The Triple-click Home team is back with another podcast full of talk about iOS, Yosemite and more. Jamie Pauls takes the host’s chair this time around, and Lisa Salinger drops by to talk about using Widgets in iOS 8. All that plus your feedback can be heard on Episode 34. Stories covered this month include:

Top of the News

Thoughts on Apple’s 2014 iPad and Mac event

Editorial: A friendlier Apple Inc now invites media through its Infinite Loop front door

OS X Yosemite Review

Features and Bugs of OS X 10.10 Yosemite

Apple’s iOS 8.1 hits Monday with Apple Pay, iCloud photo library

Accessibility Fixes And Improvements in iOS 8.1

A subscription free version of Sendero’s Seeing Eye GPS app for iOS is now available for $299

The new version of @KNFBReader is out.

Woz: Hello iPhone 6, goodbye Android

Exploding the Phone: The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws Who Hacked Ma Bell

Feature Writer Alena Roberts – The Life and Times of Joe Engressia, aka JoyBubbles

Macs top over one quarter of US back-to-school PC sales

Apple says only 9 customers have complained about bent iPhones

This new “Apple SIM” could legitimately disrupt the wireless industry

Team Picks

Buddy recommends Zinio and The Magazine.

John has been playing with the KNFB Reader.

Alena will recommend Fleksy when it gets fixed.

Jamie recommends the iOS game “Lost Cities”.

How One Boy With Autism Became B.F.F.’s With Apple’s Siri

If Siri Was a Waitress

Closing Credits

The Triple-click Home team would love to hear from you. Here is how you can get in touch with them:

Follow Alena Roberts on Twitter

Follow Buddy Brannan on Twitter

Follow John Panarese on Twitter

Follow Triple-click Home on Twitter

Thanks for listening!

The entire Triple-click Home team is back for this month’s podcast. Jamie and Derek join the team to discuss the recent Apple event announcing new iPhones plus the unveiling of Apple Watch. Discussion next turns to the good, the bad and the undecided with regard to iOS 8. Also included are some AppleVis links not discussed in the podcast.

Hands-On First Impressions of the New iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus

iPhones with bigger screens may find eager senior buyers

Apple Pay Is The Most Important News Out Of Today’s Launch Event

Why Apple Pay could be the mobile-payment system you’ll actually use

Why Walmart and Best Buy aren’t backing Apple Pay

Sources Say The Next Version Of The Apple Watch Is Going To Be Much Better

Exclusive: Two Apple medical trials shed light on how HealthKit will work

Everything That You Need to Know About iOS 8 Will Be On AppleVis On Release Day

Acapela Voices Temporarily Not Available in iOS 8

The Accessibility Bugs in iOS 8: From Serious To Minor

What’s New in iOS 8 Accessibility for Blind, Low-Vision, and Deaf-Blind Users

Mailbag

From Jenine Stanley:

Oh can I relate to Buddy’s Pro Tip for those of us who find ourselves straddling both worlds.

My work laptop is a Windows machine and it’s good for what it does, sort of, but I’m really enjoying most of my leisure and home chores on my MacBook Pro.

Nope, those Mac commands do not work in Windows and sometimes they do very bad things to your work. I recently went all the way to getting a trouble ticket written for a problem I was having. When I talked to the tech at the outside support service, he asked me for exact steps. I told him and he laughed, in that way you know you’re not supposed to do but …

“Ma’am, that’s a Mac command. Do you use a Mac at home?”

“Uh, yeah, I do. thanks. I’m going to just dig a big ole hole now.”

And yes, Alena, I was taught way back when to start with any new program by exploring the menu system. See what it offers and how to do those things. It’s held me in good stead for many years, many more than I care to think about.

And Buddy, evil as you are, I’m with ya in the playing pranks on the computer teacher. Of course we’d just gotten the IBM Selectric typewriters when I was in high school and the Trash 80 computers didn’t come out until a couple years later. I had my fun at work.

We set up the old DOS machines we had so that the screen came up with a red background and red letters. Then I did a whole demo on some aspect of accessibility. Then I got called into my boss’s office to hear how that wasn’t funny. Made my point though.

Oh and you could indeed set up some key commands, like hot keys, outside of the screen reader, for Windows and more for DOS. Could I remember how to do it now? No, but I had a couple cool ones back in the day.

Blog comment from Jesse

There seems to be a lot of wining about a larger iPhone screen in recent episodes. True, some people don’t want larger screens and that’s fine. But there are many blind and low vision users, low vision users especially, who are really looking forward to a larger iPhone, myself included. I have looked at several Android phones with larger screens, and would love to have an iPhone with these types of screens.

Simply getting an iPad Mini isn’t a good solution either, for a couple of reasons. first, as a low vision user, I use the camera in my phone all the time. The camera in all iPad models isn’t as good, and for some reason, Apple has yet to add a camera flash, making many camera apps on the iPads rather pointless. I use my phone as a portable CCTV all the time and absolutely love it. A little larger screen would be very helpful, and when combined with a more open camera for developers, will make the iPhone even more comparable to dedicated handheld CCTV’s.

Also, I use data everywhere on my phone, and don’t intend to pay for an expanded data plan to have data on my iPad. I’m fine with a Wi-Fi only iPad for now.

These are just my thoughts though. I say, “Bring on the bigger phone.”

Otherwise, I love the podcast, and keep up the great work.

From Beth

Hi, I was introduced to the slate and stylus in mid elementary school but I tended toward wrist rolling and hand pain when using it and, since I was adept at the Perkins Brailler, I did not persevere with the slate and haven’t since, with no desire to. I have no need to write stuff down when I’m out and I use the Perkins and the PC at home. I was fortunate to have parents and teachers who took my individual needs into account. I wonder about the wisdom of teaching screen readers at a very young age. Computers and phones are more intuitive if you have vision, since direct action can be done with the mouse or touch screen.
Screen readers place a bridge of gestures and/or keyboard commands between the user and the device. Yes, very young kids’ brains are pliable and can soak up knowledge well but should so much info be thrown at such a young brain? Also, who will have or take the time to teach a very young child a screen reader? Most kids now are in homes where both parents work and, in general, parents do not have the time, energy or enthusiasm to learn a screen reader themselves, let alone teach it. We don’t have the resources to have that many teachers of the visually impaired to teach that many kids. Beth

Wrapping Up

Apple Creates Tool for Users to Delete Unwanted U2 Album

The Triple-click Home team would love to hear from you. Here is how you can get in touch with them:

Follow Alena Roberts on Twitter

Follow Buddy Brannan on Twitter

Follow John Panarese on Twitter

Follow Triple-click Home on Twitter

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to the aftermath of Apple’s WWDC keynote address, otherwise known as Triple-click Home Episode 30. This month, the team pokes a bit of fun at some Twitter feedback while discussing the rather momentous news from this year’s WWDC event.

Monday at WWDC: Apple delivers big surprises as most predictions ended up wrong

Everything Apple Tried to Kill Today at WWDC

Summary of Announcements from WWDC 2014 Keynote | AppleVis

OS X Yosemite Set To Be Released This Fall As A Free Download

How to create a test partition for the OS X Yosemite beta

iOS 8 Release Scheduled for Fall

iOS 8 First Look: Features & Images

Fleksy keyboard coming to iOS 8

32 Hidden Features in Apple iOS 8

How to downgrade back to iOS 7 from the iOS 8 beta

Farewell iPhone 4: No iOS 8 upgrade for you

With iOS 8, Apple Shows Android a Thing or Two

Why Coders Are Going Nuts Over Apple’s New Programming Language

Apple posts stream & download of WWDC 2014 video

The Apple-Beats Deal: A 10-Year Affair Ends in Marriage

WWDC and iOS 8 hints point straight to an Apple iWatch

Mailbag

From Pam Francis:

Hello folks, Thank you for another quite informative addition of triple click home. I agree with your assessment of the entitlement mentality. I think it truly begins at home when a blind person is young and attempting to integrate with the family. If the family is ignorant of whatever resources they can access to help their blind family member, it’s easier to wait on them, do for them, make them feel entitled, ultimately giving them a pass at life. I know from personal experience how once family can make one feel like a sore thumb, sticking out with and family activities, children’s games etc. by the grace of the living God, I had an advocate from the time I was in preschool through early adulthood. She was my preschool teacher in a blind preschool here in Kansas City. Her advocacy along with my extroverted personality helped me escape the shelter of my family and grow into myself. I think it is also imperative for anyone with any kind of a disability to develop networking skills within their community. As for the division between the blind organizations, I think it has done more harm than good. We all have a common goal as all of you stressed on your Podcast. I understand there are different ways to get there, however there’s no reason for all of the backbiting between the various organizations and their splinter groups. That in itself helps to create the negative image we, who are functioning members of society have to live down. I don’t belong to either group. I don’t feel better than anyone, yet I don’t want to deal with all of the infighting that comes with group membership. I have done things and Been places within my life that the majority of my family members dream about. I’m not afraid to go anywhere. I also heard you make mention of looking at restaurant menus. Not sure if you’re familiar with the allmenus app. I’m enclosing a link to the app within the body of this email. It is completely accessible. The link I have is to the iOS app. I don’t know if It is available on android. In closing, I hope in this era of technology the division between the blind organizations and blind people in general has been mitigated by the use of technology and the need to learn. Thanks again, keep up the good work. Sincerely, Pam francis

Allmenus by Dotmenu

From Jenine Stanley:

Thanks Lisa for verifying my thought about the new Fleksy. I kept thinking the keyboard was smaller and I actually like it now that I got that idea into my head and am using it as such rather than the old way. I still want an easier way to do numbers and symbols but I’ll use the VO app if I really want that. Nice that both still work.

As for us as a community, the divide as I see it is those who want to be just people who happen to not do things visually versus those who want to be considered special because of that fact. These divides are present within both national groups of blind people so it’s not an ACB versus NFB thing so much as a focus on what you can do versus what you can’t.

I just see so much of the attitude that “We can’t because we are blind and we need this or that special thing, service or price break.” versus “OK, if you could add this, I’d have an even better experience with your product or service than I already do.”

Now if we can get Fleksy into Status Report I’ll be a very happy camper.

Jenine Stanley

Another from Jenine:

Not to be a curmudgeon about this one but though the UK has more audio description, is it as good? Is some info, even when grossly incorrect, better than no info?

OK, I’ll admit to being a spoiled purist when it comes to audio description. I cut my teeth on the proliferation of live audio description done by really quality describers that has been available in Columbus, Ohio since the ’80’s. Wow, looking back, that’s a long time.

The height of this experience was seeing Titanic described live. Sorry James Cameron and Angie Dickenson, our live describer had you both beat hands down.

So I do enjoy grabbing TV series and such from places like Blind Mice Mart but recently I was very frustrated with my experiences with one.

I am a giant Game of Thrones fan and actually read all of the books before gobbling up the TV series. I know the plot, the characters, all that good stuff and there are a ton of characters in this story. I recommended the HBO series to a friend in part because of the stunning audio that comes with HBO production. Great but she was so confused by the audio description getting the names wrong or giving minimal or sometimes incorrect descriptions of things that she gave up or had me translate.

That got me wondering about other shows with such description. I gave up on Downton Abbey in part because the description frustrated me.

so be careful what you wish for.

Jenine Stanley

What’s Apple Really Up To? Keeping You in Apple World.

Team Picks

Buddy Brannan is getting fit and having fun at the same time with the popular iOS game Zombies, Run!

Listen to Alena’s interview with the game developer in episode 23.

Alena Roberts is enjoying good food with Yelp and planning travel with Transit Times Plus.

Finally, John Panarese is being a good uncle and getting into baseball this season with the MLB At Bat app.

Contacting the Team

The Triple-click Home team would love to hear from you. Here is how you can get in touch with them:

Follow Alena Roberts on Twitter

Follow Buddy Brannan on Twitter

Follow John Panarese on Twitter

Follow Triple-click Home on Twitter

Thanks for listening!