[SC-CSTD] FW: [victor] Benefits of Stream3 versus reading books on iPhone?

Fri Mar 10 02:13:47 UTC 2023

From: victor at groups.io <victor at groups.io> On Behalf Of David Goldfield
Sent: Wednesday, March 8, 2023 11:18 PM
To: victor at groups.io
Subject: Re: [victor] Benefits of Stream3 versus reading books on iPhone?

Jordyn and others,

I addressed this question in a blog post where I wrote my thoughts on the Victor Reader Trek. <https://davidgoldfield.wordpress.com/2021/09/12/my-thoughts-on-the-victor-reader-trek-from-humanware/>  Most of the benefits that I wrote about in that post apply equally to the third generation Victor Stream with the exception of GPS and the replaceable battery which the newer Stream does not offer. While I won’t repost the entire piece here are the relevant paragraphs where I outline the benefits and advantages of a Victor product over an iPhone. 

A Consistent Interface

The Victor products, both the Stream and the Trek, offer one consistent interface for anything that I am reading and from every library that the books originate from. Whether I’m reading a newspaper from NFB Newsline or a book from Bookshare or Learning Ally there is only one interface to learn. The commands to play, rewind and add bookmarks don’t change whether I’m reading a book from Bookshare or from BARD. Compare this to an iPhone where you must learn the interface for each app: NFB Newsline, BARD Mobile, Learning Ally, Voice Dream Reader and Audible might have very similar ways of doing things but each app has its differences that need to be learned in order for readers to use them efficiently. Most of them are easy but some, like the Learning Ally app,  can be a bit more challenging.

Physical Buttons

There’s nothing more aggravating than unintentionally stopping the reading of a book if I accidentally touch the screen of my iPhone. Sure, I can lock it after invoking the command to read continuously but I don’t always remember to do that and you can’t do that with the NFB Newsline app since locking the phone stops VoiceOver from speaking. With the Trek moving my fingers across the keypad even for a second doesn’t interrupt the reading.

Want To Read a Book? Just Press Play

You also have the rewind button to the left of the Play button and a Fast Forward button to its right, with the buttons being shaped like arrows pointing to the left for rewind or to the right for fast forward. If you hold down these buttons you will be able to skip backward or forward in larger increments, such as one minute, five minutes, etc.

You can use the buttons on the numeric keypad to navigate by different increments. You could press the numbers 4 or 6 (left and right arrow) to navigate your book by character, word or line. Pressing the 2 or 8 keys (up arrow or down arrow) changes these navigation levels. If the book has appropriate DAISY markup you can navigate by section or by subsection. As an example, with a level 1 setting you might be able to move from one chapter to the next. A level 2 navigation setting might allow you to navigate from section 1.1 to section 1.2. It all depends upon the structure of the book.

The Trek’s bookshelf feature is extremely organized, allowing you to easily navigate through the list of available books and files in several categories, such as Bookshare, NLS Bard, text files, etc.

Direct PC Transfers

The primary method for transferring files from a PC to an iPhone is by using iTunes. This software is one of the most unintuitive and clunky applications I have ever used and I try to use it as little as possible. Because the Trek is seen as a drive when I connect it to my PC transferring files from my PC to the Trek is as simple as using copy and paste commands with File Explorer. I also really like the Humanware Companion software for facilitating these transfers, particularly if you have DAISY books with cryptic file names since the software cleans this up by providing clear and meaningful file names. It also ensures that the files that you transfer to the Trek are always placed in the correct folder, such as placing all DAISY files into the $VRDTB folder on the SD card, with each book occupying its own subfolder.

Using a PC to transfer books is very important if you have reading material that doesn’t originate from one of the Trek’s built-in online sources. As an example, I have many talking books from Learning Ally. The Trek (and I assume the Stream) do support books from this library once the proper authorization key has been installed but they are currently not in the list of online bookshelves. This is really not a problem since you can transfer as many Learning Ally books as you want using your PC. You can also transfer other DAISY books using this method, such as books that you have already downloaded from the BARD service from NLS. When you transfer DAISY books from your PC to the Trek you do need to ensure that they are moved to the $VRDTB folder onto your unit’s SD card. Using the Humanware Companion software ensures that books are always transferred to the correct folder.

Support For Contracted Braille Files

The various apps on my iPhone allow me to read files in many different formats. If I have a Braille display connected to my iPhone I could read contracted Braille files but there’s no app that I’m aware of that allows me to read Braille files using speech output. The Trek effortlessly allows me to listen to and navigate Braille formatted documents as easily as text files. This means that the Trek can read Braille files from BARD along with Grade 2 files that I may have translated from text files. When navigating text character by character the Trek doesn’t read the Grade 2 symbols but instead treats the characters as though you were reading a standard text file. It feels almost magical to me and it’s a credit to the Trek’s Braille to text translation capabilities.

Save Your Phone’s Battery

I remember one day returning home from vacation when I had used my iPhone for quite a while in the airport getting navigation assistance from AIRA. In the cab riding home from the airport my phone battery was pretty low by then and I was pushing it even more by running both Blindsquare and Google Maps in order to hear not only streets and points of interest but also the driving directions so that I could keep track of where we were heading. Had I had a dedicated GPS device like the Trek I could have saved my phone’s precious battery while using the Trek as my dedicated GPS solution. Not to mention that the next time I’m at the airport I can use my Trek to read my book while saving even more battery power on my iPhone.

Swappable SD Cards

While some Android phones allow for SD cards to be added and removed not all of them have this capability, including the newest Galaxy S21 phones from Samsung. Of course, Apple phones and tablets don’t allow for this, either. The Trek officially supports SD cards with up to 32 GB of storage but many users, myself included, have used SD cards with the Trek with even more capacity. I’m currently using an SD card with 256 GB of storage. Of course, how many files an SD card can hold totally depends on the format of those files along with the duration of the book or audio file. . A long audio book from BARD will consume much more space than that same file in a plain text format. On my current SD card I have over 70 books from NLS, Learning Ally, Bookshare and Audible with a little over 200 GB free. And if I should ever exhaust the capacity of that card and still want more material I can just pop in another SD card and copy even more books!

David Goldfield,

Blindness Assistive Technology Specialist

 <https://www.freedomscientific.com/Training/Certification> 

 <https://certification.nvaccess.org/> NVDA Certified Expert

Subscribe to the Tech-VI announcement list to receive news, events and information regarding the blindness assistive technology field.

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 <http://www.DavidGoldfield.com> www.DavidGoldfield.com

From: victor at groups.io <mailto:victor at groups.io>  <victor at groups.io <mailto:victor at groups.io> > On Behalf Of Katie Epperson via groups.io
Sent: Wednesday, March 8, 2023 10:38 PM
To: victor at groups.io <mailto:victor at groups.io> 
Subject: Re: [victor] Benefits of Stream3 versus reading books on iPhone?

I would just rather have a dedicated piece of hardware. That way all of my books are in one place and don’t take up a crap load of space on my phone, yes, I keep that many books. I think the only thing I won’t move over completely is my music, and the simple reason for that is no talking book player out there will hook up to my HomePod.

My web site, http://theevilchocolatecookie.great-site.net

On Mar 8, 2023, at 10:30 PM, Ron Canazzi <aa2vm at roadrunner.com <mailto:aa2vm at roadrunner.com> > wrote:

 Hi Group,

I like the ease of playing Internet Radio and putting various types of stations: music, news/politics, sports ETC. in separate playlists. Maybe there's a way of doing this on the iPhone (of which I am also a power user) but if there is it probably isn't as easy or you must buy an app which may or may not be accessible. In addition, you can get the direct link from the favorites/created playlists and plug them into any number of other devices: iPhones, computers, ETC. and have that direct link work most of the time on those devices.

On 3/8/2023 5:10 PM, Jordyn Castor wrote:

I love all of these points. :) I’m definitely a power iPhone user, and wanted to see what others loved about a dedicated book device versus their iPhones. I might splurge on a Stream3 lol!! 

Mathieu I totally agree. I love my Stellar Trek b/c it is a dedicated device for getting around and for all of its specialized features. I don’t have to waste my phone’s battery on a GPS app that may or may not get me to where I want to go. I can’t wait to create hiking roots this summer with the open area feature.

Jordyn

On Mar 8, 2023, at 3:02 PM, Mathieu  <mailto:Mathieu.Paquette at humanware.com> <Mathieu.Paquette at humanware.com> wrote:

I’ll chime in, as this is a great question.

For some people, using their phone to read books works fine. And you know what? That’s great. 😊 I don’t work at Humanware to sell people products they don’t need.

But the Victor Reader is a device that is well suited for people who either have a difficult time using a touchscreen interface, or simply don’t like them and prefer a tactile interface. Being a dedicated and screenless player, it also sports a much better battery life than a phone can. It’s smaller than most phones (especially nowadays, I’m looking at my Pixel 7 Pro phone next to my Stream 3 and it’s HUGE!). You can also use an SD card, a feature that nowadays, a lot of phone lack.

So yeah, different strokes for different folks. Some people will prefer to use their phone for everything and that’s fine. I hear the same argument on another product that I manage for Humanware, the StellarTrek. Indeed, you can use Google Maps or an app on your iPhone/Android phone and navigate around properly. But the StellarTrek has a lot of features that are designed SPECIFICALLY for blind people (intersection description, open area mode, routes creation, etc), but some people don’t need those, and that’s fine.

As I said, last thing I want is to sell you a product you don’t need. If you have a VRTrek / Stream 2 right now, and you’re perfectly happy with it, then yeah, keep rockin’ it! They’re still great little machines!

I used to change phone every year, and get a new car every time my lease was up, because I always wanted the newest and best. Now, I change my phone when Google decides to stop supporting it, and I just bought out last week my car at the end of its lease and I’ll keep using it until it’s worn out, because hey, it gets me from point A to point B, and I don’t really need the bells and whistles of the 2023 model.

But if you either want/need some of the new features like Bluetooth, or just can afford to splurge a little and treat yourself to a new Stream just because you feel like it, then yeah, go ahead! 😊

Mathieu Paquette

Product Manager

Humanware

From: victor at groups.io <mailto:victor at groups.io>   <mailto:victor at groups.io> <victor at groups.io> On Behalf Of Jordyn Castor via groups.io
Sent: Wednesday, March 8, 2023 3:20 PM
To: victor at groups.io <mailto:victor at groups.io> 
Subject: [victor] Benefits of Stream3 versus reading books on iPhone?

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Hey list,

I was wondering what draws people to the Stream3 versus reading books on an iPhone or iOS device with something like Voice Dream Reader or the BARD app?

I like the idea of not always being connected to my phone and being able to focus on the books. Also not using my phone’s battery to read all of the time.

Jordyn 

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