[Trainer-Talk] New Update to VoiceView on the Fire Tablet

[David Goldfield]

On my sixth generation Fire Tablet HD 8 I recently received an update to VoiceView. This update was only for the screen reader and not for the Fire operating system itself. This was a bit of a surprise as I expected VoiceView updates to be packaged along with updates to Fire OS. However, Talkback, the Android screen reader from Google, is not locked into the version of Android you are using so I really should not have been surprised that VoiceView was updated separately from the OS. This is, of course, different from the way Apple handles accessibility updates for their products, such as iPhone, Mac, etc., where the screen reader is directly tied to the operating system.
Anyway, I quickly read the release notes and remembered the following changes.

First, you can now tripple-click the power button to turn VoiceView on or off. I can't imagine where they got that idea from. ☺ It always allows you to tripple-click the power button to turn VoiceView off. If you want that same command to be available to turn VoiceView on you must enable it in the VoiceView settings, which I gladly did. It's very nice to have a quick way to toggle it on and off, particularly as there was formerly no quick way to disable it.
Granularity can now be set to read by sentences, a feature I don't even think is on iOS rotor (please correct me if that's not true.)
Also, VoiceView settings are now grouped into categories for Speech and Braille.
The Ivona Sally text to speech voice had an update. I downloaded it but I could not notice any real difference in the new version.
There is also a new gesture available while reading Kindle books but I now can't recall what it was. However, the VoiceView tutorial has been updated with these changes.
I am having difficulty finding any documentation on this new version of VoiceView online but I'm sure it will be a matter of time until Amazon publishes a list of changes.



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David Goldfield, Assistive Technology Specialist WWW.David-Goldfield.Com<https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2FWWW.David-Goldfield.Com&data=02%7C01%7C%7C8729959bf3a541b65f4708d6a459a355%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636877102224178651&sdata=s0tVMAGHPGQmdOntz9mi3VtlAI10Y6wdj9v980GkiMc%3D&reserved=0>