2014-09-11 09:22:52 (edited by Sebby 2014-09-11 09:24:29)

Bleh.

People who have not yet bought and read "Fallen Empire: Apple After Steve Jobs" should do so. It's on iBooks.

AppleWatch is a wearable computer. Accessibility has been neither confirmed nor denied by Apple accessibility, of course.

iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus are the two new smartphones; they are both bigger than the 5S, the plus in particular now essentially in the "Phablet" market.

iOS 8 is catching up to Android by being less restrictive.

There's a free U2 album released on iTunes. Just visit the store and click the link.

ApplePay is NFC contactless payments, Apple style. Requires iPhone 6. Unavailable outside US at present.

Reassuring to see that this forum has responded to the announcement with admirable clarity and honesty. smile

Discuss.

Just myself, as usual.

2014-09-11 11:16:00

Hi.
I'm ready to get the newest IPhone or if I can't just yet the newest IOS 8. I'm not so sure about the watch though, I like the idea of the health app with the Iphone and watch. So I might buy it for that, but I'm not sure.

I'm gone for real :)

2014-09-11 11:32:17

ugh... that word. phablet. Such a horrible word. anyway.... RIP the small iPhone. I guess I will get the 6 anyway. Did anyone watch the livestream? I thought it was hilariously bad

Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.

2014-09-11 11:46:43

@exodus,  I agree Fablet is a horrible term, it sounds like something so cute and fuzzy you just want to kill it horribly "And now for the adventures of Fablet the furry squirrel and his cuddly wuddly little friends!" big_smile.

That being said, I do see some distinct advantages in the larger screen size for vo use, which was why I bought the Iphone 5 rather than the 4 in the first placeAre there any other interesting new features in the Iphone 6 besides it being bigger? I would be interested to know sinse I am inclined to update my phone, but only if the 6 has more new features than the 5, (I certainly didn't bother upgrading to the 5S).

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2014-09-11 12:46:36

LOL re the opposition to the word "Phablet". It's very … strained, isn't it? big_smile

I've decided to get the plus, yes the screen helps, but let's face it, when you're going above 4-inch, what's the point of conserving space any more? You might as well just go way bigger, instead of merely bigger. And indeed, this is going to change the dynamics of the wallets and cases and whatnot, so you may as well go in for the kill. The plus also has the bigger and longer-lasting of the batteries.

As for new features, LTE and wi-fi performance boost, faster-performing CPU, precision accelerometer, contactless payments when it gets here, fingerprint sensor. You know, just improvements. Nothing we shouldn't already have had, and nothing that matters without uses to put them to, but it all helps, you know.

Yeah, the live stream was apparently killed by javascript which updated the comments beneath; it wasn't even a capacity issue. Silly, silly Apple, trying to be so clever like that. It was also dubbed in Chinese, so you could barely here it, anyway. A good laugh all round. smile

Just myself, as usual.

2014-09-11 13:52:16

Hello guys,
This is probably a little off topic, or not, but anyways: does the IPhone6 have an intruder detector or something? One of my friends said that it does, but I didn't entirely believe it, so I thought I'd ask. He says that the iPhone will detect anyone trying to enter our houses and such and give alarms to us if anything is happening. Is this true?

Team rocket's blasting off again!

2014-09-11 14:09:56

Hi.
Kenzen: I don't think that's true. smile
I watched the second half part of the stream, and found it awesome! smile

regarding the new iPhones:
It's difficult to say anything yet before I've seen them. They are thinner, which means you won't notice much that they are bigger when careing it in your pocket. That's what Android users are saying.
In IOS8, there is a one handed mode which I have no idea on how works with Voiceover, which lets you use the device with one hand. Sounds quite amazing!
There might be one or two reasons for me to get the new iPhone:
1: 160 gb memory. In IOS8, there'll be a feature where you can drag files onto your iPhone from the computer, seems like a thumb drive. If this is going to work like a thumb drive, I might start using my phone for many more things, which would be awesome! big_smile
2: Better battery life. Well, that wouldn't hurt. smile

The Apple Watch:
the accessibility hasn't been confirmed by Apple yet, but the device have both a small speaker and a microphone. So I think it'll be accessible. I especially find the tactile feedback very interesting. However, the device will never be able to replace my Braille watch, so I don't know if it'll be something for me or not. But i find it very interesting...

I thought we would hear something regarding the Apple tv. I think Apple is working on something regarding to this... I'm excited for the future. big_smile

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sorenjensen1988
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soerenjensen

2014-09-11 14:19:07

Well if propper file transferance does happen then I am very interested if it lets me get around silly Itunes strcture and just copy my own books and music folders across. to my Iphone and play them as is.

Better batteries would be nice as well,  though space wise I've found 64 gb has been okay for what I want thus far. Though I'll probably wait until the Iphone 6 has been out a while before I get one sinse one thing I do want is a decent case for the thing. The surviver case for my Iphone 5 has certainly done a good job, especially with making sure I don't panic if I accidently drop my phone.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2014-09-11 18:12:34

The biggest limit to me using my 5S one handed is the height of the screen which is stretching the limits of what is comfortable to use so I don't like the idea of the extra size too much for a phone, though I can imagine how it would be useful in other ways when you're not wanting to just pull it out of your pocket and do something fast while holding a cane or guide dog in the other hand. Being able to use iTouch for apps will be very nice and will make the very good feature potentially exceptional. The rest of it, pretty meh.

I don't think any changes in Apple are due to Steve Jobbs' death, it's probably more accurate to say peoples expectations have become too extreme. You can only turn the market on its head so many times before you get to a point where things have already been done.

That said I'd love to get a complete overhaul of the Apple TV with some built in storage ideally, and even better if the iPad update brought iTouch with it.

cx2
-----
To live by honour and to honour life, these are our greatest strengths and our best hopes.

2014-09-11 18:57:10

I actually prefer the idea of a  larger screen to the one handed thing sinse if I tried holding  and operating my phone with the same hand I'd be liable to drop it.

Usually if I'm say out with Reever and want to kill some time, I'll sit down, loop her lead around my ancle or my forarm, and just hold the phone as normal, but I'll usually only do that if I've got a five minutes or longer wait on my hands.

The one exception is when I use the very strong strap of the surviver case to attach the phone to my shoulder strap under my ear when walking with blind square running, and while I could see some sort of single touch commands helpful for that it's not something I find as essential as say fixing the file storage problem or having more batteries or a bigger and more gesture friendly screen.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2014-09-11 19:39:56

In my case I'm thinking of when I need to make a quick phone call or send a quick text to someone while I'm out. I'm quite comfortable holding my 5S in one hand, my case isn't huge so it doesn't add much to the width, and using my thumb to work VO while I hold Kirk in the other hand. Usually it's a call or text to someone I'm meeting up with at the other end of a bus trip.

If I'm sitting down or need to do something more in depth then yes I'll use both hands, but if I'm only taking a few moments I don't bother I've been doing that a lot more since I got the 5S with touch ID so I don't have to mess around with a passcode but at the same time I find the extra height uncomfortable, my personal view is if I wanted a bigger screen I'd get an iPad Mini but like I said I can understand how people who don't use their phone in the same way I do might find the bigger screens useful.

I don't know what the one handed thing is though since I've been using mine one handed for a long time without problems. I just use touch and drag combined with flicking to find where I need to be then double tap, all with my thumb.

cx2
-----
To live by honour and to honour life, these are our greatest strengths and our best hopes.

2014-09-11 20:06:56

I'm planning on getting a 6S or 6S+, or whatever they call them, when they come out next year.

As for the AppleWatch, if it's accessible, I'm getting one. If I were just interested in getting a watch, I wouldn't get one, but I'd like to track my health info, and as a blind individual, there is no easy way of doing that at the moment, and this sounds like a really awesome way of doing that.

2014-09-11 22:49:30 (edited by Chris 2014-09-11 22:56:17)

Hi.

You guys are forgetting about Alex for iOS!
It may not be important to some, but in my opinion I think it is a major step forward in accessibility and way, way overdue. That in itself should be a reason to get the 5s or 6.
I'm sorry, but those horrible Nuance voices are annoying as hell.

I won't be upgrading to the 6 from my 5s, simply because I see no reason.
It's just another phone with a bigger screen to please the sightlings that Apple released to keep generating that cash.
I won't be getting a new iPhone until the 5s breaks down, or maybe even never again since I'm considering Android.

As for the watch, I don't know. I would be interested to know what accessibility it has. I hope to god they don't use compact Sacraptha though. I don't know how I would use the watch though since I don't care about health crap. What other uses would this watch have?

Grab my Adventure at C: stages Right here.

2014-09-12 00:51:03

Ugh, this upgrading technology every year is taking its toll on me...

Anyhow, if I could get some input on the topic, I'd say no matter what, you will always have some faster and "better" qualities with every upgrade.  But let's be realistic.  Do you think several GHZ extra of processing speed will be some that is perceptible to most users?  I'm baffled when I see the whole "Now you can do so and so much faster now with so and so (insert specs) now than ever before!"  I think the whole thing is a mind game - people see it's better, and they have a tendency to pay for more just because it's the latest.  But let's not forget newest isn't what's better.

Now, let's look on the other side of this.  Battery life increases, that's good.  Increase of storage size, awesome.  Bigger screen, well, that's up to you guys.
tongue
Newer operating system with several added features like VO's Alex voice, direct typing mode, and just IOS improvements in general.  I am excited to see what this new "Thumb drive" rumor is in action, if it is true.  But I have a feeling that would eliminate iTunes on many home computers.  I could be wrong, though.  Some people do like having everything synced together, so there is a potential for a crowd to stick with iTunes as a form of media player and a recipient for their personal iTunes purchases and such.

Getting back to the actual phone itself, I have a 5S, and that seems to be working just fine.  I don't know about this bigger screen.  I see no purpose in a bigger screen, but I'm one of those blind people who actually gives a damn about how something looks.  It's weird.  I never use to be like that, but then I got older.  However, if it becomes less convenient for me to put away and take out quickly, I'll pass on the near 6 inch.  I would like to see one, but I don't need one right now.  I'll be getting one next year for an upgrade, and by then they'll have a newer version out anyways.

Best Regards,

Luke

What game will hadi.gsf want to play next?

2014-09-12 01:36:18

You can access iCloud Drive like a drive, which may or may not help with getting rid of iTunes. Except, it requires Windows 7 or better on the PC. But I agree that 128 GB is a welcome addition, even now. As it happens, my iCloud storage plan has been upgraded to 200 GB already, from previously being on their paid 70 GB plan. From now on, it appears you can only get storage monthly rather than yearly.

I'd be happy with a watch if they didn't mess it up. I mean, look at how beautiful the iPod is. A single-purpose device, it's basically impossible to get it wrong. If that kind of spiritual direction went into iWatch, I might take to it. As it stands it sounds very much just like an iPhone-extending gizmo.

Now is the time to get your iPhone 6, BTW, unless you don't mind the delays. At least in the UK. smile

As for Jobs' death, I don't think the book is suggesting that it is directly responsible, only that following it, the direction of the company has markedly changed for the worse. I definitely think there's a kernel of truth to this; you really do just have to look at Apple's stock. Even though I don't agree with the materialistic pursuits of many investors, the fact that Apple can't convince its shareholders is decidedly worrying. The same capitalism that conspired to bring it where it was is now working against it, as the industry begins to flank Apple in all the areas that it innovated in. That makes a difference to consumers, who now see all the movement outside Apple, who increasingly are conceding that point with every wrong decision reversed, and every technical upgrade made. It's hard to blame the doubters when Apple can't even explain a new product without listing the specs. I think Cook needs to emphasise, with as little hubris as possible, that Apple's strengths are its quality differentiation. And, yes, this means it needs to look at its pricing structure in order to bring it in line with the actual perceived value of consumers. Otherwise you just end up with what amounts to a glitz manufacturer selling on brand recognition alone. JMO. You should get and read the book, and overlook the hyperbole. It's a good read.

Just myself, as usual.

2014-09-12 07:16:04

Well I think the whole thing about Apple not innovating any more is nearly impossible to judge at present, firstly innovation can be rather subjective and secondly it's much easier to identify innovation in hindsight when we can see how well it worked out over the long term. The whole thing about lack of confidence in Apple is also a self fulfilling prophecy, the more people say it the more doubt is spread.

The ability to scan your credit card to make online orders sounds like it could be very useful for us if, and I stress if, it works well and doesn't need a lot of messing around aiming. I've heard of someone from the Maccessibility podcast using a feature in iTunes to use their webcam to scan in an iTunes gift card so it's certainly possible, if not easy. NFC payments is a nice touch but I don't feel it's worth upgrading from my 5S just for that.

As well as the much talked about health kit I've heard mention of something called home kit which I presume is for house related apps. I know there are such things as home automation apps and app enabled smoke/monoxide alarms, lighting systems and even boiler/heating systems so that has some potential if the apps are accessible and if such app enabled devices can come down to a reasonable price. I'd love to be able to check whether I left the lights on from my phone without having to mess around with a light probe, especially if I could do it from elsewhere in the house or even when out of the house.

I hope the price of storage on iPhones comes down, I've been using the 16GB model all along because of my inability to afford anything more. If the 6S or whatever replaces the 16GB model with the 32GB model at the same price as the bottom model I'd be very happy.

cx2
-----
To live by honour and to honour life, these are our greatest strengths and our best hopes.

2014-09-12 09:48:11

I think Luke has a point here about bigger numbers and more of so and so not necessarily being a major boost if it doesn't do anything good (which is precisely why i am still using windows xp), however if the thumb drive thing is true then that would be enough of a concrete change for me at least, (and unlike windows at least compatibility and interface won't go down the tubes).

i personally disagree both about screen and about getting an Ipad instead, sinse firstly having the phone functions accessible on the same device helps, --- -I'd have never myself bothered paying to recieve texts but as I can I might as well have the machine that does so.

Regarding screen  size, I personally bought the Iphone 5 instead of the 4 or 4s two years ago precisely because it had a larger screen sinse the larger the screen the less cramped you have to make your vo gestures, and operations such as dragging and dropping become much easier, so I disagree that the larger screen isn't involved with access, then again sinse I already carry a shoulder bag around with me, having a larger device really won't make that much difference (I'd never try to carry my Iphone in a coat pocket).

I will however probably wait to get the 6 until some time has passed and some of the bugs have been worked out, and until someone has devised a decent sort of case for the thing.

As to things like the apple watch and this house ap kit etc, well useful if you want that sort of thing, though not really to me personally. Also it does concern me that Apple are creating situations of monopoly by their policy of intigration, sinse I bet for the apple smoke alarm thing to work you will need a specific brand of alarm that can communicate with your Iphone etc.

Indeed I remember a joke about apple toasters, but that isn't too far from where things are going.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2014-09-12 13:35:50

Well, the decision is much easier for me now that my brother is rooting for my iPhone 5S. So I bought the 6 plus. This is definitely unusual for me; I don't usually like to upgrade every single year. But now I have the excuse …

The orders started at 8 AM this morning, rather than midnight; by the time I got to the store, about 10 AM, the wait time was already two weeks. Thanks but no thanks; I'll wait. smile

Just myself, as usual.

2014-09-12 13:50:26

ordered the 6 Plus myself, The apple store in Glasgow was chaotic tongue

Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.

2014-09-12 18:37:48

Dark, the smoke alarms aren't produced by apple they're made by a third party company completely independently and just happen to have an app associated with them. A lot of things do that, Apple are quite happy for companies to make products that are app enabled, the house kit thing is just a set of developer features to help them make such apps combined with a single place on the device where all such apps appear like with newsstand. I don't think Apple really have the expertise or even inclination to make app enabled devices like that themselves and Apple don't license out their brand full stop.

There are two points to improved specs. Firstly if they don't improve the chips with every new model they'll be accused of being left behind by their competitors, believe me that would be a big marketing blunder. Secondly each iteration of an operating system tends to have higher system requirements than the one before, some of this is due to new features while some of it especially in the case of Windows is just bloat from all the changes that have happened over time.

That said I can't help feeling sticking with Windows XP is a poor decision for people of technical competence, I apologise for this but there's a lot of glaring reasons. XP isn't receiving updates any more which leaves potential security vulnerabilities even if you use a third party browser such as Firefox, you lose more modern technology support such as USB 3, SATA hard drives (which is almost all of them these days) require independent drivers which are a pain to deal with if you ever need to reinstall, it handles solid state drives and scheduling of multi core processors quite poorly especially multi core processors with hyperthreading, and as time goes on even third party software will drop support for it. It might take 2 or 3 more years but eventually XP will stop doing what you need simply because of third parties dropping support for it, when that happens it's going to be quite a shock to the system. That's not counting the possibility that you might need to replace the computer at some point, and if you do XP probably won't play nice with the newer hardware even if XP drivers are available.

cx2
-----
To live by honour and to honour life, these are our greatest strengths and our best hopes.

2014-09-13 23:12:14

I did not watch the live stream, but there were audio streams all over iBlink radio. In particular, there was a stream from the Maccessibility round table.

“Can we be casual in the work of God — casual when the house is on fire, and people are in danger of being burned?” — Duncan Campbell
“There are four things that we ought to do with the Word of God – admit it as the Word of God, commit it to our hearts and minds, submit to it, and transmit it to the world.” — William Wilberforce

2014-09-17 20:29:55

iOS 8 is now released. Buggy as fuck (check AppleVis), but includes security fixes. You have to decide whether the bugs are problematic, but as usual, you can't expect to downgrade easily after upgrading, or at all after Apple stops signing iOS 7.1.2. My advice, if you have only one device, is to hang on for a bit, unless you absolutely must have the very latest shiny thing.

If anyone needs images because Apple is slow, here's a read-only BTSync secret you can use:
BXYVFZIBW3NQKZGIWSKAXK67WUDMKSZS5

Just myself, as usual.

2014-09-17 22:06:43

Hi.
I can't look at applevis right now, so is it safe to get IOS 8? What kind of bugs are present that hender proformence?

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2014-09-17 22:19:15

For example, you can't remove the characters from the search field entered on the App Store. You sometimes can't prevent a tone from sounding continuously when you press a number during a call. You can't use the two-finger double-tap reliably to answer calls. There are certainly more.

If you're comfortable running beta software, great. Otherwise, you may like to hang on.

Just myself, as usual.

2014-09-18 02:54:11

Hi.

The update was worth it! I've been waiting so long for them to put Alex on iOS andn ow it's finally done!

I can't believe the number of VOiceOver bugs and I'm surprised at Apple.

Grab my Adventure at C: stages Right here.