Welcome to the fourteenth episode of Access On, the National Federation of the Blind's Technology podcast.
Episode
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Timestamps
The show is segmented by chapter, making it easy to move between segments of the podcast if you have an app or player that supports chapters. Below is what's on the show this week, and when you can hear it.
- Introduction 0:00
- Shopping in-person is problematic 1:16
- Discussion about accessible kiosks and other purchasing options 14:09
- The iPhone 16e 30:58
- Variable quality of audio description 37:17
- Alexa.amazon.com appears to have gone 40:41
- Accessibility of MailChimp 42:56 Navigation apps for pedestrians 44:42
- Eset VPN accessibility issue 46:27
- Finding Access On on the SensePlayer 48:48
- Reporting a problem with Uber Eats, and MLB's Beat the Streak 49:43
- Geographic restrictions of the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses 53:07
- Focusrite Vocaster 2 54:15
- My use of the BTSpeak 56:55
- Tech tip, finding used Perkins Braillers online 58:10
- Closing and contact info 59:10
Transcript
Audio: Live the life you want.
Jonathan Mosen: Welcome to another edition of Access on, the technology podcast of the National Federation of the Blind. On the show this week, paying for things in person, where there are problems and where there is progress. Apple has released the iPhone 16e. What can it do and what's missing from this new device? It appears Amazon has retired its web interface for Alexa, a user expresses concern. And in this week's tech tip, we look at buying quality used Perkins Braillers online.
It's Jonathan Mosen at the National Federation of the Blind's Jernigan Institute here in Baltimore, Maryland welcoming you to episode 14 of Access On. I was just walking around here and I said, "I'm going into my office now to start to record the next episode of Access On," and somebody said, "Awesome possum," but of course, with an American accent, so I guess it's like awesome possum, which sounds better. You can't say awesome possum with a New Zealand accent.
Really it doesn't work the same way. So perhaps I just need to lose the accent now that I'm here. Anyway, normally we would start with a feature interview and then some listener comments, but actually the listener comment is inspiring our feature interview today, so we're going to start off with the comment. And it comes from Derek Cox, and he says, hello, Jonathan.
I would first like to thank you for the countless hours of content you create to help enrich the lives of all of us in the blind community. I always look forward to not only the topics, tools, and tangents, but I also appreciate the listeners' contributions as they continue to spark debates, debacles, and the diffusion of our daily dilemmas. Now, there's someone who likes alliteration right there.
Derek says, I am writing into inquire about the accessibility of self-guided kiosks. In the era we live in today, I could not be more blessed by the amount of independence that has been created for us, but the one area I find this continuously lacking is the ability to interact with public screens. There does not seem to be any universal design when it comes to them.
I have three examples of where I face this on a weekly, if not daily basis. First and the most common, debit and credit card payment machines. These are your typical payment methods in almost any place of business where you can insert your card, swipe, or yes, even use a touchless tap form of payment. As great as touchless payment can be, it is not available everywhere.
And even if it is, how often do these prompt the user to potentially add a tip before processing the entire payment? This has occurred countless times even when I felt I could get away without assistance by using a touchless form of payment via my card or Apple Pay. It is that awkward moment where you don't hear a receipt generate and the worker has to bring up the question of if you would like to add a tip or not before the transaction can complete.
This is not to say I wouldn't like to, but as I am sure the blind community knows, we are frequently found on a very fixed budget and sometimes simply cannot afford to do so. I live in California, and quite honestly, the situations are becoming quite absurd in which tips I requested. If I am in a coffee shop where all they do is hand me an empty cup to go fill up my own coffee, I don't see the point in tipping someone for handing me a paper cup.
Other countries are flat out offended if you attempt to give them a tip because service is part of the job they choose to do and they understand that. Either way, considering I need assistance to get through prompts on the screen, require some additional assistance when ordering, and likely will ask for help again when receiving whatever I am ordering, I feel we sometimes get guilted into adding a tip for these reasons.
But if I had the ability to interact with the screen myself, I would have the independence to make these decisions on my own. Even when I desire to add a tip in a custom amount, it is still awkward to discuss the amount with an employee as they have to put it into the screen for me. Also, in these situations, who is to say they are even putting in the amount I am telling them to.
Because the screen is not speaking aloud, they could potentially be putting in whatever amount they want to and I wouldn't know. I know this would be incredibly rare to take advantage of someone like this, but you see my point, there is an issue of security and privacy here. The same situation occurs with a prompting for a receipt as well.
As stated, when you don't hear their computer generate a receipt, likely a prompt has not been pressed on the screen and the employee just stands there and waits silently like an awkward game of chicken as to who is going to speak first. This has occurred with the question of are you a rewards member prompt as well. This tends to occur prior to the transaction.
I had a situation at Target where I had a great experience shopping with Ira, ended my call, had the employee check all my items, then had to ask for assistance on the screen to select my member prompt, where you plug in your phone number and it automatically keeps a digital record of your purchases on their app so we don't have to fiddle with the countless paper receipts we will never read or keep track of.
The employee informed me that I had to select this prior to the transaction as it would no longer populate on the screen after they had completed checking all the items. Knowing there were several items I needed to maintain a record of digitally, I informed him I required this. Their response was, well, that means we have to start this entire transaction all over in order for you to have access to that.
Even though I couldn't see the other customer's faces who had patiently been waiting in a long line behind me, I could, of course, pick up on their body language and feel the frustration from knowing this transaction I was having was going to be a much lengthier one as I had purchased several breakable items which the employee had already wrapped up in additional protective paper.
I understand I should not be affected by the pressures of tipping or the pressures of an extended time at a cashier for a transaction, but I think you see my point and how these could be avoided if I simply had access to navigating these digital screens without needing assistance from others. Yes, I could inform someone ahead of time, but with all the millions of additional things us blind folks memorize to get through tasks more efficiently, sometimes we just forget.
I think we can all relate to that. It also does not help when the payment terminal is not capable of swiveling towards the cashier. The employee has to leave their register, walk all the way around their counter, and press a few buttons on the screen. I can recall this occurring in several scenarios, but the most interesting was at the pharmacy with a long line of impatient customers awaiting their turn to pick up medications. These circumstances continue to compound unsolicited attention.
Onto the next, secondly, self-checkout machines in grocery stores. Being that I walk most places to get necessities as I don't drive and I'm taking care of my four-year-old daughter full-time, I find myself frequently purchasing a small amount of items and would love to take advantage of self-checkout kiosks as it is often much faster in comparison to the overflowing carts of other customers that get into the main lines.
However, these kiosks, again, not accessible and 90% of the time are completely unoccupied by an employee to ask for assistance. The irony is these machines frighten you by the level of volume when reacting to a motion sense that greets you when approaching them. So speech is built to greet you, ask you how many bags you used, and remind you of the forms of payments you can use, but there isn't a feature to have it speak everything else on the screen.
How ridiculous is that? More of a tease if you ask me. Okay, lastly, self-kiosks in regards to food. Not that I frequent them, but McDonald's has had these gigantic screens you stand in front of now where it is expected all customers are to order from with, of course, inaccessible screen reading capabilities, as far as I know. If anyone has used one of these, it gets quite ridiculous as you were forced to go through about 50 prompts just to order something simple due to the extreme customization of ordering now.
How many source packets do you want? How many pieces of diced onion would you like in your burger? How many seeds would you like on your sesame seed bun? I'm being facetious, but you see what I'm getting at. Due to these screens, by default they have reduced their staff, and most of the time the single register they have is unoccupied as the employees they keep are just piecing orders together.
Yes, it is possible to order in this manner, but still, where is the accessibility if they desire their customers to order on their own the majority of the time through these kiosks, although I'm not sure how well one would fare when the screen is larger than my torso. You could imagine us feeling around a screen that large just to add a few more pickles. This same thing occurs at my local Costco food court as well. All ordering of items is done on a counter of about two kiosks.
One must wait in line, then present your receipt to the employee, and then gather your items. Unless one is paying with cash, this is the only option. If anyone knows how incredibly long these lines can be, could you imagine waiting in one to get to the window just to inquire for an employee to assist me in operating the kiosk, then having to wait an additional 10 minutes or so for an employee to become available, leave the kitchen and come all the way around to press three buttons on a kiosk for me.
Needless to say, I make friends with strangers standing at the kiosks frequently. I called their administration to address this, and they informed me there was no current accessible way to access these kiosks screens they have, but to just let the employee at the window know of the situation. So this is how I have to go about doing this from now on. I wait in the long line, get to the window, and every employee is clueless of how to go about the situation. They have to get a manager involved, holding up the line.
The manager informs them to take me to a separate window to process the transaction. And of course, because all employees are just taking receipts and grabbing paid items, they don't know how to manually plug in orders anymore. The manager has to come back over and teach them how to do it, all while this employee has left the main window and the incredibly long line of customers are taking in the show of myself and the employee a couple of windows over through our lengthy process.
You could imagine how fun this is. Needless to say, there simply must be something done about accessibility for kiosks, as companies are doing everything they can to remain afloat, save money by employing less people in this fashion, and essentially creating more "efficient" ways to order. Currently, the only remote possibility of universal design for the screens I have heard of were on specific United planes.
There is a feature to enable talk back via the Android platform on some screens they place on the back of the seats in order to interact with them while flying. I believe it can be enabled by a three finger double tap or something like that, although I'm sure this possibility is few and far between. However, the concept makes sense. Why not have this payment option on kiosks and payment methods that require the user to press digital buttons we cannot feel I've enjoyed the simplicity of the audio guided ATM machines from banks.
We're prompt to navigated from the num pad. I would not mind carrying a set of 3.5 millimeter headphones around with me at all times if I had the ability to maneuver these kiosks and payment terminals in the same fashion. That form of technology has been around for quite some time now, and I could see this as a viable option as all of these situations present a user with a num pad.
I have also heard Freedom Scientific incorporates JAWS on some kiosks, but I don't know anything about this. Is this something being considered or developed? What can we do to demand equal access for these situations? As far into the world of screens and accessibility as we are, why in such a frequented task, which I'm sure occurs billions of times per day, is this not an option?
If there is anyone out there that knows any information or approaches one can take to this, please reach out. So to discuss this email in some depth, I've brought in Karl Belanger from our Center of Excellence in Nonvisual Accessibility who's been doing a bit of work on accessible payment systems over the years. Hi, Karl.
Karl Belanger: Hello.
Jonathan Mosen: Let's have a look at some of these points in turn, debit and credit card payment machines first. So what Derek is saying is that even though you can pay with your smartphone, sometimes that transaction might get held up because you're being prompted on the screen and asked whether you want to add a tip and often those processes aren't accessible. Are we making any progress there do you think? Is that getting any better?
Karl Belanger: There's definitely progress being made. I have seen a couple examples coming out of people working on kiosks and things that offer accessible payment terminals. I know there are a couple companies that have done different things, but I definitely agree that is still a very significant issue and that the vast majority of payment terminals out there are not accessible and definitely need to be.
Jonathan Mosen: So when you pay even with Apple Pay or Android Pay or some equivalent thing, and I know that not all payment places accept them, but a lot do, it's getting stuck. You can't complete the payment. Is that how it's working?
Karl Belanger: Yeah. So when you do the tap to pay or whatever, you'll do the transaction piece on your phone to authorize your card. But then if there's questions about, as he was saying, loyalty rewards or tips or whatever, all those are still just on the terminal and don't go to your phone. So that part isn't made accessible even with the tap to pay.
Jonathan Mosen: Where is the responsibility for this? Is this something that Apple and Android need to consider building into the spec because a lot of people are paying with smartwatches and smartphones these days? And on the surface, that seems like a really good way for blind people who have smartphones to be going.
We've got to be careful, of course, because it's not ubiquitous and not everybody should have to have a smartphone just to make transactions. But at the same time, you'd think that might be built into the spec in some way, so there's some interactivity that can take place.
Karl Belanger: That's certainly a possibility. They do it all very secure to transmit the payment information, and there may be a way to send some of that data to the phone. But as you said, not everyone has a smartphone, not everyone is comfortable using having their credit card or debit card on their smartphone. And so having these features in the terminal in an accessible manner I think is still very critical.
Jonathan Mosen: And it sounds like this has crept up on us over the years because the National Federation of the Blind did a lot of work on accessible payments where all you had to do was swipe your card, type your PIN, and the amount that you'd authorized would be passed on to the merchant, but it's become a lot more complicated and it's crept up on people, I think.
Karl Belanger: Yeah, I'd say that's definitely the case.
Jonathan Mosen: Physical keypads, is that still a requirement on these devices? Do we have devices in the United States where there are no physical keypads to enter and you have an inaccessible touchscreen instead?
Karl Belanger: Most of the places that use a traditional point of sale terminal that have the swipe and the tap and things do have the physical keypad. Where I'm seeing that changing is with the square point of sale systems and these other smartphone or tablet based tap to pay card receivers via Bluetooth or things like that, a lot of them don't have the pin pad capability, which could make things even more complicated for an accessibility standpoint.
Jonathan Mosen: President Riccobono was mentioning to me a few months ago that he attended a conference at which he saw some interesting technology underway really relating to this area. He found an accessible coffee machine, which he was very interested in. And this obviously affects not just those of us who buy things, but also blind merchants who sell things and are running their vending stands.
So it sounds like while we don't have a perfect solution right now, there is work actively underway to try and improve this. And along those lines, Derek specifically mentioned Target in his email. We've had some excellent collaboration going on with Target for some time now, and they have authorized us to say that they're working on a significant technology development in conjunction with the National Federation of the Blind.
And their aim is that by the end of this calendar year 2025, they will have all self-checkout accessible. Now, that's a significant breakthrough, isn't it, because self-checkout, as Derek mentioned in his email, is historically a difficult area.
Karl Belanger: Yes, it's a very significant breakthrough. With self-checkout, I certainly agree with his frustrations of you hear it calling out totals, you hear it saying use the pin pad to complete transaction or whatever verbiage, the capability is there, but then it doesn't have the granular level of feedback that we as blind people need to complete the transaction.
So having a kiosk like this one from Target will be a major improvement for self-checkout for blind people being able to independently go up to a kiosk, scan their items, and complete a transaction with outside of assistance and with complete privacy for their card details and what they're buying and things like that.
Jonathan Mosen: I'm very impressed that Target's interested in ongoing engagement with the Federation and members of the Federation because everybody has different preferences. They want to gather more user data, and I think we may be hearing more about that closer to National Convention in New Orleans.
But of course, what happens then is if Target can do it and they can roll out accessible self-checkouts right throughout the country, it really does put pressure on other vendors, grocery stores, that kind of thing, to reciprocate. Next, we have the question of food kiosks. And Derek specifically mentions McDonald's, and we do have very good news in this regard because there's a lot going on that's positive there.
Karl Belanger: Yeah, we did work with McDonald's to develop an accessible interface to their kiosks. And so now you have the keypad that a lot of kiosks have with the arrows and the button and a headphone jack. And you can plug in a set of headphones and go through the McDonald's order kiosks using the keypad, or even if you touch the touch screen, it will announce what you're doing and you can use it that way as well. Though as he mentioned, it is a very large screen, so finding things can be a little challenging, but you can go through and complete your order independently through the kiosks.
Jonathan Mosen: How does that work? Do you plug 3.5 millimeter headphones into the jack and off you go, or does it use a speaker?
Karl Belanger: Exactly. You plug in your headphones. It's kind of just like an ATM where you plug in the headphones, it starts talking, tells you welcome, and then you can use the arrow keys to move through the menu and select different items and customizations and view your total. And then when you go to check out, there's a payment terminal at the kiosk, or you can have it print a receipt that you take up to the cash register and pay.
Jonathan Mosen: How does it compare with using the app? I emphasize again, I realize that not everybody uses a smartphone. But if you do and you've got the choice to use the kiosk or a smartphone because McDonald's has a pretty accessible app I think, what would you choose and why?
Karl Belanger: I'm an app guy for a couple of reasons. One, I mostly carry Bluetooth headphones, so I don't always have a wired set of earbuds on me to use with a kiosk and that's just my personal thing. But also I think with an app you can do the customizations before you get to the store, as you're arriving, or if you go claim a table first, do the order and then go up to the counter.
So I think the app offers definitely some flexibility there, but I do think the kiosk is very viable for if you don't feel like trying to dig the app out or don't want to have your card associated with yet another store app, or you're not comfortable with smartphones, or yours died, any of those reasons, the kiosk I think is a very viable option.
Jonathan Mosen: We do have a bit of audio that we can play. It actually comes from a video of this McDonald's kiosk in action so people can hear what it's like. Is that something that you put together?
Karl Belanger: That's something that our team put together when we were doing some final stage testing on a version of the kiosk that a former colleague of mine recorded.
Jonathan Mosen: Okay, yeah. I wonder who got the lucky job of actually having to go to a McDonald's and order all in the name of research. I mean, that's a pretty good gig, man. It's not bad at all. So we'll play this and we'll hear the McDonald's kiosk in action.
Speaker 1: Hi, I'm here at the McDonald's kiosk in Millersville and getting ready to order some lunch. I think I'm going to see if I can find a Big Mac on the menu here. So we will start by plugging in the headphones, and there we go.
McDonald's: Welcome to McDonald's. The keypad on this kiosk has four arrow keys. A key with the circle on it in the middle of the arrow keys and a square information key next to the headphone jack. Press the right arrow key to move to the next item. Press the left arrow key to move to the previous item.
Press the middle key to activate the current item. Press the down arrow key to move to the next section. Press the up arrow key to move to the previous section. Press the information key next to the headphone jack one time to repeat the information at your current location. Start order. Press the middle key to activate.
Speaker 1: We'll start order.
McDonald's: McDonald's menu. Press the right arrow key to move to the next item where the... Home is selected. One of 11. Deals. Two of 11. Sandwiches and meals. Three of 11. Press the sandwiches and meals. Press the right arrow key to move to the next item or the down arrow key to move to the next section. Browse fish filter. Four of four. Beef filter. Three of four. Big Mac, 4.29 dollars. Bacon Big Mac, 4 dollars. Quarter Pounder Hamburger, 3.89 dollars. Bacon Big Mac, 4.99 dollars. 640 calories.
Two of 17. Press the middle key to activate. Bacon Big Mac. Would you like a side and a drink? Press the right arrow key to move to the next item or the down. Yes, make it a meal. Plus 4.20 cents. Press the middle. Select meal. Step one of two. Press the right arrow key to move to the next item. Large 9.19 dollars. Medium, 8.59 dollars. Cancel item. Press the middle key. Medium 8 dollars. Large 9 dollars. Select drink. Step two of three. Select drink filter is selected.
One of six. Press the middle key to activate. Cold drinks filter. Select drink filter is selected. Cold drinks filter. Hot drinks filter. Bottle drinks filter. Four of six. Press the middle key. Shakes and smoothies filter. Slushies filter. Shakes. Bottle drink. Hot drinks. Cold drink. Soft drinks and juices filter is selected. Iced coffee filter. Frappe filter. Four of nine. Press the middle.
Iced latte with non-fat milk filter. Iced mocha with. Iced mocha with. Iced macchiato. Coke. One of 15. Press the middle key to activate. Select size. Step three of four. Large. Three. Medium. Two. Cancel item. Medium, 250. Confirm. Bacon Big Mac meal large. 9.19 dollars. Press the right arrow key to move to the next item. Bacon Big Mac. 640 calories. One of three. Customize Bacon Big Mac.
Press the middle key to act... Large French fries. 490 calories. Customize large French fry. Medium Coke. Customize med... Modify medium. Decreased quantity. Current quantity is one. Increase. Cancel item. Add to your order. Item added to bag. Your total has been updated, 9.19 cents. Bacon Big Mac. 4.99. 640 calories. Two of 17. Press the right key to activate.
Speaker 1: All right, so I've got an order set up and just would need to pay from this point. So I think we're good.
Jonathan Mosen: So that's McDonald's. Where is that available now, Karl? How widely available is that experience?
Karl Belanger: So it's in a lot of stores, not all of them, though that number slowly increases. What the situation is that all the corporate owned McDonald's stores, and there are lists that you can find online as to what type of store the one near you is, but the corporate stores all have the accessible kiosks. For stores that are franchisees, they may still have the older version of the inaccessible kiosk until such time as they redo or update their kiosk, at which time it will be replaced with the accessible one.
Jonathan Mosen: Given that this has been done, and I understand Vespero are the key people, I do remember posting a message on Mastodon or whatever at the time saying JAWS now works with Macs, Big Macs that is. So there's a version of JAWS and it's Android based I understand these kiosks. Does that mean that there are other kiosks like the McDonald's one that can potentially or currently benefit from this technology?
Karl Belanger: The self-serve food markets in hotels, some of those are rolling out JAWS kiosk based interfaces for those types of things and many other things like that. So they're coming. It's definitely a work in progress, but things are progressing.
Jonathan Mosen: And it's worth noting here that one of the reasons why they are coming is that there have been lawsuits on this topic. And I know that this gets some people grumpy, but the reality is sometimes you have to see that the law is enforced. And so there have been successful lawsuits relating to the fact that these kiosks are not accessible and really there's no technical reason why they shouldn't be.
Karl Belanger: Right, and that is the most important part. There's no reason why these kiosks shouldn't be. The technology exists, the capability exists, and through advocacy like ours. And if you have a business that has a kiosk that you frequently go to that is not accessible, I'd encourage you to talk to them. There are ways out there. There are solutions available that all these kiosks can and should be accessible.
Jonathan Mosen: Is that something that the accessibility bug tracker form can help with this or is that more specifically relating to software stuff?
Karl Belanger: The accessibility tracker form can be used to report really any accessibility issues you have. It is primarily tiered toward apps and websites and things, but you can certainly put in information about kiosks or other things that you encounter that may have accessibility issues.
Jonathan Mosen: Excellent. In summary then, I think what we can say is that progress is not as fast as we all
would like, but there has been quite a bit of progress in this area and it continues to be made.
Karl Belanger: Definitely. And I think as things progress, we will see more and more of these businesses, more and more of these vendors having accessible kiosks. And as the industry's turns more toward these accessible kiosks, there will be more options out there for new companies getting into the space, looking for kiosks to choose an accessible one by default.
Jonathan Mosen: That's Karl Belanger from our Center of Excellence and Nonvisual Accessibility here at the National Federation of the Blind. If you have any feedback on the whole question of making purchases in person, then be in touch. [email protected] is that email address all joined together. Attach an audio clip to the email if you prefer or write it down, [email protected]. And if you're a member of an NFB chapter, do let us know which one. When we come back, a look at Apple's latest iPhone offering.
Audio: Join our 2025 National Federation of the Blind National Convention from July 8th to July 13th at New Orleans, Louisiana. Our National Convention is the largest gathering of blind people in the world. It is the premier event for training, support, and information for the blind community. The National Convention offers hundreds of sessions, dynamic presentations, and countless opportunities, as well as a chance for members to participate in decision-making in organizational policy. Now is the best time to book your hotel stay. Learn more at nfb.org/convention.
Jonathan Mosen: Last week Apple introduced the replacement for the iPhone SE. Most pundits and analysts thought that it was going to be called the iPhone SE 4. But in fact, Apple has decided to make this new device a member of the iPhone 16 family, and it's called the iPhone 16e. Now, let's cut to the chase right away and make it clear that the removal of the iPhone SE from the market means that there are now no Apple models on sale with a home button.
The only form of biometric authentication available now is Face ID. There've been rumors for years about Apple moving to some sort of fingerprint authentication under the screen, but so far that hasn't come to market. Apple has built features into iOS that makes setting up and using Face ID more accessible. And while it may be daunting to begin with, it is definitely doable, and like most things it gets easier with practice.
In keeping with new iPhones, the mute switch has been replaced by an action button. If you want, you can configure that action button to toggle the mute so it'll perform similarly to the old mute switch. But the action button can perform a wide variety of tasks. The iPhone SE offered a 64 gigabyte version at 429 dollars and a 128 gigabyte version at 479 dollars. You could get a 256 gigabyte iPhone SE at 579 dollars.
The 16e has moved up a notch in terms of storage tiers, with the base model being 128 gigabytes and it comes in at a price point of 599 dollars. You can get a 256 gigabyte device for 699 dollars and a 512 gigabyte device for 799 dollars. The iPhone 16e is larger than the iPhone SE. The SE had a 4.7 inch display, while the iPhone 16e has what has now become the standard 6.1 inch display. The iPhone 16e boasts the same processor chip as the rest of the iPhone 16 family.
So if you're upgrading from an iPhone SE or an iPhone that's a few generations old, you'll definitely notice a significant performance improvement. The iPhone 16e is capable of running Apple Intelligence, and we discussed some of the newer Apple Intelligence features that were released with iOS 18.3 right here on Access On. And if you are a Living Blindfully listener, we covered some of this when iOS 18 was released.
And there is a growing collection of these Apple Intelligence features now. In the near future, Siri will start to see some significant enhancements, including deep searching across apps and being able to ask for very specific tasks to occur within an app. So over time people are going to feel the absence of Apple Intelligence even more, and that means that the fact that this iPhone 16e supports Apple Intelligence is a very big deal for the future.
There's no camera button on the iPhone 16e, but you can use Apple's new visual intelligence feature either by assigning it to the action button or by adding it to control center. The iPhone 16e is the first Apple device to include a cellular modem manufactured by Apple itself. In the past, Apple has outsourced this component to other suppliers. Apple has produced the modem to optimize battery life, and this means some very impressive battery specs.
The iPhone 16e actually has better battery life than the iPhone 16 does and only fractionally poorer battery life than the 16 Pro. You'll get up to 26 hours of video playback on the 16e compared with just 22 on the 16 and 27 on the 16 Pro. Poor battery life was one of the most common criticisms of the iPhone SE. So with this upgrade, Apple has well and truly buried that demon.
There is an excellent camera in the iPhone 16e, and it'll serve you well for photo and video creation and working with AI applications. Keep in mind though that the iPhone 16e doesn't have LiDAR. This means that the enhanced accessibility features available on Pro models like the people and door detection, point and speak, and furniture detection won't be available on the iPhone 16e. The iPhone 16e is also not compatible with MagSafe accessories.
These are accessories that securely snap on to the back of your iPhone and include chargers, battery packs, and wallets. In my office here, for example, when I arrive in the morning, I just snap on the MagSafe charger that's permanently plugged in and these accessories can be handy. But if you're coming from an iPhone SE, that didn't support MagSafe either, so you won't be losing anything.
You can however use Qi wireless charging such as those that have a pad which you lie the phone on. There's also no ultra-wideband chip in the iPhone 16e, and this is in my view something to consider very seriously. Last year at the NFB Convention, it was amazing how much easier it was to meet other blind people who like me had iPhone 15s, which had the more accurate next-generation W2 chip.
Several times I would agree to meet someone at a restaurant or some unfamiliar environment. We'd share our location ahead of time and the iPhone would guide me right to that person. Useful for everyone, but especially if you have a hearing impairment and you might find it hard to hear someone in that noise. All in all though, the iPhone 16e is an excellent device with a few compromises, but which will get you into the world of Apple Intelligence at a fairly competitive price.
If you've already pre-ordered one, it may be arriving at your house on Friday and I would be very interested to know what you think of the iPhone 16e when you get it in your hands. If you have any questions about it or comments about it if you're getting one, be in touch, [email protected] with an email attachment or write the email down. If you're coming in from an NFB chapter, let us know that and which one it is and we'll play a selection of contributions here on the podcast.
Onto some listener feedback now. This one says, my name is Tina Hansen from the NFB of Oregon. I want to voice my concerns regarding audio description. I've heard a lot of people saying that as it stands now, audio description is like the Wild West since some TV shows and movies have good audio description. But for others, AD is all over the place. While I don't watch TV, I share the frustration I've been seeing in the blindness community about the lack of quality audio description and the facts that it doesn't travel with the content.
It's common to see audio description for some movie or show on one platform, but not another. I also recognize that TTS and AI are being marketed as fast solutions to the AD problem, but the TTS just doesn't work well for entertainment. So I'd love to see some discussion about what we can do to improve the quality of audio description and to move towards legislation that would create the conditions for audio description tracks to travel with any movie or TV show.
One idea I've thought about would be to encourage content creators to go to a slower production schedule to allow for audio description training and investing this community with the resources to do some of the training. With the industry as it is, I'm not sure if that's realistic, but I see it as the best way to begin to address this issue on a deeper level. I appreciate your email, Tina.
We look forward to further comments on this. It is frustrating that audio description doesn't travel, and it's actually internationally quite wasteful because there is audio described material, for example, that is created say by the BBC in the UK. And then that audio gets bought by another network and the audio description doesn't come with it, and that requires the network who bought the content to describe it all over again.
Audio description is a bit of a time-consuming process and it does seem unfortunate and wasteful that if the content has already been audio described by someone, perhaps the original producer for the original market, why make someone else do it again? Let's go to Carl Smith now who says, hi, Jonathan. Yesterday, I listened to the Audiom demo on Access on. I must admit I was not overly impressed.
Although I think the idea of Audiom is great and has a lot of possibilities, I thought Brandon's demo wasn't particularly impressive. I feel the problem was that he knows the product so well that his actions reflect his experience and use of the product causing him not to slow down and explain well what he is doing. He arrowed around so quickly without explaining why. It was really confusing. I think you might have done better doing the demo yourself.
I do hope to hear more about Audiom in the future as I think it may be a very good resource for those who are blind. Thanks, again, for your good work on the podcast. Thanks, Carl, and you can explore this for yourself, of course, by going to Audiom.net. They have sample maps up there and maps for your region, so you should be able to browse around and get a feel for it. It's kind of like a gamification of maps in a way. Imagine you're playing an adventure game and you're arrowing around an environment, and it's a little bit like that.
Andre : Hello, Jonathan and all Access On listeners. Here's Andre from Strasbourg, France speaking. I would like to continue the topic of Amazon's assistant, which I will call A Lady to avoid triggering all the devices out there. So not only the application is quite tedious to use, but unfortunately, they removed another possibility that was very convenient, at least for blind users. I'm talking about the Alexa.Amazon.com web interface.
There used to be quite a neat thing where you could set alarms, use timers or reminders and listen to music, audiobooks, whatever. It basically was like an application, but on web accessible by going to this address I mentioned. But now when you go there, it says basically here's your QR code, download the app, and use the A Lady app on the mobile phone only.
That is not so convenient because the A Lady powered devices are promoted as rehabilitation devices in many countries, especially here in Europe. You don't have to have a mobile phone, a smartphone. You can use your A Lady device to listen to audiobooks, news, have timers and reminders and alarms and whatnot. But many users, or at least some users, are not very much at ease with their smartphones or even some users don't have a smartphone at all.
So could you please approach the Amazon team and tell them that a web application at Alexa.Amazon.com or an alternative thereof needs to be reinstated for the blind users to use the assistant more conveniently. Thank you so much.
Jonathan Mosen: Point well-made, Andre. Thank you very much for being in touch with Access On. The National Federation of the Blind is in regular contact with Amazon, and we may well have some things to talk about with respect to Alexa quite soon on Access On. So I will flag this and we'll see if we can find out why that site has been deprecated. I suspect that it was just another thing to maintain and they have made some judgment that it got minimal use, but that is speculation on my part, so we'll see if we can find out more information for you on this.
Now here's a name I recognize from recent events. It's from Desmond Jackson and he says, Hello, Jonathan from the Baltimore County Chapter of the NFB of Maryland. Wanted to weigh in on the question from the person who wrote in about accessible communication tools. As part of my duties to a small nonprofit whose board I serve on, I'm responsible for sending out mass emails regarding monthly events and other important communications to our membership.
I do this using MailChimp. It is actually quite a brilliant service. While I don't have need at the moment to tap into all of its features and capabilities, some tasks I do perform include managing audiences, which is essentially means contact list and all of the associated actions with them, and creating campaigns, which are specific postings one can create to send through email or post to social media given the proper integrations.
Although I found the web interface to be a bit complex at first, I would say that I have found it to be fairly accessible from the standpoint of using JAWS on Windows. The only real issue I've found so far is when it comes to inputting content in the design area and having it maintain its formatting. However, this has not been a showstopper. There is a mobile app, but I have not yet used it to perform any of this work as of yet.
Thank you so much for all that you have done in the blind community and all that you continue to do week to week with the podcast. Thank you very much, Desmond. Great to get your email and to get that information about MailChimp. It may encourage others to just pluck up the courage to have a bit of a play with it and persist with it. But of course, you don't want to stay inside all the time.
You want to get into the great outdoors, even with this feels like temperature being brr outside here at the moment. And Rick Roderick says, I have found GPS to be very helpful, but it falls far short. OpenStreetMap, which is something that Brandon referred to in the Audiom discussion, is extremely out of date at times. We moved to our present location over five years ago.
Some of the POIs then were out of date and they're still on the map. I would be willing to pay something for a more accurate map. I had a great experience with the program that APH started. I bought it and was mostly pleased. What is now GoodMaps Outdoors is a downgrade. It no longer has transit information. I get all the emails from GoodMaps and I hear nothing about development of the Outdoor program.
Another thing is that none of these apps give clearly detailed walking directions. They will say how many blocks to walk in a particular direction, but they don't tell what streets one needs to cross to get there. So there's a challenge for the audience. What's your favorite GPS app and why for navigating the great outdoors? Are you mostly using the mainstream apps like Apple Maps and Google Maps, which are so popular?
Do you supplement them with other things? I know that VoiceVista and Soundscape are very popular. BlindSquare is still out there. Is there an all-in-one app that you think does it all in a blindness context? Let's talk about this traveling with outdoor navigation assistance. Let me know your thoughts, [email protected], if you want to be in touch with an audio attachment or an email. [email protected].
All right, ready, ESET, go. Hello, Jonathan. My name is Matthew, and I'm a user of the ESET products. I'm going to stop there and say for those who don't know what they are, they have an antivirus solution, firewall, a whole range of security tools really. Matthew says, I have noticed recently that one of its services, ESET VPN, is not accessible at all with our popular screen readers.
I wrote a comprehensive post on the ESET technical forum about this issue and the company rep assured me that it'll work on how to resolve this problem this year. I don't know if something can be fixed this year, so I would like to ask you could somebody from your organization tell them about our problem? I'll be so grateful for any help in this regard. I can send you a link to a post on the ESET forum if you wish.
Thank you very much, Matthew. It does sound like if they've given you a firm deadline that we should watch and give them an opportunity to meet that target. If they've said we're going to get it done this calendar year, that is quite a specific deadline for you to hold them to. Sometimes you contact some of these companies and they say, thank you, we'll note it, and it's being added to our list, and those sorts of nebulous things.
But in this case, they have given you a definite timeframe within which it will be fixed, and that sounds positive. ESET has a pretty good reputation. There are a few things in that suite that cause problems. I know a number of us screen reader users a couple of years ago had a problem with their new banking protection feature, where if you enable that, it caused all sorts of issues with accessibility in web browsers, certainly Chromium browsers.
Anyway, so from time to time, we have these issues with these security suites. My inclination is to say give them a chance to fix it and to be as good as their word. And if we come back in a year from now and we found that they've missed that deadline, it would be appropriate for us to go to them and ask them why that is. In the meantime, there are many accessible VPN options, perhaps not as many on Windows as there are say on iOS.
The ExpressVPN client for Windows is one, not the only one, but it is one that is fairly well-behaved with Windows screen readers. And there may be others that people can recommend that work fairly well if you are looking for a VPN product. Professor Rakesh Jain is writing in and says, one of your listeners in episode 11 raised the issue of not being able to find the Access On Podcast on the SensePlayer 6.
Yes, I recently purchased a SensePlayer 6 from Selvas USA. I struggled for two days to find the Access On Podcast on it. Finally, I searched for National Federation of the Blind. There it was. I got it there. Surprisingly, the same thing happened on Spotify. Access On is not there. But if you search for National Federation of the Blind, you do find the Access On Podcast.
Next, one of your listeners wanted to learn Hindi. I happily volunteer myself to teach Hindi without any charge. That is for absolutely free. There you go. That's Nancy, I think, who was wanting to learn Hindi. So thank you very much for that generous offer. This is Eric Duffy, begins this email, from the capital chapter of the National Federation of the Blind of Ohio. It is great to have someone with your skills and ability working for the Federation. That's very kind of you.
Thank you, Eric. I'm delighted to be surrounded by so many amazing people. My first topic for this podcast deals with Uber Eats. I find it extremely frustrating when trying to report a problem with an order. In many cases, you cannot submit a report without taking a photo. With my most recent order, I got the wrong toppings on my sandwich. I ate the sandwich without stopping to take a photo first. I then tried to report the problem and could not do so without a photo.
If I'm missing something here, I hope someone will set me straight. If this really is a problem, I hope it is something we can tackle soon. Well, Eric, I'll stop there and say one of the problems I have found with reporting a problem with Uber Eats is often that the reporting process is completely inaccessible. It seems to vary a great deal. And I have to say I don't think there's one of these eating apps that has it completely right.
I find that with DoorDash, if you are running certain Bluetooth Braille displays, it slows down to a crawl. Grubhub here seems to have become progressively worse. And Uber Eats, as I say, sometimes when things go wrong and you need to report something, it can be quite difficult with unlabeled buttons. I should just stress, I've been researching this purely in the name of research all these eating apps.
Now, says Eric, let's talk about MLB, take me out to the ball game, and Beat the Streak. I know that you are a cricket man, but I am sure President Riccobono and Federationists from around the country will do what we can to educate you about baseball. I know a little bit, Eric, but no, not a lot. Not like I know about cricket. At one time, the MLB app offered a very accessible version of Beat the Streak.
You could choose one or two players to get a hit once each day you played. Depending on the length of your streak, you could win various prizes. Additionally, it was fun to play with friends. I believe it was 2021 when that feature in the MLB app became inaccessible. I have not subscribed to the MLB app since then. Last season, blind friends said Beat the Streak still did not work with voiceover on the iPhone.
I listened to sports on SiriusXM, but I would be glad to subscribe to MLB Radio if Beat the Streak was accessible on the iPhone using voiceover. If this has been corrected and I am just unaware of the change, then I say play ball and let's all play Beat the Streak. When I reached out to MLB, I got no response. But if this is still a problem, I hope many of us will contact MLB and that we will also do so as an organization.
Anyone tell me about Beat the Streak and whether it's still accessible. We've got a lot of blind baseball fans listening to Access On, I can tell you that. So let's all have you chiming in on this. [email protected] if you want to be in touch. Attach an audio clip to the email or write it down. Because spring training is got to be happening soon, right, and then we were into the real thing, so time is of the essence. [email protected].
Ian Harrison says, Hi, Jonathan. Sometimes I despair over how Meta is implementing the smart glasses. Not only is the AI still unavailable in the UK, but as of today, I have lost the ability to call Be My Eyes. After an update on the 31st of January, I noticed that the accessibility menu item has disappeared in the Meta View app and the assistant keeps telling me that this service is no longer available in my area.
I really think Meta has to become far more stable than it is right now and should produce some sort of roadmap for future features or development. If they are not careful, they will lose ground to developers who are far better at looking after their customer base. Keep up the great work. Thank you, Ian.
I have heard lots of rumblings from people internationally to say that their access to Meta AI has disappeared and that earlier VPN workarounds are no longer working, and obviously that is very frustrating for people who have purchased these devices and now find themselves unable to use them to the max.
Jerry Barrier: Hello, Jonathan. This is Jerry Barrier in Massachusetts. I recently purchased the Vocaster Two for my laptop, and I like it so much that I'd like to get a similar, but more robust product for use with my little home studio. I currently use a Mackie ProFX12 Mixer. You have mentioned that you use the Focusrite Scarlett.
Has that replaced your mixer? If not, how do you use the two in combination? I experimented with the Vocaster in my studio and quickly realized that it does not permit me to set the bass and treble from my monitors. I don't want to lose the ability to do that. I thank you for any comments you may have on this topic.
Jonathan Mosen: Nice to hear from you, Jerry. I'm actually using the Vocaster Two at the moment here in my office, and I use it for audio production for Access On, but I also find it very handy in my job because I can use a TRRS to USB-C cable and connect my iPhone directly to it. You can also do it via Bluetooth, but latency is better when you use a cable and the audio quality is a little bit better as well.
So I have all my sound sources coming through the one thing, my computer, which is running my screen reader, my iPhone, which is running voiceover, and everything is running through one system. So it actually has a use case for people just working in the office every day. In my studio, which is now disassembled and traveling somewhere across the world, I did have a Focusrite Scarlett user interface for quite some time, but I did change it to an Audient EVO16, which I like very much.
Since then though, the new generation of Focusrite Scarlett has come out with accessibility features that make it very similar to the offering from the Audient EVO range. So it's probably much of a muchness and you'll get different opinions about the quality of the preamps and this sort of thing. If you want to equalize each channel, then you're probably better with some hardware mixer where you can do that.
I don't believe that there are consumer grade audio interfaces that will allow you to do that EQ unless you do it in software. And if you do it in software, you may introduce some latency as the audio goes through the equalizer. That said though, if it's using the ASIO standard, latency might be low enough that you don't mind it. Latency can be very low with good ASIO drivers.
I've not tried a system-wide software equalizer of Windows. They probably do exist. And if anyone has had a play with such an application and wants to recommend something, then that would be most interesting. Have I already said it's cold outside? I think I have already said it's cold outside, so it's very nice to get an email from Hawaii. Aloha, says Keao. See, I feel warmer already.
When I was working at Access to Independence in California for the last two years, I used the BT Speak for note-taking. It was very helpful to use when I was watching a training video/conference on YouTube to use a pocket device to write important information I needed at the time without putting any more strain on computer resources. I also used the BT Speak for taking notes when I was doing outreach events accessibly.
Sure, there is my phone that I can open notes, but I like to have a device that I can write down information in a file, which I can look at at a later time. Now I've purchased my own unit since I don't work for the company anymore and use it to take notes for clients. I am doing JAWS training part-time since I am a certified instructor on the island. I also use the unit as a diary to write my feelings and thoughts.
By the way, great speech at the Washington seminar. Thank you very much, Keao. I appreciate that, and I appreciate your comments on the BT Speak. Sometimes you just can't get past the lower tech stuff and good old Perkins Brailler can still be handy from time to time. And that takes us to this week's tech tip from Robert Jaquiss who says, if you want a Perkins Brailler, one place to look is www.ebay.com. A user will see a usable sea of variety of Braillers available.
Cited assistance may be needed to ensure you are getting what you want. There are classic and later models. Some Braillers are not described very well. When I purchase a Brailler for Lions Club, I plan getting it refurbished. The NFB has a resource list listing places that repair Braillers. I usually plan on spending 100 dollars to clean a Brailler, so add 100 dollars to the cost of a Brailler. Stay warm, says Robert. That is great advice. Never mind the tech advice. That's great advice right now.
Thank you very much, Robert. Appreciate the tech tip. That concludes this episode of Access On, the technology podcast of the National Federation of the Blind. To send in a contribution for a future episode, email us. Attach an audio clip or just write it down and send it to [email protected]. That's [email protected]. To keep up to date with Access On, follow us on Mastodon, [email protected]. That's [email protected] on Mastodon.
To subscribe to an announcement only email list about upcoming episodes, send a blank message to accesson/announce/[email protected]. That's accesson/announce/[email protected]. To learn more about the National Federation of the Blind, visit our website, nfb.org, or phone us 410-659-9314. That's 410-659-9314. And be sure to check out the Nation's Blind Podcast right from where you heard this podcast.