The Canadian Council of the Blind Podcast

135. Unseen Touch Screen Course Session 21

Increasingly, Apple is turning to making revenue through services which it offers. The News app offers a lot of interesting articles which are freely available even without a subscription. People can also search for and follow their own topics of interest. Through the Apple News Plus service available for a monthly subscription, this app will provide access to far more content including full articles, newspapers  and over two hundred magazines. Recently, crossword and other puzzles have been added for subscribers. All of this is fully accessible to blind users through VoiceOver. In this first Fall session, we’ll take a tour of what the app and service have to offer while waiting for the arrival of iOS 18.

134. Unseen Touch Screen Course Session 20

In the second part of our look at communications apps which come installed on your iPhone, we focus on the two most complicated but empowering ones. These are FaceTime and Mail. The FaceTime app allows for live video and audio conversations with individuals or groups of people. Meanwhile, the Mail app lets you tap into that very popular form of written communication. Both of these apps have their intricacies. In both cases, there are alternative choices for accomplishing the same thing using other apps. We’ll discuss the pros and cons of sticking with what’s there versus looking for alternatives.

133. Unseen Touch Screen Course Session 19

Communication is what your iPhone is all about. Several apps come installed on your iPhone to help you connect and exchange information with people in your life. In part one of our tour of these apps, we’ll focus on the Contacts, Phone and Messages apps. We’ll also touch on some additional related topics like emoji characters, stickers, Voice mail, and more.

132. Russell Solowoniuk's demonstration of the LG washer and dryer with theLG ThinQ app

In this 12 minute podcast, Russell Solowoniuk demonstrates using his LG washer model WM3500CW and his LG Dryer model DLE3500W using the accompanying accessible iOS or Android LG ThinQ app. He describes how a blind person can use the washer and dryer standalone and how accessibility is enhanced using the app on his iPhone. Note that models described have been discontinued and replaced with washer model WM3600HWA and dryer model DLE3600W as of March 2024.

131. Unseen Touch Screen Course Session 18

In this session, we will explore the lifestyle apps discussed in the previous session in more detail. We’ll talk about managing recurring events in the calendar. The Notes app is full of features to keep your information organized. Suggestions are at the heart of apple’s new Journal app and we’ll go through how to access these. Apps in this category are simple on the surface, but often have surprisingly thorough capabilities.

130. Unseen Touch Screen Course Session 17

Being so portable, your iPhone is an ideal device for helping with many aspects of everyday life. This session will discuss a number of apps designed to come in handy in everyday situations. These include Weather, Reminders, Calendar, Notes, Calculator and Journal. This group of apps is very suitable for use by beginners. Siri works well with all of them. Rather than an exhaustive exploration, this lecture will hopefully give you enough of an idea of the capabilities of these apps as well as how to control them in order to get started using them.

129. Reviewing the features of Finder on the Mac

Wayne Antle reviews the features and how to use finder on the mac.
finder is like file explorer for windows.  It has many powerful features and uses.

128. Unseen Touch Screen Course Session 16

Apple has long been associated with music and creativity. Your iPhone can give you access to millions of songs, curated playlists, radio stations, and even some live events. This month, we’ll dive into the enjoyment of music and go over the Music app and the Apple Music Plus service in detail. This is one of the easiest ways for beginners to start truly enjoying their iPhones.

127. Unseen Touch Screen Course Session 15

Your iPhone is constantly checking for new information. Apps running in the background can interrupt you with notifications. So can calls and messages from people. Thankfully, Apple has provided tools to help deal with this effectively. We will discuss notifications settings in detail. These let you decide whether and how apps can inform you of things in normal circumstances. Meanwhile, focus settings let you determine what and who can interrupt you at a given time. Between these groups of settings, you can be in control of interruptions to your daily life from your iPhone.

126. Unseen Touch Screen Course Session 14

The Voice Control feature allows people to control their iPhones entirely with spoken commands. Designed with sighted people in mind who have motion difficulties making use of the touchscreen difficult, the system can be used in conjunction with VoiceOver. This final lecture for 2023 will give a basic tour of how Voice Control works. This completes the many different ways there are of controlling your iPhone. In the new year, we’ll begin talking about the many different apps and services which can be used and accessed by blind people through the use of their iPhones.