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Beta software has bugs. We all know this when we take on beta testing. But sometimes as a release gets closer, there may be bugs so critical that it’s necessary to draw attention to them in the hope of avoiding serious inconvenience. In my judgement, we’ve reached that stage now with some critical bugs remaining in iOS 17 affecting some Braille devices. I’ll give you the details this week and explain why this is so important. Are you testing iOS 17? If so, I welcome your thoughts on what new features you’re enjoying and how it is shaping up for you.
I don’t want to make you envious or anything, but when I attended the NFB convention, I had my hands on an Optima, which is the forthcoming Braille device running full Windows, as well as the OrbitSpeak, the new notetaker soon to ship from orbit Research. Guess what? The Optima has thumb keys now. You’ll hear my chat with Venkatesh Chari, the CEO of Orbit Research, and Adi Kushnir, the CEO of AccessMind.
We have some more memories of iOS apps that people once enjoyed using but have now gone to app heaven, and I’d enjoy hearing yours.
We revisit the question of the difficulty blind people have hearing in noisy environments, whether they’re hearing impaired or not. There is an app recommendation that could be worth checking out if you struggle in these environments. I’d not come across this app until I heard about it in the course of preparing this episode, and I have to say, my initial findings are extremely positive.
It’s scary how long I’ve been doing this sort of programming, because well over 20 years ago, I remember the subject of guide horses being of interest to people. Now a listener is revisiting this question and Bonnie offers some comments. If you have a guide horse, or know of anyone who does, please chime in.
All this and much more in episode 243 of Living Blindfully.