Sunday 28 September 2014

Talking Tech for September 22 2014

Some of the general, Settings, Siri, and accessibility features that you will find in iOS 8.

 

General Features

 

1. Lock screen Notifications: 

Can do more with items on your lock screen: e.g. reply to a message, Facebook, Twitter etc by flicking up.

2. Notifications Centre now has today and Notifications tabs.

3. On the Home screen, clock now displays the time.

4. Recent contacts from the App switcher:

Allows you to quickly contact your recent contacts.

5. Word prediction:

When you are typing, iOS will now give you a list of word predictions to choose from when you are typing in to an edit field such as typing in to Notes.

6. Maps: adjust the tracking options in Maps to give you more details and the next cross street.

7. Send an audio message via Messages.

Hold up to your ear, wait for ding, speak, and then put phone down to send.

8. The Weather app now gives you more information concerning daily information.  The app also uses the Weather channel.

9. FaceTime: new look:

Separates video from Audio calls.

10. Go to desktop version of a webpage in Safari:

Go to right of address and select desktop site.

11. Hand off.

Hand off what you are doing on one device to another such as Mail etc.

12. New apps: the tips app and the Health app.

iBooks and Podcasts get installed by default now.

 

Settings

 

 

1. Battery usage: tell what apps are draining your battery.

Settings, Usage, Battery usage.

2. Settings, iCloud, iCloud drive

Contains list of apps that are using the iCloud drive.

3. Last known Location:

Settings, General, iCloud, Find My iPhone, send last location:

If battery goes dead, you will be able to find your iPhone where the battery went dead.

Can turn cellular use of iCloud drive off.

4. Settings, Safari: choose search engine: i.e. DuckDuckGo so that your search’s will not be traced.

5. Message history:

Settings, Messages, Message history, keep message for: 30 days, 1 year or forever.

6. in Settings for each app: you have iPhone settings, and the actual app settings.

7. Settings: Privacy: each app can now - allow location access: never, or only while using the app.

 

Siri

 

1. Settings, Siri: voice activation on.

Uses “hay Siri” when on power.

2. Using Siri to identify music:

Identify this song.

3. Using Siri to find and download an app:

“Download Downcast”.

 

 

Accessibility

 

 

VoiceOver

 

1. Braille keyboard: turned on in Settings, General, Accessibility, VoiceOver, Rotor, Braille keyboard.

Use the rotor to access the Braille keyboard in the same way you access the hand writing mode.

2. Braille display option: Settings, General, Accessibility, VoiceOver, Braille: Turn pages when panning, separate Braille display output, Braille display input, and Braille screen input.

3. Direct typing mode accessed via the rotor when in an edit field.

4. Alex Voice available for the iPhone 5s and above.

Within Speech/dialects/English voices, you can select Alex.  Just a warning it is a very large file: close to 900mb.

5. Audio ducking now available to toggle on or off from the rotor: Settings, General, Accessibility, VoiceOver, rotor.

 

Other accessibility changes

 

1. New Zoom options:

Follow focus toggle,

Zoom keyboard toggle,

Show controller toggle,

Zoom region (window, full screen or lens), and

Maximum zoom.

3. Gray scale toggle.

4. Buttons shapes toggle.

5. Speech: Speak screen toggle: swipe two fingers down from the top of the screen.

6. Increase contrast:

Reduce transparency,

Darken colours, and

Reduce white point.

7. Now under media we have:

sub titles and captioning, and

Video description.

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