[Colorado-Talk] Notes From the The Boulder Chapter's iPhone Knowledge Swap Event

Sun Mar 6 17:40:13 UTC 2022

Greetings and salutations:

On Saturday, March 5, 2022, the NFB of Colorado's Boulder Chapter sponsored
a Zoom iPhone Knowledge Swap event. A lot of questions were raised and a
good deal of information was exchanged. Below please find detailed notes
from that event. The notes include a link to an audio recording of the event
and some text files containing useful information.

Happy reading or listening.

Cordially,

Curtis Chong

________________________________________

iPhone Knowledge Swap Event, March 5, 2022

Note: A full audio recording of this event can be downloaded with this link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/gw6hnofjjcnps6y/iPhone%20Knowledge%20Swap%20Audio%
20Recording.mp3?dl=1.

We started by talking about turning on reduced motion (settings >
accessibility > motion) to save battery and reduce screen sensitivity. The
following comes from Apple:

"If you notice screen movement on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, you can
turn on Reduce Motion."

"Your device uses motion effects to create the perception of depth on your
Home screen and within apps. If you have sensitivity to motion effects or
screen movement on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, you can use Reduce
Motion to turn off these effects."

"To turn on Reduce Motion:"

"Go to Settings > Accessibility."

"Select Motion, then turn on Reduce Motion."

On a related note, in the Motion screen, there is a setting called Prefer
Cross-Fade Transitions. When turned on, this setting reduces the motion of
user interface controls that slide in and out when appearing and
disappearing. This, like the Reduced Motion setting, should be turned on.

We talked about simpler ways to start or stop dictation n the iPhone/iPad. A
simpler way to do this is to use the two-finger double-tap gesture to start
dictation and the same gesture to stop it. This works whenever a keyboard is
displayed on the screen. If using a Bluetooth keyboard, we discovered that
one needs to press Control with Option and hyphen to start dictation and
Control with Option to stop dictation.

There was some discussion about the value of swiping left or right with one
finger as a quick way to navigate through and discover icons on the screen.
A person touches the screen somewhere and swipes left or right with one
finger to hear what icons can be activated. Once the desired icon is heard,
a double-tap can be performed. The double-tap gesture requires the finger to
touch the screen two times in quick succession-about as fast as one says the
word "double." VoiceOver moves its focus (or attention) to any spot on the
screen where a finger has made contact. The double-tap gesture, therefore,
can be performed anywhere n the screen once the desire icon has been spoken
by VoiceOver.

Another way to explore the screen is to slide one finger around on the
screen. VoiceOver speaks the information as the finger slides. Nothing is
activated unless or until the one-finger double-tap gesture is performed.

We talked about Touch Typing as a faster way to enter information using the
iPhone's keyboard. Instead of double-tapping each letter you want to enter
with one finger, with Touch Typing on, you can simply lift your finger off
of the last letter, number, or symbol you hear as you slide your finger
around on the on-screen keyboard.

Go to Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver > Typing > Typing Style.

The risk with using Touch Typing is that you must move your finger away from
the keyboard before lifting it off of the screen. Otherwise, you might enter
a character that you did not mean to enter.

Text Selection is a great way to control whether you are selecting
characters, words, lines, etc. By default, Text Selection is not in the
Rotor. One needs to add this to the Rotor. Once added, it is a good way to
highlight (i.e., select) information that you might want to copy to the
iPhone's clipboard.

Direct Touch was another topic discussed during this event. For those
unfamiliar with Direct Touch, it is a way in which developers can tell
VoiceOver to ignore touch events in part or all of an app's screen so that
the app can handle those touch events directly. One event participant wanted
to know how you go about turning this off for a specific application since
it seems to have no value. Fortunately, recent versions of iOS enable Direct
Touch to be turned on or off for specific apps. The Direct Touch item must
first be added to the VoiceOver Quick Settings. Once this is done, if a
person wants to turn off Direct Touch while running a specific app, he/she
should enter Quick Settings by performing a quadruple two-finger tap,
swiping with one finger to Direct Touch, and turning it off.

The relationship between the Rotor and swiping up/down with one finger was
discussed. If the rotor is set to character, for example, swiping up or down
with one finger reads through text backward or forward, respectively. If the
rotor is turned to Actions, a variety of choices become available; these
choices are explored by swiping up or down with one finger. Similarly,
rotating to Headings enables you to jump quicky on a web page from one
heading to the next by swiping down with one finger. Swiping upwards with
one finger moves you to the previous heading-assuming the Rotor has been
turned to Headings.

We discussed dictation on the iPhone and how the two-finger double-tap
gesture could be used to both start and end dictation. This avoids the need
to explore the screen to find a Dictate button.

We talked about Braille Screen Input. There were participants who favored it
and others who said they simply could not get it to work for them.

We discussed use of the iPhone with a Bluetooth keyboard. For some folks
with dexterity problems, the Bluetooth keyboard seems to be the ideal way to
control what the iPhone does. We talked about starting and stopping
dictation using a Bluetooth keyboard. This is accomplished by pressing
Control with Option with hyphen to start dictation and pressing Control with
Option to stop dictation.

Regarding Bluetooth keyboards, it was pointed out that the keyboard commands
published on Apple's support page do not associate specific keyboard
commands with VoiceOver gestures used on the touch screen. Curtis Chong
reported that he has put together a text file where VoiceOver gestures are
associated with keyboard commands. He offered to share this. Here is the
link.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fsu22f2x0z5mnvq/Keybord%20Commands%20With%20VoiceO
ver%20for%20QWERTY%20Bluetooth%20Keyboards.txt?dl=1

Use of the Uber app with a Bluetooth keyboard was a topic of conversation.
The problem here is that once you enter a search term in the Uber app, you
cannot flick to the right using the appropriate keyboard commands to review
the results. What we discovered together was that flicking left got you into
the results list, but from the back end.

Folks discussed various podcast and radio station players that work well for
them on the iPhone.

We talked about using the Assistive Touch icon on the iPhone as a great way
to stop and restart the iPhone. Curtis Chong had sent some information
around about this. Here is a link to a text file with that information.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/dcr4ln9711aj7yl/Use%20Assistive%20Touch%20to%20Res
tart%20Your%20iPhone.txt?dl=1

The End

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