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[music]
Voiceover: From Wellington, New Zealand, to the world, it’s Living Blindfully – living your best life with blindness or low vision. Here is your host, Jonathan Mosen.
Hello!
Apple has completed another big reveal. At Apple’s It’s Glow Time event, we learned about this year’s iPhones, Apple Watches, and software to power them, plus much more. Our team brings you in-depth analysis from a blindness perspective.
Jonathan: And before we start, we should point out serendipitously, serendipitously, that this is episode 301. And I’m sure, Judy, at least you will know what area code 301 is.
Judy: Maryland.
Jonathan: It’s in Maryland. Isn’t that serendipitous? [laughs]
Judy: [laughs]
Jonathan: So welcome, if you’re listening in area code 301.
You must know people in Silver Springs and places like that, Judy, in your neck of the woods.
Judy: Yes, very close by.
Jonathan: Let’s have a look at the Apple event. And as we like to do, I guess I should introduce our guests.
We’ve got Judy Dixon here, as we’ve already heard.
Mike Feir is in Canada. Are you working on another iOS book, Mike?
Mike: Yes, yep. I’m working on the 3rd edition of Personal Power. I have an iPhone 15 and I can’t really upgrade, so I’ll be basing my remarks on the Apple Intelligence portion on other people’s experiences. I don’t like doing that [laughs], but I can’t help it by paying for two iPhones.
Jonathan: Mike, the contribution that you make to the community by putting that book out with such detail is so important. I think that we should find a way to do a bit of fundraising to get you the iPhone 16 Pro because it’s an investment in quality information to the community. We should find a way to do that, in all seriousness.
Mike: I wouldn’t say no. [laughs]
Jonathan: I think we should do that.
And what about you, Heidi? Are you writing any new iOS books?
Heidi: I can’t say I’ve ever written an iOS book.
Jonathan: I know. Well, never too late to start.
Alright. So, let’s go around the virtual table and just get a rating. We’ll try not to drill down too much because we’ll drill down in a minute. But, you know, 1 being it was really blah and 10 being it was super. What do you think of it, Judy?
Judy: Hmm. Somewhere between 8 and 9.
Jonathan: Okay. That’s high.
You, Mike?
Mike: I’d be about the same. It was a pretty good presentation. A little slow, but lots to get through, so I can understand why.
Jonathan: Yeah. The guy who does all the geeking out who sounds like Bernie Sanders, …
Judy: [laughs]
Jonathan: He doesn’t. He hasn’t got the touch that Johnny Ives had, has he?
Mike: [laughs]
Jonathan: What about you, Heidi? What did you think of the event?
Heidi: Maybe more of a 6 to 7.
Jonathan: Okay. Yeah, you’re less enamored.
I think I’d give it about a 7. It got good. It got good in bits. let’s go through it now.
We will do this as we like to do in the order that Apple did it. We’ll start with the Apple Watch. And the first thing I want to say is Apple’s created quite a dilemma here because I’ve got the Apple Watch Ultra Series 1, and I like it. I know, Judy, you do not, and you’ve been dissing the Apple Watch Ultra, but I like the battery life.
Judy: [laughs] It’s so big.
Jonathan: It is big. I like the action button. If I want to do the workout, I just press that, and I just really like the battery life. But there’s no new Apple Watch Ultra.
I don’t really want to upgrade to the Apple Watch Ultra 2, which is now last year’s model because that seems like a daft thing to do. But if you want some of the new features, that’s what you have to do. Or just get the Series 10 (so that’s my little dilemma), which is available for pre-order now.
So, the Series 10, they tell us, is thinner. It’s got a larger display, an even bigger display than the Apple Watch Ultra. And Heidi, I was wondering if you can clue us in on this. So obviously, the old Apple Watch must have had a lot of bezel because I take it it’s not physically that much huger than the previous Apple Watches.
Heidi: It doesn’t seem that much huger.
Judy: They didn’t say whether it was going to use the same bands.
Mike: Did they give a dimension? Like, I don’t remember them saying.
Judy: I never heard. They used to talk about 40, 41, 45, and all these numbers, but I never heard a number.
Mike: No, me neither.
Heidi: They didn’t mention it, but the details are now on the website, and it’s available in 42 millimeters and 46 millimeters.
Judy: Ah. They’re slowly creeping up.
Mike: Oh, okay. That’s not hugely big.
Judy: [laughs] Yeah.
Jonathan: Okay. So basically, what they’ve done then is…
Judy: It started out 38 and 42.
Jonathan: Yeah. Yeah. So they have increased it a bit, but there’s obviously a lot more screen and a bit less bezels. Is that what they’re doing?
Heidi: Yeah, the bezels are getting smaller and smaller.
Jonathan: Right.
What do you think of the colors? We’ve got jet black, rose gold, and silver. Is that correct?
Heidi: Uh, that sounds right. Yeah.
Jonathan: And what should we go for? You know, can you give us any descriptions there? Is the jet black the cool one this year?
Heidi: I think the jet black is the cool one this year. The silver and the rose gold are more of a matte finish, whereas the jet black is very very glossy and very cool.
Jonathan: Does that mean it’ll get finger marks and look a bit grubby potentially?
Heidi: I mean potentially, but that’s the price of style, right?
Judy: [laughs]
Jonathan: I wouldn’t know. You’re asking the wrong guy.
Heidi: [laughs]
Jonathan: Now, they say there’s a re-engineered speaker system. And the big thing, I think, for many blind people is that you can now play content on the Apple Watch speaker. Now, there were some apps you could do this with. The Streamlit app, which you can stream Mushroom FM on, among other internet radio stations, is brilliant. And I sometimes do this, just walk around playing, particularly, say, a news talk station or something on the Apple Watch speaker. I find that really nice. There may be some other apps that allow you to play through the speaker, but I don’t think they’re that common. But now, it’s just going to be a standard thing.
Does Audible let you play content on the Apple Watch speaker at the moment?
Mike: I’ve never done that.
Judy: No.
Jonathan: Okay. Right. So this is something new?
Mike: I don’t use it for that. I might use it for more of that if it doesn’t switch my AirPods over, or things like that. That could be quite helpful. [laughs]
Jonathan: Yeah.
Judy: I really like Streamlits. I use it a lot, and I do listen through the speaker on Streamlets. And if other apps did that, I would certainly use them more.
Jonathan: Right. This is going to be interesting. I tried, when I got my new Phonak hearing aids which use standard Bluetooth, to pair my Apple Watch with the hearing aids. And that works well, but the trouble is you can only have 2 active devices. So if I’ve got my laptop, my Apple Watch, and my phone, one of them decides not to cooperate. So this is going to be good.
There’s a new charging port on the back. Now, what I wanted to find out, Heidi, was do you determine visually that that means it’s a different Apple Watch charger from the previous one?
Heidi: It looks the same. I just wonder if the technology’s improved.
Jonathan: Right. Okay, that’s good.
And by the way, we are all the walking wounded on this show. If you think there’s something wrong with the way I’m recording this, 3 of us at least have got some sort of bug going on here.
Heidi: Yes. [laughs]
Jonathan: Yeah, alright. So it looks like it could be the same charging port, but they say that you can get from basically no charge to 80% in 30 minutes.
Titanium, Heidi. So you can, instead of stainless steel this year, you get titanium.
Heidi: Yes.
Jonathan: And so what’s the other material that we’ve just talked about?
Heidi: Aluminium.
Jonathan: Aluminum.
Heidi: Aluminum.
[laughter]
Heidi: Yeah.
Jonathan: Yeah. I’m practising my American, you know.
[laughter]
Heidi: Ah, yes.
Jonathan: I’m writing everything with a zed and calling it Z, you know, organize, recognize. Oh my God!
[laughter]
Heidi: Don’t forget to drop all the U’s.
Jonathan: Yeah. [laughs]
Titanium. So that looks even classier, I take it. Is that right?
Heidi: Yes, it’s like the nicer material. It’s very glossy like the stainless steel was. And the gold in particular is very lovely this year.
Jonathan: So there’s natural gold, space gray, and am I missing a color?
Heidi: Yeah, 3 colors. Slate, which is like a space gray black color, gold, and natural.
Judy: What color is natural?
Jonathan: Oh, I’m sorry. Yes, I forgot a comma when I was making my note. So yes, it should be natural, comma, gold, space gray. Okay.
Heidi: Yeah.
Jonathan: Yep.
Heidi: And that’s like a silvery color.
Jonathan: Is there a difference in the weight of these products between the titanium and the aluminum?
Heidi: About 5 grams heavier for the titanium.
Mike: Hmm.
Jonathan: Okay. That’s interesting. But it looks nice. And it’s slightly more durable, I would think?
Heidi: Well, they use it for space stuff, don’t they?
Jonathan: Yeah. Maybe that’s why the Orion thing actually landed from something. It had lots of titanium in it, not aluminum.
[laughter]
Jonathan: Alright.
Now, in terms of other features, they’ve got a new neural network which suppresses background noise in phone calls. That sounds pretty cool. I’m glad they’re using that technology.
The big one is sleep apnea. Now, we’ve talked a lot about sleep on Living Blindfully, and some of that’s due to non-24, but there are other things. We’ve talked about the accessibility of sleep apnea machines, and they came up with an interesting stat that said that 80% of people with sleep apnea never have it diagnosed.
This is also available on the Series 9. And if you have an Apple Watch Ultra 2, unlike me, you can get it there as well.
So that’s as far back as it goes. Anyone interested in this?
Mike: I already have sleep apnea. It didn’t sound like it would help. I guess the only case in which it might potentially be helpful is if my CPAP setting needed to change, like if the pressure wasn’t enough, and I started stopping breathing. That, I suppose, could detect something like that. But it sounds more like it’s meant to detect people who don’t even realize, like they just think they’re snoring loudly or something and they haven’t clued in that they’re actually stopping breathing.
Judy: Isn’t it only going to tell you once every 30 days?
Jonathan: Right. So it takes a lot of data before you get anything out of it. Yeah. But I mean, when you consider that, if it is correct, I’m sure it must be that 80% don’t even know they have this.
I guess what would happen is you get warned in the Vitals app. Because that’s something that’s new in the new version of the operating system, this app called Vitals. So you’ll get a warning there, I take it. And then, you would take that to your doctor, and your doctor would get you further diagnosis and potentially, a sleep apnea device of some kind, or a mask or whatever’s necessary.
Mike: I wonder if it’ll eliminate the need for a test. When I got my diagnosis, I had to go in for a sleeping test to have that happen. And then, they recorded my sleep and he was able to detect that. So if this thing can speed up the process and maybe act as a test that you can do in your own surroundings rather than in a strange hospital bed, that could also be kind of helpful.
Jonathan: It sounds like it might. But I guess, the price you pay is the time it takes, right? Because you’ve got to wear this thing for a month every night.
Judy: [laughs]
Mike: Yeah. [laughs]
Jonathan: But still, I always wear my Apple Watch. And the main reason why I do, I like collecting the data. I love my Apple Watch for the data it’s collecting about my health. I think they’ve found their niche with this product now. Primarily, it is a health and fitness device, and they’re doubling down on that.
We’ve heard that they’re working on blood pressure, And the real holy grail is blood glucose levels.
Judy: Yes.
Jonathan: That will be incredible for many of our listeners. So I like the data.
And the other reason why I wear it though is that it’s the only thing that wakes me up now. I can set an alarm on the watch and I will feel the haptic vibration, whereas I may not hear anymore, with hearing aids out, the alarm on my phone. Even that really obnoxious one that goes, bah bah is not guaranteed.
[laughter]
Jonathan: The only other thing I noticed with the Apple Watch was the depth map and water temperature sensor. So that’s exciting if you want to do that.
Judy: I wondered how you would read the depth with VoiceOver.
Jonathan: Yeah, it’s a good point.
Mike: Doesn’t Waterlock kind of make it impossible to get an…?
Judy: I would think so.
Mike: Yeah.
Jonathan : So this is a question I can probably only ask on one of the last ever Living Blindfully episodes, you see. But who wears their Apple Watch in the shower?
Judy: I do not.
Mike: I never have. [laughs]
Jonathan: I can’t bring myself to do it.
Judy: I’ve heard that Tim Cook does.
Jonathan: Well, I mean, he can just go into work…
Judy: But he can go get another one.
[laughter]
Jonathan: You’ve worn yours in the shower, Heidi?
Heidi: No, I haven’t.
Jonathan: Should we make this a challenge? Should we all just agree to give it a go?
Judy: I don’t think so.
Jonathan: No? Alright then. Fine, fine.
Judy: [laughs]
Jonathan: Is there any other comments that people want to make?
Oh, I guess we should mention that there’s a nice, classy Apple Watch Ultra 2 finish. So no new watch, but there’s a black finish, which everybody says looks nice, I hear.
Heidi: Yep.
Mike: And new bands. I guess, they’ve got updated bands.
Jonathan: So is all this enough to make any of you want one?
Judy: Yes.
Mike: No.
[laughter]
Jonathan: What’s the tipping point for you, Judy?
Judy: The audio with the speaker. That’s huge.
Jonathan: Yup, yeah. I hope that the smaller componentry doesn’t result in poorer sound. It’ll be interesting to see.
Judy: I would think it’s going to have better sound if they’re making it so that you can listen to your media through the speaker. They’re bound to have worked on that speaker, and the speaker’s not bad anyway.
Mike: They did say they improved the speaker, I thought.
Judy: Yeah.
Mike: That was one of the things that they did. So, I mean, it’s one of those things. When I eventually am ready to upgrade to a 10, I could see myself doing that.
I don’t know when the next SE is coming, but that’s what I wear now, and I’d want to know what was included in the next SE before I made that decision.
Jonathan: I’m really tempted to get one, partly because of the speaker, and the fact that you can play media. But I am kind of just interested in any health data I can get. So the sleep apnea thing would be kind of interesting. I don’t think I have it, but you never know. 80% of people aren’t diagnosed.
What series of Apple Watch are you rocking at the moment, Heidi?
Heidi: A Series 6 that you got me when I graduated university.
Jonathan: Oh my goodness! That’s a while ago, isn’t it?
Heidi: Yeah. [laughs]
Jonathan: Would you be interested in the new Apple Watch Series number 10?
Heidi: I would be, but I don’t have the funds to justify it.
Jonathan: Right, right. Okay, we’ll have to see what Santa might bring, or something.
Heidi: Mmm-hmm.
Jonathan: Now, we’re going to talk about the exciting world of AirPods, if we’re done with Apple Watch.
There’s a lot here, starting in the order that they started with – the ones just called AirPods. What made me giggle as I was watching this was they said they’d analyzed thousands of ear shapes. And I thought, how do you do this? You go around, you know, hi! We’re Apple, and we want to analyse your ears, and you have to subscribe to the study so we can look at your ear shape. That will be quite interesting. Anyway, they’ve done this.
[laughter]
Judy: That’s probably exactly how they did it.
[laughter]
Jonathan: Maybe there’s just a survey, you know, like you fill it in. Do your ears hang low? Do they wobble?
[laughter]
Mike: Yeah.
Jonathan: So there’s a massive improvement with audio quality, they say. They reiterated what they said at WWDC, which we also covered together. You can nod your head for yes, and shake your head for no when you’re interacting with Siri.
There’s noise cancellation that eliminates background noise. I think that was, … What was that in the context of? Was that with listening, or when people are hearing you? I’m just trying to remember.
Mike: I kind of thought it was both. Like, the noise cancellation is when you’re listening to content. And then, when you’re doing a call, there is also noise filtering when you’re doing that. But it sounds like they brought the features on the Pro, like the spatial audio. They’ve brought a lot of the stuff that was on the Pros now to the regular.
Jonathan: Yeah. That’s great, isn’t it? Because it comes in at a more affordable price point, and that’s really cool.
They’ve also continued their elimination of the lightning connector, and I’m sure no one’s going to miss that. They’ve got the USB-C charging case, and it is smaller, and you get up to 30 hours of battery life with that AirPods case.
And then, they have something called AirPods 4 with active noise cancellation. So it’s a different product, and it’s just a few dollars more expensive.
I thought Steve Jobs will come back and haunt them. [laughs] Apple’s product lines now are quite complex. When you look at the different iPads that are available in various variants, it is getting quite complicated, and Steve Jobs always hated that. When he came back to Apple after his absence, he pruned significantly all the different product lines that they had.
But anyway, so this is AirPods 4 with active noise cancellation. That’s the one with voice isolation and conversation mode.
I cannot wear AirPods because I wear hearing aids, but I would be really interested in any experience of how that works in the real world if any of you have it.
Mike: Well, if I’m not wearing hearing aids, which is early morning when I’m up and I’m not sleeping, I can use them. I have the AirPods Pro 2 and the AirPods 3. Like right now, I’ve got my hearing aids and the EarPods, and they’re small enough that I can do that, but the AirPods and the pros are larger. Well, the pros go right in and seal your ear with the little ear tip. So you kind of need your ear canal free of everything else to do that.
I’ve in an emergency when my hearing aids broke. I did use the AirPod Pro 2s as emergency kind of makeshift hearing aids and boosted the environmental, the trends, that’s going to bug me now, it lets you hear the environment around you and you can actually boost the volume up to 100 and that sort of compensates a bit for lost hearing. It’s very handy to do. And that helped a ton in a real pinch.
Jonathan: You into AirPods, Judy?
Judy: Yes. I don’t wear hearing aids. I do have the AirPods Pro 2, and I really like them. I do like the open sound because you can just reach up and touch it. You don’t have to take them out. You don’t have to remember not to take it out. Just reach up and squeeze one of the stems and suddenly, you can hear the world around you, and it’s very convenient.
Jonathan: So if you’re using a navigation app, GPS app, are you able to use these getting environmental sounds as well as the GPS information?
Judy: Yes.
Mike: Yeah.
Jonathan: That’s great.
Mike: I would still be a bit leery of doing that but yeah, you can do it. But I would kind of sooner trust, I guess, regular hearing aids over that, given the choice.
Judy: Yes.
Jonathan: I know that you have AirPods, Heidi. I can’t remember which ones you’re rocking now.
Heidi: I have AirPods 3.
Jonathan: Right. You like yours?
Heidi: Yeah, yeah. They work for me.
Judy: I’d say these are going to be clinical grade hearing aids.
Jonathan: Yes, yes.
Let’s talk about the AirPods Max briefly. They’ve got USB-C as well now, and new colors.
I have heard a lot of criticism of the AirPods Max, in terms of their quality over time. Reviews I’ve read indicate that they can deteriorate, and weird moisture things can happen to them, and that kind of thing. They haven’t commented on whether they’ve addressed any of those issues, but I’m sure that we will hear from reviewers in the next couple of weeks.
So the airpods pro 2. This is very interesting because when some of these features started being added, a lot of us were saying, when is Apple just going to call this a hearing aid and actually seriously take on the hearing aid manufacturers?
[laughter]
Jonathan: And finally, they’ve done it. I actually hope that this is just the start of it and that for people with more severe hearing losses, they might consider the same technology in a different, say, behind the ear hearing aid form factor.
But what they’ve done is they describe this as focusing on 3 areas when it comes to hearing – prevention, awareness, and then assistance with the hearing loss.
So the prevention starts if you’re in a noisy environment, and they gave examples like a rock concert or lawn mowing. Essentially, what it sounds like they’re doing in a technical sense is applying a lot of dynamic audio compression and limiting so that you don’t get exposed to very loud noises and protect your hearing.
Then, you can go through a clinically validated hearing test. And many of us have probably gone through this where you hear the beep and you indicate, usually with the push of a button or something, that you’re hearing it. This is something that they can now do on the iPhone.
And then, you can turn your AirPods Pro 2s into a clinical grade over-the-counter hearing aid. When you do that, it sounds like it changes the device quite a bit. It uses your hearing profile that you’ve given it with that hearing as we talked about earlier, and it automatically applies that profile right across your devices.
I think this is absolutely huge because one of the dilemmas that a lot of blind people with, say, moderate hearing loss have is we are restricted. We’re constrained in our choices by the inaccessibility of so many of these hearing aid apps. So not only do we have to find the right one that sounds good for us, which is a challenge that all hearing impaired people face, we’ve got an additional barrier to overcome. And that is, is the app for the hearing aid that I like accessible? And with Apple, you can be guaranteed that this is going to be accessible. This is absolutely massive.
Mike: I can’t wait to play with this hearing aid mode. If you already have AirPods Pro 2, it’s just going to arrive. They said they had to get FDA approval. And presumably, in other countries as well with our health organizations. We have a different one in Canada here. And so once they activate this, it’ll all just be there, and you’ll just be able to go in, do the test and get the hearing aid thing.
Now, battery drain is something that I’m kind of wondering about. My actual hearing aids can last all day, 39 hours before I have to charge them again. Even regular AirPods get like 5, 6 hours. And then, you get 30 hours in the case. So it’s a different experience than these hearing aids that are designed to be hearing aids in terms of that. I kind of wonder how much of a drain that hearing aid mode might apply to the batteries.
Jonathan: What hearing aids are you rocking at the moment?
Mike: I’ve got Signia Pure Charge and Go ones, and quite like them for the most part.
Jonathan: That’s good.
With all the flying I do, I wasn’t quite ready to jump on the recharging bandwagon. With the hearing aids that I have, I can get about a week, to 9 or 10 days battery life before I need to replace the battery, and I really like that.
But that’s a very good point, because the last thing a blind person needs is to be high and dry in the middle of navigating the world and find that you’ve run out of battery on your AirPods. I mean, even if you have to take a pause somewhere to recharge them a little bit, that could happen to you in a very inappropriate place.
What sort of warning do you get when the batteries are going flat on the AirPods?
Mike: There is a beep, and you can check the battery level. You can either ask or check on your phone’s today view in the battery widget and see the levels. So you can keep an ear on that, Which is great.
And of course, charging it is no problem. Especially if you carry around a power bank, you’ve got all the backup you need. Just having that Gives me massive peace of mind when this is activated. I’ll have that complete, even better backup than they’ve already proved to be.
I still have to get something to hold them in my ears a bit better because they can pop out, if the stem gets…
Jonathan: I’ve heard this. People’s airpods pop out of their ear.
But now that they’ve tested 50 000 ears or whatever, …
Judy: [laughs]
Mike: Yeah, maybe. But this is the AirPods Pro 2 I’ve got here. They’re not updating those.
Jonathan: So when you get the low battery indication, how much time do you have before they just stop altogether and go flat?
Mike: I think it warns you at like 10 or 15%, so you get like 20 some odd minutes or something like that. It’s enough time that you could even charge one at a time and cycle them back up, put one back in the case, and keep the other one in while it charges enough. So you switch, and you could sort of build them back up so you’d still have at least one operational all the time.
Jonathan: Yeah. I’m definitely going to try this. I’m just curious. I suspect that my hearing loss is now not within range of this, but I just have to try. And then, I’m sure that the AirPods Pro will go to a worthy recipient. Cue up, kids. Or Bonnie, for that matter.
Alright. Any thoughts on this, Judy, on the hearing aid angle that Apple’s taken here?
Judy: I think it’s a great idea. I mean, it’s bound to benefit everybody.
Jonathan: Yeah, that’s exciting.
Alright. Well, let’s talk about the big one, and that is the iPhone 16. This whole series is designed for Apple Intelligence. And that means that actually, you get a couple of bumps up.
What they were trying to do to skew sales in favor of the Pro line was they would give you the previous chip in the lower-level edition. So when you got the iPhone 15, you got the A16 Bionic, wasn’t it?
Mike: Yeah.
Jonathan: And then, the iPhone 15 Pro had the A17, which is capable of supporting Apple Intelligence.
Then in the iPhone 16, you get the A18 Bionic in the 16 and 16+. And then, they have a particular faster one again for the iPhone 16 Pro.
The iPhone 16 has a 6.1 inch display, and the iPhone 16+ has a 6.7 inch display.
Could you tell, heidi, are these physically bigger phones substantially? Or again, is it bezels that they’re getting that increase from?.
Heidi: Aren’t those the same sizes as last year.
Jonathan: They are? Okay. So it’s the Pro ones that are different?
Judy: They’re 2 millimeters longer.
Mike: The Pros are bigger.
Heidi: Right.
Jonathan: Okay. So you’re unlikely to…
Judy: Just enough to need a new case.
Mike: [laughs]
Jonathan: Yeah. Well, you need a new case because of the fancy…
Judy: The new button.
Mike: The new camera control.
Jonathan: Yeah, yeah. So all phones on the 16 line, whether you go Pro or not, have the action button. Hooray! I like my action button. You like your action button, Judy?
Judy: Yes, yes. I think this is great. You can do so many things with it.
Jonathan: What do you do with yours?
Judy: I have it set right now to tell me where I am. Where am I?
Jonathan: Ah. How are you achieving that?
Judy: I just picked it from the list.
Jonathan: Oh, really? It’s in there?
Mike: Yeah.
Jonathan: Okay, fine. I haven’t looked for a while.
Judy: The shortcut.
Jonathan: Okay. Alright. Oh, okay. Yeah, that makes sense. You’re executing the shortcut.
So what I’ve done is because I don’t own a standalone player for books or anything like that, I have got my own little personalized media player set up. So when I press and hold the action button, it starts playing my podcast in Castro from where I left off. Or if I’ve got new content in the queue, it will start from the top of the queue. And then when I double tap the back of the phone, it skips forward 30 seconds. And when I triple tap, it skips back 30 seconds. So I have universal podcast access everywhere because I listen to a lot of podcasts, and I love my action button for that.
And now, anybody who has an iPhone 16 can have the action button. Tremendous!
Ah, the camera control. Heidi, it sounds like this camera control is a multi-purpose button. You can tap it softly. You can press it firmly. You can hold it, or not hold it. You can swipe up and down on it, by the sounds of it as well. So it’s kind of like its own little touch environment.
Judy: Yeah.
Heidi: Yes, it is.
Jonathan: Reminds me of the action bar on the Mac. Is that a fair analysis? Like a little tiny action bar.
Heidi: Um, yeah, I guess the concept is similar. The execution is quite different.
Jonathan: So where does it physically live, the action, the capture? What do they call it? Camera button. What are they calling it? Camera control.
Judy: I think they’re calling it capture.
Mike: Yeah.
Jonathan: Yeah. Well, they call it the capture button in all the media I was reading previously, but they never use the term.
Judy: Yes.
Heidi: Yeah.
Mike: I think, the camera control. Yeah, they always call it the camera control.
Jonathan: Yeah. Where does it live, Heidi? Could you tell that?
Heidi: So on the side of the phone where the side button, power button, whatever you call it button is.
Jonathan: Okay, so it’s the right-hand side, is it?
Heidi: The right-hand side, yeah. It’s like a third of the way up from the bottom of the phone.
Jonathan: So it’s below the side button?
Heidi: Below the side button, yes.
Judy: Oh. Way down?
Heidi: Yeah.
Jonathan: Huh. And can you compare it in size to the side button, for example? Is it about the same size?
Heidi: It’s about the same size, but the side button and the volume buttons and action buttons, they all protrude. Whereas this camera button is more flush. It does have a slight bezel around it. So it should still be tactilely distinctive, but it will be different from the other buttons.
Jonathan: I’d be really interested to see what the VoiceOver UI is like with this.
Mike: I kind of wonder, though. by the way you’re describing that, Heidi, it sounds like it’s like as I pick up my phone on a call or something, I can see myself just as I grip the phone touching that camera control and having stuff happen.
Heidi: Yeah, it is in that sort of location.
Jonathan: Okay. There was a bit of overlap from WWDC with Apple Intelligence talked about quite a bit. I think the challenge that Apple has, and it’s not going to make stockholders happy, (of which I am one, I hasten to add), is that they’re trying to sell iPhones now based on the future. I mean, it’s not a distant future, but you can’t buy an iPhone and get it on the 20th (which is when they’ll start being delivered) and start using Apple Intelligence, unless you’re willing to install the beta. So that’s a difficult sell, and I suspect it’s taking a bit longer than they had anticipated.
But yeah, I was intrigued all over again by the idea that a blind person can find a photo by saying something like, show me that photo where Judy and I were at ICEB or something in Auckland at a specific hotel, and it should be able to locate that. I mean, that’s pretty cool. Has a good blindness use case there. And just going through my notes, you can get to a specific point in a video as well.
You’ll get a public beta of Apple Intelligence next month. So to use Apple Intelligence, just to reiterate, you’re going to need an iPhone 15 Pro, or anything iPhone 16. This also runs on iPads and Macs as well.
The visual intelligence. Let’s talk about this. This is very interesting.
Judy: [laughs] It is.
Jonathan: So for those who weren’t watching, the idea is that this comes back to that camera control again, right?
Heidi: Yes, yeah.
Jonathan: It sounded like what they’re saying is you press and hold it like you’re invoking Siri with a side button. Is that correct?
Mike: I was a bit hazy on that.
Jonathan: Okay. Well, when you invoke this Visual Intelligence, however it’s done, (click and hold, I think they said, the camera control), you can point your iPhone at something, and it’ll essentially tell you about the world around you. So if you, for example, point it at a restaurant, it will tell you its opening hours, maybe even its menu, potentially. If you point it at a flyer, it will use Apple Intelligence to potentially add information about the event, date and time to your calendar. So it sounds like, what I immediately thought was, it sounds like a lot of the uses that some people are putting the Meta smart glasses to.
Judy: What I immediately thought is, how does it know what you want to know about that thing?
Jonathan: Right.
Judy: Because there were so many different instances of different items that it was going to tell you about – what breed of dog is that? Well, maybe that’s not what I want to know about that dog, you know. [laughs] I think, I don’t know, I’m a little skeptical of this one.
Mike: I don’t know. It sounds they could have a menu pop up, or with options, or they could like i can see ways of implementing this where it would be. It would probably pick, as a default, the most likely bunch of information to plop in front of you, I would think.
Jonathan: Potentially, it does have some interesting blindness use cases. But maybe, I mean there’s speculation here. But maybe, once you’ve captured whatever it is you’re capturing, maybe you can interrogate it with Siri.
Heidi: Oh. I’ve just found a screenshot, and on the one where it’s pointed at the dog, for example, there’s 3 buttons at the bottom of the screen, and one of them is called ask. So I assume you could ask Siri a specific question.
Judy: Ah.
Heidi: And then, there’s another one called search. So That might be similar, but just a text search, or that may be the automatic one where it decides what it thinks you want to know.
And then, there’s just like a cancel button.
Judy: That’s interesting.
Jonathan: Okay, so you can do the asking?
Heidi: Yeah.
Jonathan: Yeah, alright.
Now, the camera bump, Heidi. Is the camera bump a bit less protuberant than in the past?
Heidi: It still feels pretty protuberant.
Jonathan: That’s a good word for a very early morning.
[laughter]
Jonathan: Okay. So I mean, that’s another thing. I wonder what Steve Jobs would have thought of that. It’s not exactly very aesthetically pleasing, that big camera bump on the back.
Judy: No.
Jonathan: Alright. 48…
Mike: They probably…
Jonathan: Go ahead, Mike. Sorry.
Mike: I was just thinking, I guess what that is though is the lensing. So especially for the pros, you get that 5x telephoto lens that I presume it needs some distance out from the back of the phone to accommodate that.
Jonathan: And a 48 megapixel. [reverb]
Judy: Oh, yes.
Jonathan: Are you glad about that?
Judy: This is huge. This is huge. This is going to be so fantastic for the pictures that blind people take, and scanning text, and all of our scanning apps and everything. They’re very likely to get much better.
Jonathan: You’re clearly very lukewarm on this feature.
[laughter]
Jonathan: So what impact do you think it will have for blind people day to day then?
Judy: I do think it’ll have a big impact because I think that so much of what we do with our cameras, whether we’re getting visual assistance, or whether we’re scanning documents or whatever we do relies on resolution. And the better resolution we have, the better job it’s going to do.
Jonathan: Okay. And the really significant thing is that you get the 48 megapixel camera in the 16 without having to buy the Pro.
Judy: Yeah.
Jonathan: Yeah.
Judy: That’s great.
Jonathan: But if we are talking about features for blind people which is what this is all about, we shouldn’t forget that, and I don’t believe this has changed this time, certainly, in the past, the Pro line is the one that has the LiDAR, and that gives you features like door detection, people detection, and a number of other things. So there are still advantages for blind people specifically in going Pro if you want to have a play with those features.
Bigger battery life on the iPhone 16, thanks to partially a bigger battery, and also better economical performance. And that takes us on. Go ahead.
Judy: Hang on. Hang on, Jonathan.
Heidi, did they give us any numbers about this bigger battery life? I mean sometimes, they actually talk about MAH.
Heidi: They didn’t. The best I can offer is the hours of video playback time that they list on the website, which is 22 hours on the iPhone 16 and 27 hours on the 16 plus.
Jonathan: I wonder how that compares to the previous year.
Judy: Yes.
Heidi: Well, let me pull that up.
Jonathan: Yeah, we’ll just take a quick commercial break while Heidi pulls that up because it will be interesting.
Heidi: The iPhone 15 was 20 hours versus the new 22.
Jonathan: Yup.
Heidi: And the 15 plus was 26 versus the new 27.
Jonathan: I mean, okay.
Mike: Slight increase.
Judy: Slight increase, yeah.
Mike: But the pros, I thought, had…
Jonathan: Yeah, we’ll do the same with the Pro. Let’s talk about the Pro.
Heidi: Hey, we didn’t announce the colors.
Jonathan: Oh, okay. Go ahead. I keep forgetting about such matters.
[laughter]
Heidi: So the 16 and 16 Plus come in black and white, and also pink, which is quite like a vibrant pink.
Jonathan: That’s the Nikola phone.
Heidi: That’s the Barbie phone.
Jonathan: But I shouldn’t say it’s the Nicola phone, or Nicola will expect me to buy her one.
Heidi: Yeah, exactly.
There’s teal, which is a very pretty sort of medium, slightly bluey green. Reminds me of the sea. And then there’s ultramarine, which is a very vibrant blue.
Judy: Hmm.
Jonathan: Hearing aids are great, aren’t they? For a while, until I got the context, I thought you said ultra meringue, and then I was thinking about Amelia Bedelia.
[laughter]
Heidi: Ooh, ultra meringue. No, ultramarine.
Jonathan : Okay, so is it permissible to move on to the pro now?
Heidi: I’ll allow it.
Jonathan: Oh good, because I’m super excited about it. I mean, some years, I feel like I’ve come on here as the resident cynic, and I keep saying I’m not sure if I’m going to buy it this year. I did actually stick to my guns with the 13, I think it was. No question I’m buying this. No question at all.
So let’s talk about the Pro 6.3 and 6.9. I mean, it’s almost like having a bleeding iPad mini in your pocket if you go for the max at 6.9.
Judy: Oh, I know.
Jonathan: I mean, can you give me some assurance, Heidi, that it’s not going to be massively bigger to put in my hand? I mean, how much can the hand actually hold here?
Heidi: Ah. So you’re looking at the Pro Max?
Jonathan: Yeah. I like it for Braille screen input, …
Heidi: Okay. Let’s see.
Jonathan: which has had a wonderful revamp. You happy with Braille screen input?
Judy: Oh, isn’t it nice?
Jonathan: Yeah.
Judy: Oh, yes.
Jonathan: Yeah. great, isn’t it?
Judy: I’m not so excited about the command part, though, because I just don’t use my phone in landscape, and I keep finding I’m turning it all around. and it’s just… [laughs]
Jonathan: See, I’m a tabletop guy.
Judy: I’m a tabletop person, too. I like tabletop input. For the Braille screen input part of it, it’s terrific.
Jonathan: Oh, but you’re saying when you just use it. Yeah, that’s a good point. I see what you’re saying. Yeah.
Judy: Yeah, sorry.
Heidi: Compared to your 15 Pro Max which you have right now, the 16 Pro Max is only 3 millimeters taller, and only 1 millimeter wider.
Jonathan: Right. It’s barely perceptible.
Mike: Yeah, you wouldn’t even barely feel that.
Jonathan: Now, I will not make the same mistake.
Judy: Just enough for a new case.
Jonathan: Because I always feel like, you know, growing and learning is what life’s all about, isn’t it? So I will go with the colors right now before I forget about them. You got black, you got white and natural, and is it one called dessert or something?
Heidi: Desert.
[laughter]
Jonathan: You got the meringue for the 16, and the dessert for the 16 Pro.
[laughter]
Judy: It’s not even breakfast time yet.
Heidi: This is like an almost sandy, gold-leaning color. But on my laptop screen, it’s quite in the yellow family. But when we were watching it on the TV, it was almost in like the rose gold family, so I’d be interested to see what it actually looks like. But it’s definitely in that gold era.
Jonathan: What’s the right one for me, Heidi?
Heidi: The desert one? I don’t know. The black one, the white one, the natural one. They’re all cool this year.
Jonathan: What are you going to get, Judy?
Judy: Probably black. I usually get the black one because I keep a case on my phone almost all the time, so it doesn’t really matter.
Jonathan: Now, a couple of potential abandonment issues, just while I remember here.
One is that I understand that Apple is discontinuing the earpods, which one of you referred to earlier. That’s going to make Bonnie very grumpy.
Judy: Ooh! I like them a lot. And I love the USB… I have the USB-C earpods, and they’re terrific. They sound good, and they’re very very inexpensive.
Jonathan: Yes. Well, according to media reports, they are no longer being sold.
Judy: I better buy a few.
Jonathan: It could be a rumor, but maybe not.
Jonathan: And the other thing that they didn’t talk about was whether they’ve got rid of the fine-woven cases, which were very unpopular.
Judy: I heard they were going to get rid of them and come out with something new, and they didn’t talk about that.
Jonathan: No, no. Well, that’s been a bit of an embarrassment, the old fine-woven, and there were quality control issues with them and all sorts of stuff like that.
Alright. Again, larger batteries. So could we do your battery trick, Heidi, and find out how significant the change is?
Heidi: So the iPhone 16 Pro has a 27-hour video playback.
Jonathan: Wow!
Heidi: The 15 Pro had only 23 hours of video playback.
Judy: That’s a substantial difference.
Jonathan: Yeah.
Heidi: The 16 Pro Max has up to 33 hours of video playback, and the 15 Pro Max had 29 hours of video playback.
Jonathan: Wow! That would be almost enough to allow us to read Mike’s iOS Personal Power in one sitting without charging.
Mike: It’s not written to have that done, but people keep doing it for some reason.
Jonathan: Yeah, yeah.
Judy: You won’t have to carry an extra charger going from New Zealand to the United States.
Jonathan: Oh, man! I’m paranoid about running out. I just find outlets everywhere and I plug in.
Judy: So am I.
Jonathan: When we were going over to NFB, on the way over, I think it was the, you know how they have those funny little international wall outlet type plugs in the seats sometimes? That one didn’t work, but the USB port in the seat did work, luckily, in the seat in front. And then going home again, it was exactly in reverse. The USB port worked.
So this has the A18 Pro chip, and they say that it’s faster than the A18. Apple Intelligence will run up to 15% faster than the iPhone 15 Pro.
Faster USB-C. That was a thing last time, too. So if you really want to transfer a lot of material, and Pro customers will want to do this. If you’re taking a lot of video, or even recording a lot of high-bit audio and you want to get it onto your computer for editing, then the faster USB can really make a difference.
What else have we got? Just going through my notes.
Alright. What about the camera? Can anybody explain to me, in layman’s terms, what are the benefits of a 16 Pro camera versus the 16? Are there compelling reasons why a blind person who uses the camera a lot should opt for the 16 Pro based on the camera alone?
Heidi: Well, it still has the LiDAR, whereas the non-Pro doesn’t.
Jonathan: We’re absolutely sure that’s the case still, are we?
Heidi: Well yeah, they’re usually quite prominent, and I couldn’t see it in the pictures.
Jonathan: Okay, that’s useful.
Heidi: Yup.
Oh. For a low vision person, it’s got a better telephoto camera, which means you can zoom in more.
Jonathan: Okay. So that might help the magnifier.
Mike: Yeah, it’s like 5X for the Pro, and then 2X for the non-Pro, I think.
Heidi: Yeah.
Jonathan: Okay.
Now, I was actually in cynical mode for a long time during the 16 Pro thing, and I kind of found myself getting a bit sleepy with all the talk about the chip and the camera.
[laughter]
Jonathan: But I did wake all the way up when we started talking about studio-quality mics. And I think a number of us have made the point over the years, it’s wonderful what they’re doing with the camera. But wouldn’t it be nice if they pay the same sort of attention to audio?
And this is our year, folks. Go out and buy this thing. Studio-quality microphones. So no matter what you’re doing, the microphones apparently are improved.
Assuming I can get one on delivery day and Living Blindfully is still going, we’ll do some recording on this and get an episode out as soon as possible. Because New Zealand gets the iPhone before everybody else, so we’ll see. We’ll try and get that out for you.
There is all sorts of interesting choice that you can make in the camera app. And we actually saw this happen before, where stereo recording came to the camera app first. And then, it was a long time before stereo recording was made available through the API to other apps.
But you can record in spatial audio, so that’s pretty cool. I mean, if you’ve got AirPods or something capable of receiving spatial audio, you can now make a recording in spatial audio through the video app, I imagine, the camera app, and play that back, and it will sound quite spectacular.
There’s also a whole suite of audio mix features, and they were going quite fast so Heidi, I don’t know if you’re able to bring up any data on audio mix. But for example, it’s using machine learning to do all sorts of cool stuff to the recording. It can separate audio elements out. And then once it’s done that, you can do things like isolate the person on camera. So any other surrounding background noise will be gone, or significantly reduced.
So you can imagine using this, say, in an exhibit hall environment. If you’re a podcaster covering a convention, and you want to record somebody and get rid of some of that background noise.
You can also eliminate reverb, which I really hope, oh my God! How do I hope that this also comes to the API for video conferencing apps? because I actually find it very difficult when people are brought on to radio stations and TV shows these days from the comfort of their home. I don’t know what sort of cacophonous, cavernous places people are living in. But I mean, it really sounds like a lot of them are coming in from the bathtub. And during the pandemic, I’ve sort of thought, how come audio hasn’t improved substantially? So I do hope we see that reverb elimination come to other apps.
They also have cinematic mixing, and that puts the vocal track in the foreground and the environmental sounds in the back, in the surrounds. So you can make surround sound recording, and that will sound phenomenal if you’re playing that back on a surround sound system.
There’s also an update to the Voice Memos app coming later, and this sounds like so much fun.
Judy: Oh, yeah.
[laughter]
Jonathan: I’m looking forward to hearing you sing a couple of numbers with this, Judy.
Judy: Yes, yes.
Jonathan: It reminds me of one of the first apps that I ever got, actually, for my iPhone called Gig Daddy. Anybody remember Gig Daddy?
Judy: Oh, I do.
Jonathan: Yeah. I do. So Gig Daddy did this sort of thing. So you can put in a track, and then you can essentially do sound on sound, and sing over the top.
But the cool thing about what Apple is doing is that the track can play over your iPhone speaker if necessary. And then afterwards, it’ll do machine learning to just take the echo back, as it were, from the speaker out of your vocals. And you can do Sound on sound and multi-track, and get a recording down if you need to.
What have you found for us, Heidi?
Heidi: You covered it all.
Jonathan: What? I was paying attention?
[laughter]
Jonathan: I’m sure there were some modes in that mixing thing that I was missing.
Heidi: No, you got them all.
Jonathan: Really? Okay.
Heidi : At least that’s all the ones they showed.
Jonathan: Alright. So can you tell from the images? Is this all built into the camera app when you double tap video, or is it a dedicated app, or can we tell where it’s coming from?
Heidi: It seems to be part of the camera. I don’t know if it’s done in the editing phase, or if you can choose during the recording phase though.
Jonathan: I’d say it’s post-production.
Heidi: Yeah.
Jonathan: Yeah. You just capture it, and then you can take care of it. So it’s really exciting.
Any thoughts on all this audio stuff from anyone else?
Mike: It’d be interesting to mess with. Like, this does sound like it’s really getting into professional recorder territory.
Jonathan: Yes. Isn’t it interesting how we have so many choices now? We’ve got these Zoom recorders that have taken the blind world by storm. And now, there are some pretty compelling things.
Let’s not forget also that if you’re upgrading from an older iphone to an iphone 16 anything, you’re going to get USB-C, and that really opens up all sorts of options in terms of accessories that you can connect. You can connect hard drives and thumb drives with your USB-C.
Judy: Microphones.
Jonathan: Yeah. Audio interfaces.
Judy: Yes.
Jonathan: All sorts of stuff. You can even connect a Zoom, say, an H1 Essential, if you want to.
Now, MagSafe charging is faster. And I’ll tell you what, it’s the little things sometimes. It’s the little things.
They’ve got a new MagSafe charger, and one of them gives you a longer length. And I cannot tell you… Do you remember, Heidi, how we had to basically refactor the whole studio because I wanted a MagSafe charger here? It would just seem so convenient. Now that you can impose an 80% limit on your battery, I just sit here with the MagSafe on my desk keeping the phone charged at 80%. Because New Zealand is prone to natural disasters, and it gives me comfort to know it’s sitting here at 80% if I need it.
But oh my word! That cord on that Apple MagSafe charger is so short.
Heidi: [laughs] Yeah, I do remember that.
Jonathan: Oh, man! We tried all sorts of USB to USB adapters, and it didn’t like that. And oh my word! It was just such a mission. So I’ll be getting the longer one.
Does the iPhone 16 Pro start at 256 gigabyte switches?
Judy: Oh, I wanted to know this, yes.
Heidi: Please hold.
Jonathan: Right, we’ll have another commercial break.
Judy: What are the sizes?
Jonathan: Because there was some suggestion they’re taking the 128 gigs away for the Pro model.
Heidi: The iPhone 16 Pro starts at 128, but the Pro Max starts at 256.
Jonathan: Oh, okay.
Judy: So what do they go up to?
Heidi: 1 terabyte for both.
Jonathan: That’s an odd decision.
Judy: And there’s a 512, yeah.
Jonathan: That’s an odd decision, though. I mean, why would you offer a 128 Pro, but not a 128 Pro Max? Oh well, ours is not to reason why.
So in the 16 Pro, you have 128, 256, 512, and 1TB or not?
Heidi: Yes, that’s right.
Jonathan: You do? Okay.
Judy: Yes.
Jonathan: Okay. All right.
And you can order the new AirPods today, and the new Apple Watch Series 10 today. And you can then order the iPhone 16, anything you want, …
Judy: On Friday.
Jonathan: On Friday. with all of those things scheduled to arrive on the 20th.
Judy: 20th, right.
Jonathan: Have we missed anything that we should be covering? I think we’ve gone through my little list here.
Heidi: The iPhone lineup now is the iPhone SE, the iPhone 14, the iPhone 15, the iPhone 16, and the iPhone 16 Pro.
Jonathan: So they’ve taken the iPhone 15 Pro out, have they?
Heidi: Yes.
Jonathan: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I guess that makes sense.
And we are expecting an iPhone SE refresh sometime in the new year. That one will be unlikely to have a home button. That’s my understanding, that they’re basing it on the iPhone 14.
But it will have Apple Intelligence, one would think.
Mike: That would be sensible, yeah, and then everyone could at least get the basic experience of that going forward.
Jonathan: Yeah. I guess, we’ll have to see.
Judy: I wonder if the SE would be so popular in the blind community once it doesn’t have a home button.
Jonathan: Look, I’ve heard a lot of real angst about this, and I wonder if anyone can offer any reassurance to people who are worried about losing the home button.
Judy : I wish I could, because I’ve had a lot of conversations with people about the home button.
Please just try and get over it. The gestures for simulating a home button are not difficult.
Mike: Yeah.
Jonathan: If you’ve gone to all the trouble of learning how to use the iPhone and all those gestures, it’s no deal at all to just swipe up from the bottom.
Judy: Yes, that’s right.
Jonathan: Yeah, it really isn’t. I mean, it’s just one more gesture.
Mike, sorry, you were going to say something?
Mike: I remember doing the transition when I got the phone where the gestures were there. And it maybe took like a couple of hours for them to feel very natural. I would sometimes forget that the app switcher was two beeps up. But after, like I say, a few hours, I was fine. Like really, getting around to the different areas.
Plus, there’s still the status bar. You can still get to the control center and notifications from the status bar if you have to. So you’ve got a bit of a backup there that hasn’t changed. And to get to the other ones, you just go up from the bottom. So it’s not hard. It really isn’t.
Jonathan: Very good.
Well, this has been fun. What’s in your goodie bag, Judy? What are you adding to your cart? It sounds like you’re getting them all. You’re getting the Apple Watch AirPods?
Judy: Probably not AirPods because I have an AirPod Pro 2, and I don’t need new ones. But yeah, I think I’m going to get a new watch. I wasn’t planning to, but I think I will. But I’m getting a new phone. I get a new phone every year.
Jonathan: Mate, if they were offering an Apple Watch Ultra 3, it wouldn’t even be an issue. I’m torn, torn, torn.
Very good. Mike, you use PayPal, right?
Mike: I actually do have PayPal. I mostly use Apple Pay these days.
Jonathan: Yeah. But what I’m thinking is if anybody would like to make a contribution to try and help, … I mean, you have now done 2 editions of this book gratis, you know, and a lot of people have learned how to benefit. So even if people were to chip in a few dollars to help with an iPhone 16 something, then many people would benefit because then you’d be able to write up the whole Apple Intelligence and that kind of stuff. So if you wanted to, …
Mike: It would be helpful. Now, the thing where we run into problems is, I’m on social assistance, so I have to be careful about any money coming in. It would be easier if someone bought the iPhone and sent it, something like that.
Jonathan: Right.
Mike: And then no money comes to me, and I don’t have to worry about that. So that would certainly make life easier on my end.
Jonathan: Ah, that’s a very good point. Wow!
Heidi: We could start a GoFundMe, sponsored by Living Blindfully. The money would come to Living Blindfully, and Living Blindfully could buy the phone and send it to you.
Jonathan: Okay.
Mike: That would work. [laughs]
Jonathan: Okay. I would definitely like to make a donation to this, because I think you’ve made such a significant contribution, and a selfless one as well. So are you going to set up the GoFundMe, Heidi?
Heidi: I don’t know how, but I’m sure I could figure it out.
[laughter]
Jonathan: Have you got any books in the pipeline, Judy?
Judy: Actually,, yes. I’m just working up an outline for a book on AI.
Jonathan: Oh boy! That’ll be popular.
Mike: Yes, and very timely. See, for me, if this iPhone Pro wasn’t winging its way to me, I would be waiting for a couple of years at least before upgrading and finally getting to check out the AI. And I think a lot of blind people are going to be in that situation, especially going for the Pro.
I’m glad the AI is coming to the base models because that’s a big thing to do without.
Jonathan: I know that there are people on serious ends of the spectrum with this topic, and I think I’ve got a healthy skepticism. But I have found, in recent times, especially, that I’m integrating AI in very useful ways into my life beyond the whole visual assistance thing, which I think is one of the best use cases ever for AI. I think we’ve got a real advantage there, but I’m finding that it assists me with things like Living Blindfully show notes.
For example, we do a machine-generated transcript to make things easier for Hannah. And now, I’m using AI to strip out all the timestamps that appear in that file.
Mike: Oh, wow!
Jonathan: So it’s more narrative, and I can just upload it to ChatGPT and say, GP mate, get rid of all the timestamps. Don’t change the file in any other way. Just get rid of the timestamps. And it does that.
I can ask it to strip metadata…
Time to stand up, somebody. Somebody’s being told to stand up at once.
[laughter]
Jonathan: Yeah. So I mean, I will be really interested in your take on AI. Is it primarily going to be the visual assistant stuff, or AI more broadly?
Judy: It’s going to be how it benefits blind people.
Jonathan: Right.
Judy: So it’s going to be primarily visual assistance, but I am going to do probably Windows, iPhone, the various apps, and mainstream and specialty, as well as things like Meta glasses.
Jonathan: Brilliant!
Well, I do not know what form these recaps will take in future. I do hope to be able to do them in a new capacity.
But I want to thank you all for being here today. It’s been great. And, of course, right throughout these recaps that we’ve done. And we’ll look forward to staying in touch. So thank you all.
Mike: Absolutely.
Judy: Very good. Thank you!
Jonathan: And we will be back this coming weekend for Episode 302. We look forward to that.
In the meantime, when you’re out there with your white cane, you’ve harnessed success. And with your cane, you’re able.
[music]