesight is such that I don't have to use it but it's so cool that something that came out of VoiceOver which you know the average user wouldn't necessarily hear about, like, has something in it that is that you that take from it and turn it into haptic chime taptic chime. 

Sarah Herrlinger: Yeah. Absolutely. 

Steven Aquino: I think that's cool. 

Sarah Herrlinger: Yeah. I always love when accessibility features become mainstream features or when people find them and they get so excited about them that they start to utilize them in other ways for a feature that actually has been out for a little while, but same type of thing's live listen, Which started off as a feature specifically for made for iPhone hearing aids and now has been added to AirPods and Beats headphones and a number of different areas because it was picked up and you know became valuable and so many use cases.

Steven Aquino: You know to that end. I know quite a few people who have used type to Siri as their main way to talk to Siri. I know somebody who is in school, and she uses type to Siri to tells Siri to help her with stuff while she's in class so she doesn't disturb. 

Sarah Herrlinger: That's a great use case. Yep. 

Steven Aquino: So, you know and she only found out about it because I told her about it, but be that as it... You know, I think I have gotten through all of my.  Questions. I want to thank you again for stopping by and talking with me before we sign off is is there anything that you'd like to add? Anything at all?

Sarah Herrlinger: Well, they got all I always appreciate the opportunity to come and be a part of your podcast. So once again, thank you. Yeah, and I've just encourage people to to open up the accessibility settings.

One of the things that we didn't get to but will be I'm eager for people to find and to you know play around with his we moved the accessibility settings up in iOS and watchOS and tvOS. So now instead of being in general settings, they've been moved up to the first level of the settings in the settings app so that they are more easily discoverable and also been been brought into the Buddy sort of set up programs.

So if you get a new device and it's walking you through all the different elements around how to setup your device. It gives you the option to set up a bunch of the accessibility features while you're going through that setup process. And so I'm excited for more people to to open settings and go in and play around with some of these and find settings that are beneficial because I think there's such a great element around just customization of your device which comes out of accessibility features and so regardless of what someone might benefit from, great that the features are there and we want people to use them. 

Steven Aquino: Yeah, and just to sort of tie that home. I think the fact that you, Apple as an institution, have put accessibility on the front lines as it were, and having it be top level in settings and having it be part of the setup, I think it helps the user, right? But I think it says a ton about you as an institution, like it says a lot about you, Apple, how you feel about this and how you feel about serving people who are like me, and as a person with life-long disabilities that means a lot. 

Sarah Herrlinger: Well, thank you. It is certainly a priority for us and something that we do, you know, we do work on every year and I hope. We always have the chance to keep building out amazing things and surprising and delighting everyone. So I hope people open them up take a look, you know play around send us feedback at accessibility@apple.com. Let us know what you think and we'll keep keep moving forward. 

Steven Aquino: So Sarah that was an awesome job. I'm so happy that I got to sit here again with you, second year in a row. That was Sarah Herrlinger. She's the senior director of global accessibility policy at Apple. I think I got that right after 6 years. 

Sarah Herrlinger: That's pretty close

Steven Aquino: Thank you everyone for listening to this special episode of Accessible and we will see you soon. 

Sarah Herrlinger: Thank you very much. 

Steven Aquino: Thank you.

Steven and Timothy discuss Google’s accessibility announcements at I/O, then dive into smart home tech with Steven’s multi-platform setup and his Apple TV 4K.

Show Notes: 

Boy Genius Report’s summary of Android Q’s new accessibility features

Google Lens to Speech

Google’s Project Euphonia Video

The Verge’s story on Project Euphonia

Google’s Live Transcribe Video

Google’s Live Caption and Live Relay Video

Steven Aquino

Twitter: @steven_aquino

Website: stevensblog.co

Timothy Buck

Twitter: @timothybucksf

Website: timothybuck.me

Podcast: unco.fm

Episode Transcript

Steven Aquino: Hi everyone. Welcome to episode 2 of season 2 of Accessible. I'm your host Steve Aquino and with me as always is my friend and cohost, Timothy Buck. How are you, Tim? 

Timothy Buck: I'm doing really well. Sorry if you can hear the sirens in the background, but I actually was looking at our stream the other day and I noticed that we have this set of season 3 in iTunes and I was like, why did we do that?

And I remember it's because you did a season one a few years back with another co-host. So technically this is season 3. 

Steven Aquino: This is season 3 technically in season 3. Okay. Well then this is season 3 episode 2. So it's been about two weeks since we recorded. If you didn't hear us on the last episode we didn't do much.

We just talk about what we want to do for the show and why we went on hiatus. And if you want to go back and listen to that it's on iTunes and we can probably throw it in the notes. But today we want to kind of get back into a quote-unquote real episode and talk about a few things the top being Google I/O which happened last week.

They had their annual developer conference down in Mountain View and there was a big push from Google about accessibility. And they have quite a bit of new stuff in Android Q, I think it is. And we kind of want to talk about about that and kind of talk about what that means for users.

There's an article by Chris Smith at BJR. He does kind of go over the accessibility stuff in Android Q. So going from our notes from the articles and our show notes to document the first thing that they announced is something called Google Lens text-to-speech.

And what it does is it allows somebody who. Who is illiterate to hold up their phone camera to text and have the AI read it aloud in their native tongue. So if you click on the link to the story by Smith, Google has a video of someone in India a woman named Urmila.

She doesn't know how to read and she's holding her phone to a book and the book. The phone is taking the text and essentially turning it into an audio version.

Timothy Buck: Yeah, essentially what they've done is take what they've had for a while was in Google Translate which allowed you to put your camera up to anything in another language and it would translate it in the image.

If it was in, I don't know, German, and you held it up and you don't speak German.  It put English text over the German text so that you could actually read it. And what they've added is they've made it a lot easier to get to in the newest version of Android not like within an app or anything and they've also allowed you to have it play but like stephen was saying, play sound back to you. So like in this case this this woman wasn't taught to read and she in the video. I would just recommend watching the video but she talks about like her children are in school and she wants to be able to help them with things or like read their report card and things like that.

And now with this she's able to do that because she can point this device at a report card or whatever may be and it'll read out to her what it says. And so she can she can know how our kids are doing in school through this really incredible technology that it in in reality. They added like just speaking features to a Google translate saying that they've had for a long time, but I think it's it's.

For actual users. It's a massive change and I think it'll mean that a lot more people out. There can have accessibility to reading things either in languages. They don't understand or in if they're illiterate entirely. 

Steven Aquino: Yeah. I think it's cool. Like I don't use Google Translate at all. Just because I don't have to, but you know, it's really cool of Google to be kind of taking that tech and to make literacy, you know a more accessible thing. You know in the video that they show shows someone who is in an another country, but but even here in the United States, there are people who are illiterate. And you know literacy is something that everyone has to have so, you know, I can see this technology if they're able to use a phone like, you know being helpful. 

Timothy Buck: Yeah, I think what's particularly cool is you don't even really have to be able to read to get around the phone.

It's just a really clear button you press it once and it camera you just hold it up to it. There's not like a lot of clicking around driving to understand how to do anything. It's really really easy to use. I think the thing that stood out to me about this Google IO. As opposed to previous ones.

Is that Google did announced many things that they specifically called out for their accessibility features, and Google has had accessibility features in the past that they've added two things. But when we talk about accessibility we tend to focus on Apple because Apple makes the videos explaining why their features are accessible or they take the time on stage at WWDC to explain that they have these four new accessibility features.

And other companies until recently didn't really do that. They didn't really spend that precious time at these events to explain this stuff. They may like have a press release or whatever later that had a small feature or handful. But this seems like a shift to me and it's not that I've like I don't know.

Hey, I could be wrong, but this seems like a shift in Google, at least for this year. They have made accessibility more of a priority, and they've taken the things that they're really good at and we're going to talk about a bunch of bunch more of the features that they've added but they've taken what they're really good at in services and they've made it more accessible and usable for the masses and for people who have different needs and that is really really exciting to me and I just want to say even before we go through the rest of them that I'm really happy that Google's doing this and I hope they continue to do it moving forward.

Steven Aquino: Just before we head on to this is the other features. You know, I've said this on the show, I've said it on Twitter, you know, I have spent six years.

Covering Apple at close range, you know, I.  You know, I get review units of stuff and I'm I've become a regular at at their press events. And you know, I've gotten some criticism from. People out there who say that like, I'm I'm in the bag for Apple because I always say complimentary things about them or what not, but I I think it's really important too.

You know what I've said about Microsoft of wait how they're really doing well with the accessible Xbox controllers and all that that they're doing. You know, Google is still generally not from people I talk to in the Disabled Community. Google is still not as far-reaching and as polished as Apple in terms of accessibility. But as you were saying Tim like what they showed off at I/O, it feels like there's been a shift and they are using a lot of their core competencies with the ML stuff and all that to really deliver some really cool, you know accessibility features to people who use Android and you know,  I'm not on team Google or team Apple or team whomever. You know accessible is an industry wide thing. I mean not just Apple not not just Google. I mean it's you know, it's everybody and you know, I'm not a above saying that Google is doing a. good job here like. You know, you know the said they're taking their core competencies you know in ml and all that and they're doing good with it.

Timothy Buck: And that's what I'm excited about like that it seems and I don't know how to say this other than to say. What you're saying is completely correct. It's more than just an Apple or a Google or a hardware-makers thing. Accessibility is larger than that. And I think that's why we want to make the show, even though we will talk about Apple a lot because we like Apple a lot and we use Apple devices a lot.

We also want to get into talking about the Twitter app and its accessibility. That Matters too.  And you know Gmail and Gmail's accessibility. That Matters too. Or whatever it may be. A lot of the software out there that we use needs to be accessible. And this is just an instance where in the most recent Google announcements they have four five six different things that are making previously inaccessible tools accessible. 

And the first one we talked about being lens to speech is making Google translate accessible to the people who are illiterate and I'm going to mess up our order here Stephen, but I think the next one that really stick out to me was Project Euphonia and we watch the video before we started recording and that one in particular is just incredible in what they are working on making.

Google Assistant understand people who have different diseases or are deaf or whatever it may be and when they speak it's hard for assistants to understand them today. And if they can get to the point where literally anybody speaking to an assistant can be understood that is  massive. It's a thing that the other assistants just clearly do not have today and that would be that would be a huge win. 

Steven Aquino: Yeah, I did not hear about this when IO was happening. I was kind of going through on Twitter and kind of looking to see what people had said who were there. So I just got wind of the. live capture and live listen thing which we'll talk about about soon here.

But yeah about project, Euphonia, you know, I've been saying for a long time now at least three years, maybe four. I don't know that you know these smart assistants like Alexa and fiery and what's Microsoft's one?

Timothy Buck: Cortana 

Steven Aquino: Cortana, you know.

Timothy Buck: Bixby

Steven Aquino: Yeah, you know, they they're fine. I mean they. You know, you can talk to it and all but they're designed  sort of assumes that you speak fluently which is to say you speak in a normal tone, you you don't stutter, as I do, you have 100% fluency, so and as Google is showing here, like that's not the case ,with me or with people who have a stroke or ALS or what have you.

Timothy Buck: Even children or people who have a strong accent because whatever language they're speaking to this device is not their first language. There are a bunch of examples where this type of ability to understand not mainstream pronunciations of words or tones or speeds of speaking is. This just opens up so much. So so so much. It's huge.

Steven Aquino: You know again, like what I was talking about earlier about Google sort of core competencies. This is a prime example of that because like something as critical as getting a Google Assistant to understand you if you stutter or if you have an accent. Like they're taking their skillset. They're taking their their skillset in Ai and ML and and their harnessing all that and they're developing this technology that helps someone like me who stutters or whomever. The smart speaker sort of smart assistant will be more accessible. Because you know as I've said with like iOS  11, I think or was it 12? Apple introduced something called Type to Siri where you go and accessibility you flipped on type to Siri and you can type to her type to it just as if you're you know, it's kind of like iMessage for Siri.

You know, I'm not saying that that that feature is bad. It's not, but at the same time like it doesn't solve the problem of actually speaking to your  assistant which you know people have these assistants in their home all the time and you you just want to kind of shout into the ether to talk to them and if you can't talk to them because it doesn't understand you because you have a thick accent or you stutter or something then why are you having it? You know, whereas type to Siri is good. It doesn't had on solve the problem of actual speech. 

Timothy Buck: Yeah, I do want to point out that. I don't want to misrepresent what project Euphonia is. I t is not that they have solved this and are releasing it to the public.

It is a project that they are undergoing and they're requesting. I just did a little bit more reading up about it earlier today and it's not now I'll actually link I'll make sure I linked to The Verge article that I was reading in show notes, but what basically what the Verge article explains is Project Ephonia is a project where they are working really hard to solve this problem and they have gotten a bunch of people to submit voice samples and they are requesting that people submit their own voice samples so that they can train the voice recognition AI to understand different types of speech and basically the way that it was explained I think in the video is that we also link in the show notes is that these voice recognition. AIs out there, Siri or Google assistant or whatever it may be they are trained off of these massive data sets of people's words who are asking for things or saying things saying turn off the lights and all the different ways.

You can say turn off the lights in every different situation and that's how they can understand it, but. The reason why they don't understand people who have stutters or who have ALS or who have you know, really really strong accents is because the data set they have doesn't include those people.

And so what they're requesting is that people who fall into those groups submit their voices and submit. BAsically just it's an initiative where they're asking people to help them solve this problem and they've done a lot of work on an already especially definitely recommend watching the video that explains what they've done so far. But yeah, so I'll actually also they have a form that I'll link as well.

That shows like if you are personally interested in submitting.  That you can. It shows you how to do it and I haven't clicked. I haven't like gone through to actually submit anything but it's a Google form thing that you can fill out and submit your own voice if you're interested in submitting to this project.

So to make Google Assistant better understand you.

Steven Aquino: This is something that.  You know, I don't have any inside knowledge which have been anything. So, I don't know exactly what Apple has done here or is doing. But you know people in the tech sphere they talk about, you know, talking to your Siri and Google Assistant and Alexa and you can just talk to it and it'll can do things for you. And I mean, it's all fine. But like.  Oh. I just turned on my Echo Dot in the kitchen. It's talking to me. 

Timothy Buck: Of course. 

Steven Aquino: I have an Echo Dot which we will get into the smart home stuff.  I have an echo dot in the kitchen, which is adjacent to my office space and it just turned on.

So what I'm saying here is like, you know, this is not something that Google is is actively gonna ship but I'm saying like they deserve credit for tackling the like head-on problem of actual speech.

And you know they're not taking a they're not... How do I say this... They're not sort of taking aways some of the appeal of a smart assistant in the way that maybe a typ to Siri would because you're not you're not actually talking to it.  I don't know if that makes any sense, but you know, this is cool. And I'm going to keep tabs on it, even though I don't use a lot of Google stuff I might think about contributing to this. I don't know but yeah.

So the other things that Google announced if I want to go in order again, there are two features that are similar there's something Live Transcribe and there's also something called Live Caption and Live Relay. I'm going to kind of group them to group them together because they're very similar. 

So live transcribe,according to the article by BJR says that the app will transcribe everything it hear's so anyone hard of hearing can follow the conversation. So what it's saying is and you can watch the video as someone is talking.   You can effectively use closed caption for someone who's deaf or hard of hearing to to hear what they're saying to hear what they're saying and.

It's similar to. Kind of what Apple did increase lips with future they have called wive titles where if you use the Clips app if you know start talking and you want to share it to your aunt who's deaf like. As you're talking your speech will be shown up as text on this on the phone. So right there in the app, so she'll know what you're saying.

Timothy Buck: What's cool though is I think this expands a little bit beyond like audio that's or video that is sent through Clips. It's anything in your photos. Correct? I'm pretty sure that's how it works. It's like any video that you have in your Google photos can have this turned on which is. Pretty sweet.

Steven Aquino: Yeah, so that that's a good segue into wife caption and live relay. Pretty much. You know again like the Google is live captioning videos and live relay.  So what that is... is like you can, let's say you're deaf and you have to call the Hair Salon to make an appointment. You know you can call them and while you're on the call the person on the other line, when they speak, their text,heir speech is being converted into real-time text on your phone. So you don't have to call a third party phone number to facilitate that conversation.

Tim do you have any thoughts on that or questions or? 

Timothy Buck: Yeah, when you were tweeting about it, I was following some of the links. I didn't even know that that was the thing in the past where you had somebody else on the call. It's pretty cool that that's been around for a long time. And it's also really exciting to be that Google is making this more available to more people so.

It's great. So I think the last thing at least in that initial article that we've been kind of using as our outline was sound amplifier, which is a not like an AI based thing based on what I've read in a few places it seems. It's pretty much an accessibility setting that will amplify sounds to be louder for people who who need that to be able to hear.

Is that something that Apple currently has an accessibility settings. Do you know?  

Steven Aquino: I don't think so. I don't know. If you have hearing aids. They they have a whole bunch of Sound audio settings that you can check if you have a hearing aid. But since I don't have a hearing aid, I can't check but I do know that if you have a made for iPhone hearing aid if it's paired to your iPhone, you get a whole host of like different audio switches and you know, you can flip them and but as far as sound goes.

Timothy Buck: I don't see it. I'm looking at him now. There's a bunch of hearing settings, but they don't seem to be one that does this specific thing. So that's kind of let us know. Let us know if we're wrong. 

Steven Aquino: Let me just just double check real quick from my own. Yeah, so there's no like special audio Modes, you know, they said if you have a hearing aid made for iPhone you can turn that on and once it's paired, you know, you'll get stuff but everything else is just sort of. Not for audio like, you know, it sounds as if what Google's doing since I have it here since I have my phone here. I kind of want to take a quick moment to say... I can't remember if it was Mark Gurman or someone else but there was a report somewhere last week that said that in iOS 13 accessibilty is going to have a top level menu option in settings. So now if you want to get to accessibility, you have to go to you have to tap settings, general and then accessibility to get at those options, but in iOS 13 they're going to move accessibility to the top page. So. It'll be right there, which I think is good. So I just wanted to throw that out there. 

Timothy Buck: Yeah, that seems like a really small but significant change. 

Steven Aquino: That's something I've been talking about for a long time harping on that like it should be top level and since I was staring at the phone, I just wanted to throw that out there.

Timothy Buck: Yeah, for sure. I think we're done with the Google I/O stuff. Yes, so. You have a smart home set up now? that's new.

Steven Aquino: Yeah, relatively new with everything that's been happening here at home. We, well I, because I'm the tech person. I've gotten to kind of turn our house into a smart house and I haven't settled on... You know, you would think as being an Apple person that I would  settle on HomeKit as my smart home, but I haven't I have actually cobbled together a smart home that incorporates HomeKit, Nest, some Amazon and a little google mmm sorry folks.

I you know. I've got to talk to a couple people about this and they're like, why don't you just settle on one kind of platform but like  I have felt that having more than one smart home kind of is good for us because there are certain things about each system that I want and I don't want to throw all my eggs into one cart.

Timothy Buck: I have found that a lot of the generic. Not necessarily generic but a lot of the like non hubs tend to work with everything which is really really nice. So like Hue Lights work with Google. They work with Amazon. They work with Apple. I'm sure that they are adding ability for it to work with all the others as well.

And I think, the more that that happens the better we all are, because that forces those voice providers to get better and better at actually understanding us and providing is value and not just having us locked in because we've spent you know, $300 on stuff around our houses that only work with them.

So I have a similar combination of some HomePods, some Alexas, and that kind of thing, and they all can do all the same stuff. 

Steven Aquino: Yeah. I don't want to like get into great detail about like how this all happened or anything. But last year we redid our house and we decided to.. I decided to upgrade our Thermistat and at first I got a I got an Ecobee because I wanted to work with HomeKit, but then there were some huge headaches with, because my house is over a hundred years old, and turns out that the wiring is incompatable with with our house. Even though the people I talked to said it was. So I ended up getting an nests thermostat e which is the current wirecutter pick and the HVAC guy that we went with he get gave us a discount on the E after I told him about all the headaches. And it's awesome. 

Like I think it's really simple to use. I like how it looks in our house. We also have the The Nest smoke alarm that we have in the hallway too and they talk to each other and it's good stuff, you know.

I'm happy with it. And then after I got the thermostat and the smoke alarm done, I kind of went out and got other stuff. So we have a doorbell by Ring.

And I chose the Ring doorbell over, you know something else because. Number one the Wirecutter said it was good. And also they have these little things called Chimes which act as a doorbell if you can't hear your doorbells, so well, so I have two in the house and the front and the back of the house and it's great.

I'm trying to look at my smart home apps here. I've got Hue lights. I've got Weibo smart outlets. We  just put a HomeKit sensor in our garage. So now I can tell Siri to open and close it which is super cool. 

Timothy Buck: How did that work? Is that... Did you have to get a new garage door opener or is it just like an add-on to your current one?

Steven Aquino: So it was kind of a hassle. We were able to keep the opener itself, but you have to buy these two like. What do you call them? They're like hubs. So there's the actual Hub that turns it into a smart opener that hooks up to you your internet and then there's a separate little thing that is for HomeKit.

Timothy Buck: Hmm. Can you as you've been talking it just had made me interested. Can you? Put all of this stuff in the show notes, like just links to whatever you have. 

Steven Aquino: Yeah, I can do that.

Timothy Buck: People might be interested. 

Steven Aquino: Um, we have a Echo Dot in the kitchen because last year like towards the end of the year I got an Echo clock which is super handy for setting timers when I cook and I just like the idea of having an old-school clock and you know up there and it's easy to tell time just look up and I've got a  home pod and I actually I ordered the home security system from Nest and they gave me a free Google home, but I haven't opened it yet.  I'm sorry for taking over the conversation. But I've got a whole lot of smart home stuff in the house from different services and you know again, like people say well why don't you just just stick to one system but. There are in other said there are certain things. I want from each thing and they're all good in their own way. So I just use one for this and one for that and it's fine. I mean, it's not hard. 

Timothy Buck: Yeah, I think honestly, that's what we're moving towards. More and more people I know have a set up similar to that. I don't know if that's going to change anytime soon because they do kind of each have their own benefits and because it works right? Like even if you never buy a HomePod, it makes sense to have things in your home that you can turn on and off from your iPad or your iPhone or whatever it may be. So and it makes sense to keep your options open. I've made that a priority when buying plugs or lights or whatever that I have around our house. So that I don't get locked in and so that I can do it from my phone really easily and I can also speak to Alexa or I could also  use the Google app on my phone and speak to that if I wanted. There's a million ways I can do it and that type of choice is good for the market. So yeah.

Steven Aquino: And to speak to the accessibility of it like I haven't touched on that but but in cobbling all this to rather I. I find that it's really really accessible to be able to tap the Home app on my Apple watch or my iPhone and turn on the lights in the in the office or turn on the light in the living room.

You know or tell Alexa to set a timer for you know, well I cook like, you know, it's really opened my eyes to like this smart home stuff is cool. And you know, I'm just you know, I don't have a whole lot but like. But I do have I'm I'm real we're enjoying. 

Timothy Buck: Yeah, I agree man think we're on the same page there.

Steven Aquino: So on that note, we kind of wanted to finish off the the show. Whoops... By talking about  another sort of smart home thing which is. I got an Apple TV 4K, at the end of last year.  And I got a 4K TV.  Maybe I'll try to put the model number in the show notes.

We got a Black Friday. No, not Black Friday. What was it?  I don't know what it was, but we got a deal on some holiday thing on a 4K TV. It's 55 inches. It's Samsung. It's not like the super high-end top of the line. It's not low end either. It's sort of like middle of the road, you know, but as someone who can't see very well and as somebody who didn't have an HD TV until now like this, this TV is awesome. Like, you know, I can see I can see I can see everything on the TV. I don't have to like turn up the text too much and. You know, everything is super Sharp. You know, I kind of put together my home theater with stuff and it's super cool man, like I you know again like my TV is not the highest end thing but you know from where I came from it's super cool.

Timothy Buck: Yeah, I'm kind of jealous man. I have a cheap not 4K old TV, but not going to upgrade it anytime soon. 

Steven Aquino: So I got it an Apple TV 4K and it was my first time with an Apple TV. 

Timothy Buck: What have you thought about the input mechanism and the way it works and I don't know I've been using Apple TVs for years now and I feel like a lot of people have talked about it, but I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Steven Aquino: So I you know, I'm not gonna get too. Deep into it but but I enjoy it. Like I know people say, oh, it's not this it's not that like it should have this it should have that but like for me and what I do with it and what I want with it, like it's great. I do not use the Siri remote. As I was putting together my home theater I decided that I wanted to consolidate everything. So I got the Wirecutter pick for best universal remote which is the Logitech Harmony Companion.

Timothy Buck: Talk about this. Does it work well it?

Steven Aquino: The app is bad and it takes it's sort of fiddly to to do you've got to tell the Hub like what turns on this and how did your sound work and what what input is it on it? I mean it's a it's a pain in the butt. But once you have it all set up, it's cool. Like I just hit one button on the on the remote and I start up my Apple TV and the the Harmony remote controls it fine. The only thing it doesn't do is Siri and search so if I search like the App Store for an app or I want to talk to Siri. You can't do that unless you use the iPhone app. 

Timothy Buck: That's kind of a bummer. I use those two things a lot. 

Steven Aquino: But you know, it's cool like. You know, I the Apple TV I think is is cool. Like I'm I'm excited for 12.3 for the new TV app and I love the the thing where the how you I don't know how you how you say it like the when you scroll through the app or through the tvOS if you're on the home screen or you're in settings like the Highlight will kind of shit will kind of move and kind of like jump out at you I don't know what that's called, but I think that's really accessible because I can see where I am and I love it. To hear the doo doo doo doo, you know as I'm going through it because those sounds like help me know that that I'm actually doing something, you know, so I I'm a fan of the Apple TV.

I know people hate it there sort of and you know.

Timothy Buck: What's interesting is you have replaced the one thing that people don't like. Right, like nobody dislikes the Apple TV because of, like the only complaint that I've heard have been around how it their remote works. Right? I mean like it's clearly and or gaming right like those two things and you're not really using either of those things.

I think like, The way the rest of it works is it's been around for a while, but it's generally really good and it works really well in that is why people even though they complain about the remote still use it because it is pretty nice. I've liked mine a lot. I don't have the 4K one because I don't have a 4K TV, but I've found it really useful.

Steven Aquino: Yeah, I should say I was stupid I got this 64 gig one. That's because I figured for $20 more. You know get to double the storage. But yeah, I'm not sure what else to say about the Apple TV. 

Timothy Buck: Did you turn on any accessibility features for the Apple TV? I don't even know the Sara Lee what features it has.

Steven Aquino: So it has a lot like you can use voice over you can you can use bold text you can use switches. There are a few other things that I can't think of at the moment. I haven't turned anything on because I think be between the interface itself and then also the size of my TV like I don't need like I'm not in dire need of anything. The only thing I wish it had was dynamic type. Because I find like when I'm scrolling the App Store or an app or something where the type is sort of smaller and I kind of wish it were bigger, but you can't change it.

Timothy Buck: That's one of those features from iOS. That really should just be everywhere that there is type.

Steven Aquino: And like I mean tvOS is an offshoot of iOS. So like. It's technically there. They just haven't turned it on, you know. 

Timothy Buck: Yeah. 

Steven Aquino: But yeah, I'm enjoying the Apple TV. I really enjoyed  the TV Services event in March because like I had the Apple TV at long last and like I can enjoy like all these shows that Apple's having and everything else and I'll probably at some point I want to write about it, you know between the smart home and Apple TV, but like. I feel like not having an HD tv in the house like really put me at a disadvantage when it came to TV OS because I couldn't talk about it.

Now that I have one like, you know, it's exciting and I can actually you know. I can actually contribute here. So I feel like I feel like that's it for this episode. 

Timothy Buck: This was an interesting one spent most of the time talking about Google and smart home stuff and a little bit less about Apple. Definitely let us know what you all think about that. I think. I personally am excited to have this show be focused specifically on accessibility and whatever whatever in that realm is happening whether it's Apple or Google or Microsoft or or Twitter or any company out there. So let us know if there's anything you want to talk about and.

I will add though, for the Apple TV. Fiber on the Apple TV is awesome. I have mine hooked up through Ethernet and it is insanely fast.. Just want to put that in there. So, okay. Alright. Well that does it for this week's show. As Timothy said you can talk to us online if you have any thoughts about what we talked about here or thoughts about the show.

You can find me on Twitter at stephen_aquino. I also have a site stevensblog.co that I haven't  written atin  six months, but it's there. You can find Timothy on Twitter at timothybucksf and you can  find him at timothybuck.me. He also has a show called UNCO which is in its second seasons, a sister podcast of ours. And I've been enjoying that one as well. And. Tim that was a good show. 

Steven Aquino: Yeah. Thanks, man.  

Timothy Buck: Thanks a lot, and we will talk to you soon. Bye bye.

Steven and Timothy talk about the new season of Accessible, where it’s headed, what’s going to change, and what they want to keep the same. Steven goes deep for a minute about why we took a break from the show. He shares some stories from Apple’s subscription event, including being a few feet from J.J. Abrams. And that’s just the beginning.

Show Notes: 

Three Things About Apple's New Services That Matter for Accessibility

The Future of Podcasts

Steven Aquino

Twitter: @steven_aquino

Website: stevensblog.co

Timothy Buck

Twitter: @timothybucksf

Website: timothybuck.me

Podcast: unco.fm

Episode Transcript

Steven Aquino: Hi everyone. My name is Steven Aquino and this is Season 2 Episode 1 of Accessible, and with me as always is my friend and co-host Timothy Buck. How are you Tim? 

Timothy Buck: I'm doing really well. I'm excited to be back at the show. I've missed it, honestly. It's a lot of fun to make. 

Steven Aquino: Yeah, I just checked my site. And the last time we posted a show and the last time I wrote a thing on the site was October 1st.

Timothy Buck: Wow 

Steven Aquino: Over six months. So we're gonna just take this quote-unquote show and kind of talk about you know, where we've been for the last six months and what we're doing with the show and kind of touch on what's been happening in the Apple world, in the tech world. And yeah, so.  I guess all I can say to start is 2018 was a hard year, and it got even harder towards the end of the year.

So we last recorded in October. I had to deal with some pretty serious family health issues here at home and at the beginning of the year. Well. On Christmas, I had a family emergency here at home, and we went to the hospital, and at the beginning of January that family member died, and I've been coping with that ever since and as I write this it's been about three and a half months since since everything happened and it's been hard and. 

That's why you haven't heard from me do the show and I kind of felt like in between trying to get my head on with work stuff and I thought that I should try to get back into the show. And here I am. And I kind of feel like I'm rambling here because it's kind of hard to talk about but.  

Timothy Buck: No, you're fine, man.

Steven Aquino: You know Tim like, you know, kind of help me out here. Like what do you were here? Like, what's what's on tap here? For season 2. 

Timothy Buck: Yeah, I guess first. I you already know this. I've told you this before but it is good that you took time. And I just want to say that again and also say that I'm glad that you're back. I think this show is an important show to make and there are people out there who have really found it helpful. And I think now that you are back. It's exciting to me that we can begin making it again and I think there are people out there who are excited to begin listening again, and I guess just welcome back man.

I'm glad that we were recording again and I'm excited about where this new season is going to go. We're calling the season 2. There are some things that we are thinking of changing but a lot about the show is going to stay the same. Do you want to talk about that? Little bit Steven?

Steven Aquino: So we have some ideas for what to do with this season, but the general, you know, high high scope sort of ideas going to stay the same.

We're going to record every other week. So you'll hopefully get two episodes of month and. We are still going to be focused on Apple but. Are going to try to broaden our scope more to talk about the tech industry at large and other tech companies as well.

Timothy Buck: Yeah, we kind of did that some in season 1 for some of the episodes. I remember we talked a little bit about. How Microsoft was doing some really cool stuff with their new Xbox controller and the packaging they used around that and I don't remember but they were they were a couple things like that that I thought were fun to talk about and we're accessibility specific things that are important to talk about so, I don't know Steve and I were talking before the show started and that was one of the things that we wanted to kind of... I don't know how that's going to look but we want to do that a little bit more. 

So if there are things that you all know about or you'd like us to talk about definitely reach out tweet at us. Let us know that you know something that that some other company out there other than Apple is doing that's good for accessibility. We'd love to hear about it and talk about it. 

Steven Aquino: Yeah, and you know, I've I've done a lot if you've seen. On Twitter trying to talk up other companies who are doing well like Microsoft and and of course Twitter and so yeah, if you hear if you hear anything or want us to talk about something hit us up.

So with all that sort of housekeeping out of the way.  I kind of wanted to give a quick update kind of you know, I like I said, I haven't really done a whole lot these last several months.  Apple sent me a 12 point 9 inch iPad. In December and it's sat in my living room in the shipping container for three and a half months or something because I was you know, it was hectic with all the home stuff and I finally took it out a couple weeks ago.

Kind of did some stuff with it and I'm still kind of getting my head around it, but the short of it is that it's awesome that the hardware is awesome the smartfolio is awesome. I'm enjoying that because it covers the front and the. Back as well and so as I get some more time with it, I will talk about it here on the show. The other thing I did go to Apple's March 25th event down in Cupertino, I went to their event where they had Steven Spielberg and Oprah. Talked about all the new Services. 

Timothy Buck: How close are you Ted to all the celebrities here on stage?  

Steven Aquino: Well when I was in the audience, I was not that close when we were done and I was outside just kind of hanging out talking to some people. I was like 10 feet maybe five feet from JJ Abrams. 

Timothy Buck: Nice. That's pretty cool. 

Steven Aquino: JJ Abrams was in a big herd of people and taking selfies and stuff. I did not get a chance or else I would have but I about five ten feet away from JJ Abrams.

So I did write a story for I more about my thoughts on that event and we'll put that in the notes. But boy that was a hard story to write because my head still not you know in the game. As it were and took me a long time to write that article, but hopefully people enjoyed it. I haven't heard anything about it.

So I don't know but it's out there it was published aouple weeks ago, I think. I can't remember. 

Timothy Buck: Yeah. Yeah, I think it was published the day I came over to your house for coffee. 

Steven Aquino: Okay. All right.

Timothy Buck: I remember you telling me when I was over.

Steven Aquino: So ya we'll put that in the notes. The other things kind of tangentially going on with me, as far as, you know, everything goes, kind of stuff we can talk about on the show. As you can see Tim. I'm kind of doing this on the Fly.  

Timothy Buck: Yeah, it's fine. 

Steven Aquino: Um.  I am outfitting our house with a bunch of HomeKit stuff. Well HomeKit, and then smart home stuff. So like Tim you've come over like you know that we have a nest thermostat and a Nest smoke alarm and I got some Hue stuff last week and and I actually got me a PS4 to. I figure that out. 

Timothy Buck: Oh. Woah. When did you get that?

Steven Aquino: A couple weeks ago. I got it because I thought it would take my mind off of stuff. So. 

Timothy Buck: Have you been able to play it very much?

Steven Aquino: Yeah, I've done some of it, and it's going to be interesting to talk about from an accessibility angle, which we can save for another show, but you know. Sony, for the people who know about PS4, Sony has accessibility options in the first screen like the main screen.  It's good, you know, they their stuff is good. Like there's a handful of options and they seem to be fine. But like in terms of like the actual content itself like. Third-party developers have a long way to go to support accessibility. 

Like I don't know anything about Sony's API's or anything, but let's just say like I have to sit like two feet in front of my 65-inch 4K TV to see anything. So that sucks. But hey, it's 4K and it looks awesome. Right? I don't know. But yeah, so those are kind of things that are happening with me.

I do want to talk about the smart home stuff. I want to talk about the Apple TV. I got an Apple TV in November.

And that was my first time having one so it's been interesting getting to know that.  And so there's a lot I think that we'll be able to talk about you know in between now and like June. 

Timothy Buck: Yeah. I'm just taking notes on what you said. We've got a PS4 and accessibility. Accessibility and smart home stuff. The iPad Pro kind of like a deeper dive on your sights on that. And then the Apple TV with a 4K TV, the accessibility thoughts on that as well. So that's that's quite a bit to dive deep into over to the next few episodes. 

Steven Aquino: Yeah, we've got some good stuff to talk about. And you know as I say, like, we are just trying to keep the same sort of show. We had some good feedback about the last season, you know, I had Sarah Herrlinger on at WWDC. and that was a huge hit and you know, all of our other episodes we had people on the the show if you guys want to go check it out. You can go to accessible.fm, and all of our past episodes are there. 

Timothy Buck: Yeah, I think one of the things that I really enjoyed was was having other people on so like the Sarah episode was really really good and we had Rene Ritchie on and I thought that was a really fun episode.

And so that's an one of the things that we've talked about doing a little bit more in season 2. It's not going to be every single episode. But if there are people that you'd like us to have conversations with let us know tweet at us and we'll we'll think about it and we'll let you know when we're going to have have people on. 

Steven Aquino: I should say looking at our our notes of people who we want on the show. There are several of these folks, who are at Apple now, so I don't know how well that's good going to be but you know, we will get people.

So Tim, I kind of feel like I've talked a lot. Do you want to jump in and kind of you know add anything? 

Timothy Buck: Yeah, I'm trying to think. Honestly, I think this episode is mostly going to be a catch-up for those of you who listened to season one and wanted to see more coming from us. I don't think we're going to dive too deep into any topics today, but we just wanted to get something out the door. And kind of get get back into a rhythm of recording regularly and getting things released for accessible and like we've said I think season 1 was successful, but for good reason we had to take a break and we're both excited to be back.

We want to keep this show around and we want to make it better and better and if you guys can give us feedback on how to do that. Let us know if there are people you want us to have on the show. Let us know if there are topics that we're not thinking about that you think would be really important for us to cover all of that kind of stuff would be great because we want to make a truly a truly good.

Show that you all enjoy that informs you that's fun. And I think that's possible. We just kind of got to get back in the swing of things here. And and and yeah, I guess I guess that's kind of all I'm looking at our notes and stuff. I'm excited that we we already have a list of things that we can cover, and I think those those are going to be some really interesting conversations to dive into and they're things that people are interested in and then basically by the time that those episodes are completed we're going to run into Apple season. 

We've got WWDC coming relatively soon and no idea if we'll be able to have a more interviews with Apple people, but that would be awesome if we can make that happen and even if we can't we'll we'll try to have people on from the Apple Community to talk about this. So I think honestly, I'm just excited to be back doing this and it's going to be a lot of fun to record and to produce into to share with the world. 

And and and I feel like I'm rambling now at this point, but it's just a it's a show that I believe in. I think it's important and. And I just want to see it succeed not not so that we make any money but because I think the  purpose of it is so good. And that's actually part of why I want to talk about more than just Apple and accessibility because I want to highlight the good things that are being done in accessibility across the board.

Like I'm thinking of a kind of like you've been tweeting a good bit regularly about Twitter and some of the really good stuff they've done for accessibility and Apple and how often times they get a bad rap for not innovating at all. And when you point to the accessibility stuff that they've done that literally nobody else has done that is a really really important type of innovation that we need to give them props for.

Because we want to incentivize that in these types of businesses and the more we can become a place that that shares those things, what's going really well and maybe things that aren't going so well on these these large important platforms and companies that are impacting, you know hundreds of millions, if not billions of people, that can be that can be really powerful and especially because so. 

The other people who do listen to the show are Engineers or Technical and some way working in product or at companies that build software opening their eyes to some of the things that can be done in accessibility and some of the ideas and concepts. that should be thought about when you're building products is. It is really important. 

We may never know the name of the company that somebody works for or and we may never use their product. But if, if they, if a listener out, there can be encouraged to think about accessibility as they build their SaaS app that you and I never use that is a success, you know that is that is a benefit that is a goal of this show is to get the idea of accessibility and building accessible software and Hardware out into the world. 

And for those people who are listening who have any sort of impact on that. I would just say. Please take the time to think about those sort of things as you build those products.  

Steven Aquino: Yeah, those those are all good points and to Echo what you said to him? I'm happy to be here. You know, I'm happy to be back. I wouldn't necessarily say I'm jumping in headfirst, but you know, this is good for me and a couple of things I just wanted to add. 

I'm excited about because I had to do a bit of stuff to before we started. This is the first episode of the show that I'm recording on over fiber. We got fiber at our house at the beginning of April. And I had to update macOS 10, and I had to do all sorts of other things before I started today. It was a huge pain in the butt, but the fiber either net has been super strong and hopefully my uploads and will be. You know good and Tim won't have to wait days for audio. The other thing is. I forgot what the other thing was. 

Timothy Buck: I was going to say. I think this is the first episode where your mic is. Is correctly set up. 

Steven Aquino: Oh, yes. Yes. 

Timothy Buck: So yes, it was funny. We were trying to figure out why the audio quality kept going like it just never was exactly the same like we have the exact same Mike and we had the exact same settings on everything but for some reason Steven's audio quality was just not good and I think we have that fixed now.

Steven Aquino: Yes, I think so. I hope so. 

Timothy Buck: Yeah fingers crossed. I haven't looked at the results of this recording yet. But I hope it's better. 

Steven Aquino: So Tim, I think that's good for now. I think we covered everything that we that we wanted to cover.  So with that said we will see you back in a fortnight.

You can find me online on Twitter at steven_aquino, and you can find Timothy at timothybucksf. You can find the Show at _accessblfm, and and accessible.fm is our site. 

Go listen to season 2 of our sister show, UNCO, that just started. 

Timothy Buck: Yeah, that's been a lot of fun to record. If you haven't heard season two of my other show. UNCO is I'm making series and so by the time this goes out the door.

I think the whole first series will have been released. It's called the future of Podcasts, and in the first series I talked with Stephen Hackett, Zac Khan, and Carolina Milanesi about the future of podcasts and that that has been a really fun show to produce and it's been doing really well. So if you're interested definitely go check that out at unco.fm.

Steven and Timothy are back together after a while. Topics include Apple’s October 30 media event, Timothy’s new MacBook Air, Steven’s new iPhone XR, and Steven’s first-ever high-definition television. 

Show Notes: 

Steven’s iPhone XS Max review

Steven’s Apple Watch Series 4 review

Why Shortcuts Matter for Accessibility

WaterMinder and Apple Pencil Double Tap

Blind Vet Catches Second Wave with a Surfboard and iPhone

The Secret World of the Mac Mini

9to5 Mac: iOS 12.1.1 Adds Expanding Notifications with Haptic Touch on iPhone XR

Steven Aquino

Twitter: @steven_aquino

Website: stevensblog.co

Timothy Buck

Twitter: @timothybucksf

Website: timothybuck.me

Podcast: unco.fm

Steven and Timothy have a long discussion about the new Apple Watch Series 4 and iPhone XS from an accessibility perspective, then Steven gets super excited about the forthcoming iPhone XR.

Show Notes:

What Apple Watch Series 4 Means for Accessibility

Steven’s tweet comparing Apple Watch Series 4 to the iPhone 4

The Apple Watch Is Time, Saved

Why Force Touch Matters for Accessibility

The Accessibility of Apple Watch Bands

The Apple Watch App: Unheralded Yet Indispensable

Timothy’s third-party watch bands: KADES genuine leather | MaxJoy double tour cuff

Steven Aquino

Twitter: @steven_aquino

Website: stevensblog.co

Timothy Buck

Twitter: @timothybucksf

Website: timothybuck.me

Steven and Timothy discuss Steven’s trip to Oregon, what they expect from Apple’s September 12 media event, and Timothy explains how he configured his AirPort Express to use AirPlay 2.  

Show Notes

9to5Mac iPhone XS exclusive

9to5Mac Apple Watch Series 4 exclusive

Steven on the Sport Loop and Accessibility

How the iPad Pro Made Me Love the iPhone 6s Plus

AirPort Express now supports AirPlay 2

Using Eero with AirPort Express or AirPort Extreme

XOXO Festival 2018

Steven Aquino

Twitter: @steven_aquino

Website: stevensblog.co

Timothy Buck

Twitter: @timothybucksf

Website: timothybuck.me

Steven and Timothy are joined by special guest Shelly Brisbin. Topics include Shelly’s career in tech journalism and podcasting, the portrayal of accessibility coverage in the mainstream tech press, why accessibility talk on podcasts is important, our favorite iOS 12 features, and more.

Show Notes

continuum.net/chicken_nugget/">Chicken Nugget Twitter client

group-facetime-delay-is-the-right-move.html">Jason Snell on Group FaceTime being removed from iOS 12

looks-to-develop-chip-for-processing-health-data.html">Christina Farr for CNBC: ‘Apple is beefing up a team to explore making its own health chips’

Steven's guest appearance on The Parallel episode 11

Shelly’s blog post on other accessibility writers besides Steven

Parallel Podcast on Relay FM

AccessWorld

iOS Access for All

Guest: Shelly Brisbin

Twitter: @shelly

Website: brisbin.net

Steven Aquino

Twitter: @steven_aquino

Website: stevensblog.co

Timothy Buck

Twitter: @timothybucksf

Website: timothybuck.me