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Apple unveils new accessibility features

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Re: Apple unveils new accessibility features

#341

Post by phillco »

twoWhlsGud wrote: post #210
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…

I think the random capitalization problem has gotten much better in iOS 26, or one of its minor releases (I recall in the 26.0 beta it was still there). I would have sworn before they would never fix it…

The streaming dictation they also added in that release is also much appreciated although occasionally buggy.

Re: Apple unveils new accessibility features

#342

Post by greggsy »

JV00 wrote: post #209
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.

Interesting - I knew they’d been trying to get off Qualcomm for years, but didn’t realise that they actually managed to do it.

Re: Apple unveils new accessibility features

#343

Post by radlad »

skygazer wrote: post #261
hedora wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until siri can reliably handle "Navigate to ", offline and using pre-downloaded maps, I'm going to assume all the other, harder speech to text and conversational stuff is just vaporware. I found another dreadful iPhone input "feature" yesterday. If you are browsing around in third party carplay apps, and ready to tap your selection, but instead press the accelerator first, it truncates the list to only a few items, a…

I think their intent is actually safety. They employ two touch interaction models: Flexible while not moving and simplified while driving. For instance, keyboard input becomes unavailable while moving and you must rely on Siri. I personally find it irritating, particularly when I am a passenger, but I get it.

It just means people pick up their phone instead.

Re: Apple unveils new accessibility features

#344

Post by DroneBetter »

wolvoleo wrote: post #334
MBCook wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I liked the TouchBar. There were two problems with it: 1. It replaced the F keys. I suspect pros wouldn’t have complained so loudly if it didn’t. And it was too expensive for the cheaper computers where it may have been more popular. 2. They never changed it. Ok the first version wasn’t a big hit. Other than bringing back the escape key they never did anything . They sent it out to be a hit or to die and gave up ther…

#1 bothered me the most. A lot. And the stupid thing was that there was plenty of space for a row of function keys and the touch bar.

I don't think that's true, at least in the 13" model.

and the F keys come back on the touch bar if you hold the fn button

Re: Apple unveils new accessibility features

#345

Post by Danox »

jorvi wrote: post #290
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…

You're reading way too much into it. These are just failed attempts at commercializing something. - People hated the touchbar. Only years after it became liked, and only under tech enthusiasts that hacked and tweaked it to have much deeper functionality. - Making the ejector out of an expensive alloy made no sense. - Realitykit (and the Vision, which is also crashing and burning) is a solution looking for a problem.…

Vociferous tech people hated the touchbar same with the butterfly keyboard or Neo laptop. And it makes perfect sense to test out new chips in small ways before you release them in a major product that is Apples edge today with Apple Silicon in comparison to most of their competition.

Re: Apple unveils new accessibility features

#346

Post by wuschel »

bayindirh wrote: post #272
gnatolf wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'liquid metal' sounds cool. It's probably a metallic glass. I super dislike that it seemingly will be synonymous with the brand name by Apple even though that stuff has been around for decades. Not that there are particularly many places where this is used - mostly because it really is just very expensive. In the awesome position that Apple is in, economic feasibility is so much easier to achieve, with like tens of m…

It's not metallic glass. It's an injectable , super strong alloy. You can manufacture things like you're using injection molded plastic. To be honest, British also has an injectable stainless steel, but its application domain is much more different.

Yes, it is injectable, which is a unique property a material that exhibits some properties of steel.

The downside is that it is brittle.

Re: Apple unveils new accessibility features

#347

Post by cwsx »

DroneBetter wrote: post #344
wolvoleo wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#1 bothered me the most. A lot. And the stupid thing was that there was plenty of space for a row of function keys and the touch bar.

I don't think that's true, at least in the 13" model. and the F keys come back on the touch bar if you hold the fn button

My main issue was the loss of _tactile_ F keys - hard to touch type when you're finger mashing a narrow touch screen

Re: Apple unveils new accessibility features

#348

Post by Danox »

socalgal2 wrote: post #329
taeric wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vision is hilarious as it is more than just a solution looking for a problem. It was also desperately avoiding the current market that exists for it. Anything but games, it seemed.

Even more strange given 60-70% of all app store revenue for Apple is games - see Epic vs Apple trial for data

The Apple store doesn’t do geek games casual games don’t count…

Re: Apple unveils new accessibility features

#349

Post by darkwater »

jorvi wrote: post #290
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…

You're reading way too much into it. These are just failed attempts at commercializing something. - People hated the touchbar. Only years after it became liked, and only under tech enthusiasts that hacked and tweaked it to have much deeper functionality. - Making the ejector out of an expensive alloy made no sense. - Realitykit (and the Vision, which is also crashing and burning) is a solution looking for a problem.…

I mean, they literally said that the touchbar was the first iteration and production deployment of Apple Silicone. Didn't judge the usefulness at all.

You are making a textbook straw man argument.

Re: Apple unveils new accessibility features

#350

Post by Danox »

greggsy wrote: post #342
JV00 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Interesting - I knew they’d been trying to get off Qualcomm for years, but didn’t realise that they actually managed to do it.

Apple is on the three generation C chip I think the contract is up in the next two years with Qualcomm and within the next two generations that will it for Qualcomm modems next up Memory? The way things are currently going?
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