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Apple unveils new accessibility features

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Re: Apple unveils new accessibility features

#201

Post by RobMurray »

jjice wrote: post #101
terabytest wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wispr Flow is a masterclass in STT. Apple's solution feels like it's from the last century in comparison. Same applies with Apple's TTS when you have ElevenLabs and OpenAI running laps around it. All I need is for my iPhone to do those things natively at the same quality level (because in Apple's walled garden that's the only way to get them usable everywhere).

But Apple's uses so few system resources and runs fully on device on newer iPhone models (16+ I believe). It's so efficient. I really enjoy using Handy with Parakeet as the model, but the system resource usage is a monster compared to Apple's (although very good). Looks like Wispr Flow uses a cloud model [0]: > Cloud based speech processing infrastructure for 1B users It gets to be a messy comparison because my iPhon…

Apple's stt has been on-device for a long time now, long before iPhone 16. I haven't noticed any improvements since my first ever iphone 5S. I'm pretty sure wispr flow can use on-device models. I use Voiceink[0] which can use parakeet models on-device and can optionally use cloud models.It's like night and day comparing Apple's to Voiceink. The only advantage I find to Apple's stt is less friction. 3rd party apps just can't integrate as smoothly with the system. There's a gesture to activate Appledictation when Voiceover is on.

Re: Apple unveils new accessibility features

#202

Post by Tagbert »

SmirkingRevenge wrote: post #194
JeremyHerrman wrote: post #168

Apple loves to stealth test new tech in full public view by sneaking it into relatively mundane places, so debuting agentic AI via accessibility is very on brand. A few other examples: - The Touch Bar was much more than an OLED strip, it was Apple’s first move in the transition to Apple Silicon on macs. The Apple T1 chip in the 2016 Touch Bar MacBooks was the first solely Apple-designed processor to appear in a Mac a…

Man I miss the touch bar. Never got why people hated it so much

Also, the Touch Bar seemed to be abandoned as soon as it launched. It only ever launched on the Pro line. There were never any feature updates. They never made it flexible enough for people to customize it.

Re: Apple unveils new accessibility features

#203

Post by Tagbert »

foobiekr wrote: post #176
nonethewiser wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But in practice it could just be anyone whose outsourcing vision right? It's basically a free manual vision service.

Are you implying that it might be exploited by unethical tech bros looking to build data sets?

It is a very manual process and would probably be an inefficient way to collect that data.

Re: Apple unveils new accessibility features

#204

Post by landr0id »

mjamesaustin wrote: post #196
SmirkingRevenge wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man I miss the touch bar. Never got why people hated it so much

The hate was because it replaced function keys many people use by tactile touch, without looking. Doing the same on a touch screen is very difficult. If the bar had been added on top of those, I don't think there would've been the same kind of hate for it.

I didn't really mind the fn keys being there. I rarely use function keys unless I'm RDP'd to a Windows machine.

What drove me crazy though was the escape key. They later added the physical escape key back but I think at that point it was a bit too late.

Re: Apple unveils new accessibility features

#205

Post by RobMurray »

sscaryterry wrote: post #199

Luckily the European Accessibility Act has pretty much made PDF/UA a requirement. This should really be the last resort.

Accessible PDFs are quite rare in reality. Especially if there are tables, graphics, maths, forms or anything more than plane text.

Re: Apple unveils new accessibility features

#206

Post by latexr »

brightbeige wrote: post #71

A while ago I signed up as a sighted person on Be My Eyes. I didn't get as many calls as I had hoped, but I was glad to help out on the few that I could. One call was to read envelopes of incoming mail, another was to read pill bottles, and then there was the two funny guys on big cozy chairs with shopping bags of cereal boxes and wanted to know what was what. I remember one guy really didn't like one type. The app h…

> I didn't get as many calls as I had hoped

They always had significantly more people willing to help than in need of help. Which is good, not going to knock that. I signed up for it many years ago but didn’t get a single call, so eventually I just uninstalled it.

Re: Apple unveils new accessibility features

#207

Post by jareds »

brightbeige wrote: post #71

A while ago I signed up as a sighted person on Be My Eyes. I didn't get as many calls as I had hoped, but I was glad to help out on the few that I could. One call was to read envelopes of incoming mail, another was to read pill bottles, and then there was the two funny guys on big cozy chairs with shopping bags of cereal boxes and wanted to know what was what. I remember one guy really didn't like one type. The app h…

Ever since Be My Eyes introduced there AI features it's my understanding that there's been a lot less need for volunteers. I'm totally blind, and started using the app once they added in AI. It works great for for things like reading food labels after my kids have movved things around, determining if the tv has been left on, etc. I think I would use the volunteer feature if I still lived alone, but I don't.

Re: Apple unveils new accessibility features

#208

Post by LoganDark »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #116
ebiester wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm so glad YouTube and other podcast players have moved to support 3.0 speed. As I get comfortable with one, I move it up some. For things like sports and "did you know" content, I can go 2.5 if I'm not multitasking. For technical content, sometimes I'm stuck at 1.0.

You can get browser extensions to do it for all media controls on any site. YouTube's "Premium" for 3x is laughable when it's an internal browser function.

Premium is for up to 4x, not just 3x

Re: Apple unveils new accessibility features

#209

Post by JV00 »

JeremyHerrman wrote: post #168

Apple loves to stealth test new tech in full public view by sneaking it into relatively mundane places, so debuting agentic AI via accessibility is very on brand. A few other examples: - The Touch Bar was much more than an OLED strip, it was Apple’s first move in the transition to Apple Silicon on macs. The Apple T1 chip in the 2016 Touch Bar MacBooks was the first solely Apple-designed processor to appear in a Mac a…

Also their first own modem, shipped in their cheapest tier starting with the iPhone 16e.

Re: Apple unveils new accessibility features

#210

Post by twoWhlsGud »

postalcoder wrote: post #64

One thing Apple really needs to get right is speech to text transcription. They've nailed accessibility in so many ways and yet it feels like they're a decade behind on properly transcribing voices. At least half a decade. Input on the iPhone is so dreadful nowadays. Their palm rejection is definitely worse than before, so mistyping is more frequent. Their text-correction algorithm for typing is worse than before, an…

I don't think things have improved much on that front since Colin Hughes gave a run down on Voice Control's problems several years ago

https://www.theregister.com/on-prem/2023/08/16/those-who-rel...

Would be great if they could at least fix two major bugs:

* input simply fails (seemingly) randomly where it is supported and many apps from major vendors don't support dictation input at all (e.g. OneNote) (there should at least be a fallback (a la Dragon Dictate from decades ago) for those cases * capitalization is still random leaving you with many errors to correct

but Apple mostly seems to see accessibility as something to use to enable performative press releases not actual functionality...

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