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Contents
Our Community Supports iOS Personal Power 3
ElevenLabs Voices Censoring Some Words. 6
Aftermath of the UK Election. 9
Inaccessible Medical Devices. 13
Low Vision VS Visually Impaired. 14
Talking glucometer, and transportation. 16
Real-world Experience of the Seleste Glasses. 17
Review and Demonstration of the Day One Journalling App for iOS.. 21
Streaming to Hearing Aids From Multiple Devices. 47
Welcome to 302
[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!
On the show this week: censorship of the spoken word. Is it a more complex question when AI is involved?, we go on a neighbourhood walk with the Selest smart glasses and chronicle your life, your work, or both with the powerful Day One journaling app. I’ll give you a demo.
This is episode 302. Oh, it’s so good to be back in a zone where we’ve got US area codes to correspond to the episodes.
302 is the only area code presently assigned to the great state of Delaware, and the great state of Delaware has had this area code apparently going all the way back to the 1940s, so it is a long-established area code.
If you happen to be listening from there, then a very warm welcome to you.
New Apple Goodies
Did you order some Apple things? It’s always a dilemma. Is there enough to upgrade your watch, or your phone, or whatever it is this year?
I can still hear people that I’ve worked with in various professional roles, usually the finance person saying, if you don’t measure it, you can’t improve it, Jonathan. So that’s turned me in to a major health data nut. A new form factor would have been unlikely to do it for me. But more health data collection does it for me, and I was keen to get the sleep apnea detection that’s now available in the Watch series 10 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 series.
I felt reluctant to order the Apple Watch Ultra 2 because it’s now last year’s model, and it just didn’t make sense for me to do that. So I’ve ordered the larger edition of the Apple Watch series 10. Bonnie’s got the smaller one. I got the titanium, she got the aluminium. Actually, given that she’s from the United States, she actually got the aluminim.
I also will be pre-ordering the iPhone 16 Pro Max in black. I say will be because by the time that you hear this, it will have been done.
But to be of assistance to Hannah, the transcribing banana, (we’re doing so much Living Blindfully at the moment) I’m trying to get the episodes out early to her.
So all being well, I will have pre-ordered it and nabbed one in time for a Friday delivery. And they come to New Zealand first, which is pretty exciting. So all being well, I will go through some of the new features in the iPhone 16 Pro Max, and we’ll get an episode out to you a little earlier than we normally do. We’ve got to get through the stuff that’s in the can by the end of September anyway.
So I’ll do what I can with the iPhone 16 Pro Max, assuming it does arrive on Friday, and we’ll also give you some other goodies in that episode. If you follow Living Blindfully on Mastodon, podcast@LivingBlindfully.social, that’s the best place for me to keep you updated about what is happening with this iPhone 16 Pro Max pre-order.
It’s so nice paying with Apple Pay online through the Apple Store. My little Amex card now has Apple Pay in New Zealand, and it just makes the checkout process so much simpler. It’s a wonderful, seamless way to pay for stuff, isn’t it?
I also have ordered the MagSafe charger that’s just come out from Apple. If you’ve not heard about this one because it’s been flying a little bit under the radar, the previous MagSafe charger with the right power adapter can charge your phone at 15 watts. The new MagSafe charger that was released after the Apple It’s Glow Time event will charge the iPhone 16 family at 25 watts. So that means that your phone will charge a lot quicker if you have the 30 watt power adapter to plug the MagSafe charger into. So you’ve got to get the new charger. And if you don’t have the 30 watt adapter already, buy that at the same time.
These are quite cool, you know. You just plonk this on the back of your phone. If you’re familiar with the way the Apple Watch charger works, it’s very similar to that. It locks into place very solidly, and you can get a quick charge from your phone.
I have my MagSafe charger down here in the studio, and just plug it in when I’m down here. I have the 80% limit enabled to try and look after my battery, but I’m quite looking forward to that extra bit of speedy charging, particularly when perhaps I forgot to charge the device and I need to rush out unexpectedly.
So it’s been a busy year for us this year, with a few new gadgets coming from Apple.
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Our Community Supports iOS Personal Power
Let’s follow up on something we were discussing in episode 301. Mike Feir mentioned in that episode that he’s working on a 3rd edition of his book Personal Power. This is an iOS book, and he gives it away free. It is humongonomous and comprehensive, and he mentioned that he would do his best to cover Apple Intelligence, but he wasn’t in a position at this stage to upgrade his phone to experience Apple Intelligence firsthand.
And it just occurred to me on the spur of the moment that Mike has made such a contribution. Surely, we can help him out with this because then, he’ll help us.
So I got a fundraiser together pretty quickly. Heidi and I set it up on a New Zealand site called Give a Little, which is kind of like a New Zealand version of GoFundMe. We raised the money in about 4 hours. I mean, it was really quick when we got it going. I put a message out on the Living Blindfully announcements list on Mastodon and on Facebook. And before you know it, we had the money.
So I want to thank everybody who contributed so generously to that. I know that reading Mike’s posts on Mastodon, he was surprised and genuinely humbled, and that’s wonderful. So we’ll get that iPhone 16 Pro to Mike.
iOS Notification Center
Ah. These emails move me, they do move me into bursting into song.
[Jonathan sings on reverb]
You are not alone.
I am here with you.
Should we start with Russell? Alright. We will, then.
“Hi, Jonathan,
I heard you talk about having an issue getting your notifications in iOS to show.
I had this issue as well in iOS 17.6, as well as in iOS 18 Public Beta 3. What happens for me is when I swipe down to get to notifications, I hear a sound, but I am not able to read any notifications. I found out quite by accident that when I hear that sound, if I touch the iPhone screen near the bottom, the focus is placed on my notifications, and I can swipe right to read through them.
I’m not sure if this is the same issue you are having, but it’s worth a try.”
I’ll keep trying, Russell. It sounds like the same issue because I’m getting that kind of error bonk sound when I swipe down for notifications sometimes.
So far, I have not found that touching the bottom of the screen is helping me. But I shall keep persisting when this happens because in iOS 18 beta, it’s got so bad at times. Normally, I can sort of go to the home screen, maybe go into another app or something, and eventually, I’ll get it resolved. But I’ve had a couple of occasions where it’s got so bad that the only thing I can do is to restart the device.
So I keep persisting with it, and I appreciate the tip.
And another one from Brian Clark. He says:
“Hi, Jonathan,
If I move focus to the status on my iPhone 15 Pro and the focus goes to the dynamic island area up there, I cannot bring up the notification center with a 3-finger swipe down. If I move the focus off the dynamic island, usually to the right one swipe, then I can bring down the notification center with a 3-finger swipe down.
I don’t know if this is what you are experiencing or not. If so, you can just mention in it. No need to read the whole email.”
Oh, I’m sorry. [laughs] I should have read it first, shouldn’t I?
It seems to me that each year, iOS has certain quirks, and this year has a few more quirks than normal. I don’t know, Brian. Every year is a little bit quirky. But that’s the nature of beta, isn’t it? Hopefully, we can get a lot of them ironed out.
He says:
“I have wondered if there are somehow differences in the hardware as I’ve gone from an iPhone 11, SE, to this iPhone 15 Pro around february this past year, and noticed a lot more quirkiness that’s interesting. For example, mysteriously navigating to the home screen while doing routing tasks in other apps, usually when a new page is loading.
Really appreciate your discussion about normalization and compression.”
Oh, you’re welcome.
“Hope you were getting a chance to catch your breath.”
Yes, it was nice. But sitting on the sidelines ain’t me. You know what I mean? So it was nice for a little while.
I don’t do notifications like you’re doing them, Brian. And what you’re saying, actually is, I think, expected behavior. Because if you are on the dynamic island, it’s its own little window, so a 3-finger swipe down would possibly refresh it, or go to another part of the island if there’s a lot of content in there.
The way that you get to notification center most efficiently in these newer phones, you don’t actually have to put your finger on the status bar at all. All you do is you swipe the opposite of the way you do when you’re at the bottom of the screen to go home. So put your finger at the top of the phone, and just swipe down with one finger. If you do that a little bit, you’ll get into control center. And if you do it more, you get 2 little sounds and you get into notification center.
At least, that’s what’s supposed to happen. But every so often, as we’ve been hearing for some of us, it does not, and it just makes a kind of an error sound which is most unusual.
I am quite intrigued by your observation that you think newer iphones are a little bit more quirky.
ElevenLabs Voices Censoring Some Words
Voice message: Good day, Jonathan and all Living Blindfully listeners! This is George here from South Africa.
For those of you who don’t know, there is an app that is being developed by ElevenLabs – ElevenLabs Reader, it’s called. It’s on iOS, and I do believe the Android version is in development at the moment.
Basically, what this does is it allows you to provide it with a text document in various text document forms, including epub, pdf, Microsoft Word, and txt perhaps, and it will use ElevenLabs voices to read them. Now, that is a lovely way of listening to audiobooks.
I love Voice Dream Reader, and I use it almost every day. But I do have to say, there is a certain appeal about taking a document, a book from Bookshare.
For instance, I’m reading a book series by an author named Harry Turtledove. The first book is called The Guns of the South. It’s an alternate history novel about the American Civil War. I love alternate history. I love the speculation.
And recently, ElevenLabs introduced in the Reader app iconic voices. They are celebrity voices who have been licensed. They are all deceased, as far as I know. We have Burt Reynolds who was an actor. We have Sir Lawrence Olivier, also an actor. And then, we have James Dean and I think it’s Julie? Julie or Judy somebody.
Now, the ElevenLabs app is only available, as far as I know at the moment in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. I have been very very lucky to be allowed access to the app for a couple of months, and I really enjoy using it.
I have chosen the Burt Reynolds voice as my default voice. And reading this alternate history series as it takes place during the time of the American Civil War and afterwards, there are a few words that get used that shouldn’t be used in modern times but that were sadly used back then.
Now, the copyright holders of these iconic voices have decided that they should not be allowed to say certain words, among them the F word, the S word, hell, damn, and that certain N word that was used a lot back then.
Firstly, I do agree that at least some of these are quite bad words (especially that last one), and shouldn’t be used. But I mean, when you’re reading a book, that’s not quite the same.
And what I struggle with is having this lovely Burt Reynolds voice, which is, in my opinion, the best one because of the way that it handles intonation. It can do various emotional expressions that most of the other voices can’t.
The copyright holders have decided that it shouldn’t be allowed to say certain words. And when it gets to those words, it will go, um. So if someone’s telling you to go to hell, it’ll go. And you can go straight to um, which I don’t really like.
I really want to get your guys’ opinion on this, because I don’t necessarily see the problem of a voice being able to say those certain words. I mean, the way I see it is if you’re reading a book, you should be able to read the book in its entirety. Unless ElevenLabs come up with voices that are as good as those belonging to those celebrities, we should be allowed to read our documents.
I can understand if it was erotic stuff that they wouldn’t want to be said. I could understand that. But these words that most of them can be found in everyday use. Not that last one, but most of them can be found in everyday use. To have them censored doesn’t really make sense.
Jonathan: Thanks, George!
When you sent that email, I already had the ElevenLabs Reader in the App Store here in New Zealand. And since then, it’s now gone global. So the ElevenLabs Reader is available worldwide now.
Those of us who’ve been around for a while will know that this is not a new topic, but it has some new dimensions in the world of AI. There used to be text-to-speech engines, or speech synthesizers actually, I mean these were really speech synthesizers using old formant speech technology that would bleep out certain words, and it was always fun trying to work out what words would make it go bleep. I think the Votrax speech synthesizer was the biggest bleeper of them all, but there may well have been others.
There was understandably a lot of pushback from the blind community who said you shouldn’t be censoring our literature like this. If it’s written down on the printed page or on the screen, then we need to know what’s written down. And these days, I don’t think we find text-to-speech engines that engage in that sort of palaver.
Now, where I say this has a different dimension is when you get a well-recognized voice like Burt Reynolds, or some of those other names that you mention, because at the risk of lapsing into horrible 21st century marketing speak, they have a personal brand to protect. If you make one of these celebrities say something, and then it goes out on the internet, it can be used to imply that they actually said that in real life, because you could feed any document to ElevenLabs. You could write it yourself. You could compose a Word document. You could put it into ElevenLabs Reader and you can make these celebrities say anything you want.
So I suppose the question then becomes, does the owner of that brand, for example, the estate of these celebrities who have died, have the ultimate say over the kind of things that the very real likeness, the very real resemblance of this voice is allowed to say?
I’m genuinely conflicted about this. On the one hand, I do not support blind people’s literature being censored. On the other hand, I know that if I put a voice out there, there might be things that I would not be happy having my voice saying and having it somehow implied that I might have said that.
Stefanie Magura is also talking about the ElevenLabs Reader. She says:
“Hello, Jonathan and everyone,
I downloaded the ElevenLabs Reader app after hearing about it on the podcast. And based just on audio quality of the voices, I am impressed. Additionally, I have found the app to usually be easy to use, as far as importing documents or sending them to the app via the share sheet and selecting a voice to read these.
The only problem I have really had is that a couple of documents I tried to import absolutely failed to do so, no matter what I did. This was whether I was importing them using the app, or sending them to the app using the share sheet. This was strange, since the documents I had successfully imported, and the ones which failed to import, were all EPUB files.
I got messages saying these were being investigated, so I am hopeful these issues will be fixed. I also hope that new features will be integrated such as Bookshare integration.
I thought I would give my feedback, since people are still looking for alternatives to Voice Dream.”
Thanks, Stefanie.
I completely understand why many people will love this ElevenLabs Reader, particularly if you’re a talking book listener. I tend not to be anymore. If I’m going to hear a book, I tend to do so using Eloquence or one of those voices where I can get through the book quickly. It’s just a personal taste thing. I know there are a couple of people I’ve encountered on Mastodon who feel the same way. What I want is the information. I don’t have to have a dramatic performance. I don’t have to have anybody putting on any voices, or anything like that. I just want to be able to get through the material with speech as quickly as I can.
Now, people love their talking books. Most people do in our community. And if you do, this ElevenLabs Reader is quite the breakthrough. It is a very cool app. And hopefully, any issues with passing particular EPUB files (maybe there’s a stray character getting it upset, or something like that) can be resolved in short order.
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Aftermath of the UK Election
Voice message: Hello, Jonathan and everyone on Living Blindfully! Mark Higgins here from Barnett in the UK.
I should let you know my perspective is as a member of the Conservative Party. I’ve been a conservative candidate at local level a couple of times, so I am bitterly disappointed with the result.
I, like you, Jonathan, was flabbergasted that Rishi Sunak called the election when he did. And I don’t know anybody, I can’t find a single person who thought it was a good idea.
The reason I think for that is partly borne out by the campaign that we ran. The Conservative Party spent the election campaign talking about how it had done a splendid job and how very shortly, people would see signs of that in their wallets and elsewhere.
The thing about that though, was that there was no evidence of it. And the evidence of it has only started to emerge, whether you agree with it or not, whether you agree with the argument or not, the evidence has only started to emerge over the last month or so. If the election had been in November (as I think it should have been), at least that argument could have been made and evidence cited in support. As it was, it was totally daft.
The campaign was also thoroughly wrong-headed and misplaced. I got emails from the Conservative Party about how I was missing in action, how I didn’t seem to want to support this campaign, and it was basically like being written to by your headmaster. And I’ve never seen a campaign like it, to be honest. It didn’t encourage people to get involved.
Labour, in the meantime, were very busy saying nothing and doing even less. And that was understandable, because they were a long way ahead in the polls, and it paid off.
So I’m very disappointed as a Conservative member. But having said that, it was entirely deserved, and the Conservatives forfeited the right to govern over the last few years. It was coming to the end of a cycle anyway, so we have to accept that.
I think if the election had been called in November, we would have lost, but not by as much. And that would have been, I think, more acceptable to most people in the Conservative Party.
Do I think we will be better off under Labour, which is the question you specifically asked in episode 294? Well, surprise, surprise. As a Conservative member, I don’t.
I know it’s not a political podcast, so I won’t get too granular. I don’t want to stoke division or anything like that.
But I think the one point I would make, which I can sort of illustrate my dissatisfaction, is the Labour has postponed the increase in defence spending, which the Conservatives were committed to 2.5% of GDP. That’s been postponed to an indefinite date. The Conservatives would have increased it by the end of the next Parliament to that level. Now, in my view, the end of the next Parliament is too long. And so, self-evidently, I’m not very happy with the postponement potentially even beyond that.
I think that in a world which is sadly perhaps as dangerous as it was in the 1930s, I think that’s an extremely short-sighted step by the Loby government. And I do hope that I’m wrong. I do wish Keir Starmer well because we can’t afford to have a weak government.
I was really interested to hear what you said, Jonathan, about first past the post. I’m a first past the post man. And the reason is that I think that it is the best and the most sure fire way of a dissatisfied electorate being able to throw out a government.
I think the problem with proportional systems, or systems that have an element of proportionality like the alternative to vote or something similar, is that you quite often end up with the same people in government just sitting in slightly different places around the table. And I really don’t think that’s particularly satisfactory.
I certainly acknowledge that under First Past the Post, it’s very difficult for smaller parties. Reform UK in this country, for example, got four million votes and ended up with 5 seats in the House of Commons, which was 5 seats more than a lot of people were predicting they were going to get. But the Liberal Democrats, for example, got fewer votes than that and ended up with 70 seats. So there is a degree of unfairness in terms of where your support is.
But I would take that unfairness, personally, over the unfairness of not being able to throw out a government. But that’s a value judgment.
I’d be really interested to know what you think of that with the New Zealand perspective of having abolished the first past the post system. And we actually had a referendum on abolishing First Past the Post in 2011 and partly because of the system it was up against which was not a particularly satisfactory one. First Past the Post was retained with a majority of 7 million votes I think in that referendum so it was pretty decisive.
The second point about the election, and the final general point I’d make is that it’s an extraordinary election here in the UK.
The Labour majority has been described as a mile-wide and an inch-deep. And what that means is that they hold a large number of constituencies, but the majorities are tiny. It’s a vote very much against the Conservatives, rather than for Labour. And they have inherited a very very difficult set of circumstances.
I’m going to make a prediction on Living Blindfully, right here and now, that we are in for a one-term Labour government.
Jonathan: Thanks for sharing your views, Mark!
Based on our experience here in New Zealand with proportional representation, I don’t think your fears are particularly well-founded. For example, New Zealand was widely praised in 2020 for the way that it locked down and minimised deaths during the pandemic. The response was swift, severe and effective at minimising. minimized loss of life considerably.
And in 2020, the Labour Party, under the leadership of Jacinda Ardern achieved the remarkable feat of being able to form a majority government under a proportional system. That had not happened in New Zealand before, since the introduction of proportional representation back in 1996.
In 2023, that government, with its historic majority, was tossed out on its ear resoundingly. And it’s easily done. The reason why it’s easily done is that generally, you know which parties are going to coalesce with one another. So in 2023, it wasn’t as if there was this resounding desire to have the leader of the opposition become prime minister, but there was a resounding desire to toss the current government out. So people who wanted that outcome simply voted for any of the parties that they knew would form a coalition to do just that.
And for those people who felt that way, it became a question of what kind of shape did you want this government to have? Did you want it to be centre-right, in which case you’d vote for the National Party which is a fairly large party in this country, much like the Conservatives used to be before they were decimated in Britain? Or did you want something a little bit more right of centre, or a little bit more nationalist, in which case there were options, but you were deliberately making a choice by voting for those parties to get rid of the present government? You knew that if you wanted the present government, you could potentially vote for the Green Party, which, if they had sufficient number and the two parties got over the line, the Greens and Labour, would change the complexion of the government significantly.
So that’s how we do it in our real world experience. And in my experience, if New Zealanders under a proportional representation want a specific government gone, they know what to do.
Now, I would counter argue with you that that can be harder under a first past the post system because if somebody resoundingly wants a government gone, but the opposition vote gets split, say, between Labour and the Liberal Democrats, then the Conservatives can squeak through in an electorate under the first past the post system, even though they did not receive a majority of the votes, but they got a plurality of the vote. And that seems to me to be fundamentally unfair.
And what happens when you get a fundamentally unfair system like that is people become disillusioned with the democratic process. Voter turnout goes down because they feel like it doesn’t matter how they vote. They can’t really influence the outcome in a way that they want to. And that is particularly the case if you’re in a safe seat.
If you, for example, are in a very safe Tory seat and you want to support the Labour government, it really doesn’t matter what you do. You can’t influence it, even though it’s a national issue.
So I’m a big fan of proportional representation. I think it’s fair. I think coalition governments require compromise, debate, and good quality public policy discussion, and I think it’s a far better system.
Voice message: Hi, Jonathan and the Living Blindfully family! It’s Pete in Robin Hood County.
So you asked what you thought would happen to our country now that Labour have taken over.
Problems. I think there’s going to be some difficulties ahead, and the first thing they did was anger all the old-age pensioners by taking the winter fuel payment away. I don’t mind them doing that because I can afford to live without it, but it’s harder to take money away from people once you’ve given it.
On a lighter note, some time ago, I suggested someone for you to listen to in the world of music, which was Pete Atkin. Now, you could listen to the great Jonathan Richmond. What a great advert for America he was in the 80s. He writes some great songs, he does. I’ve got all his music on the Soup Drinker, so I hope you enjoy that as well.
My sympathies go to the gentleman from South Africa. It must be terrible not having any services for people with visual issues.
iOS Personal Voice
Voice message: Hi, Jonathan! It’s Will from the UK. Just wanted to comment on Ian Harrison’s question raised in episode 294 with personal voice.
I did my voice and actually, it was quite accurate. I believe you can use your personal voice with iOS 18 going forward.
What I did, I turned off continuous recording mode and it moved to the next phrase. So I’d read the phrase, for example, let’s say it said he likes to have a barbecue every weekend. Let’s just say that was one of the phrases. I’d read that with VoiceOver, memorise it, and then just hit record, and then read it. And then, it’d go beep and move on to the next phrase. As you say, a Braille display is better, I guess, to read these phrases.
Also, personal voice is set to United States English, but it managed to pick up my accent.
Wouldn’t it be cool if we could share our personal voices so we could have you reading all of our phones? It would be interesting, Jonathan. I wonder what your voice sounded like, actually. I don’t think we heard it, did we? But I’d be interested if we could share personal voice data.
Jonathan: Good to hear from you, and thanks for the tips.
I thought I would respond using my personal voice, which certainly does sound like me. The idea of being a voice on people’s devices reading things to them is an extremely scary prospect, and I’m sure not many people would want me to do that.
I think it’s unlikely Apple will ever allow the sharing of personal voices. Because the original purpose of personal voice was for those who are unable to speak for themselves, so it’s designed to be very accurate. And in the wrong hands, it could be used for nefarious purposes. But I suppose you could argue that with technology like ElevenLabs, that genie is out of the bottle.
And can i just say, speaking of voices, I don’t know if you’re a fan of the BBC radio series The Archers, something I first started listening to about 50 years ago now. But your voice sounds remarkably like Vince Casey. Incredible, I tell you.
Inaccessible Medical Devices
Voice message: Hi, Jonathan and the entire community! Justin Daubenmire here from North America. I just wanted to touch base on the need for medical devices to be accessible.
I was listening to episode 295, and a gentleman had spoken about using CPAP therapy and the frustrations around it being inaccessible, that you can’t see the screens, you can’t see errors, you can’t access the menus, none of it. And I 100% agree with you. I have been a CPAP user for probably at least the past 15 years, and it can be very frustrating.
But I will say this. I have used an AirSense 10 (that’s just a type of a CPAP machine), for probably the past 3 to 4 years, and I don’t think I’ve ever had an error on it.
And not to say that you can’t get an error, you absolutely can. But honestly, I just fill up my reservoir with water, snap it in place, hit the on button, strap the mask on, sleep, get up, shut it off, and the pattern repeats. I’ve done that for 3, 4 years with no errors at all.
The only time that I use sighted assistance on the CPAP machine is if I want to adjust the humidity level. I’ll either FaceTime somebody, or if someone’s over visiting, I’ll just have them adjust it. But I maybe adjust the humidity level 2 times a year, maybe 3 because where I live, there’s different seasons. So it requires different humidity levels.
So I just wanted to share my experience with everyone that it’s actually been very successful, even though I can’t adjust anything and I need some sighted assistance. But really, the sighted assistance that I’ve required has been very minimal in 15 years. And I really haven’t ever gotten an error message.
Low Vision VS Visually Impaired
Larissa says:
“Good evening, Jonathan,
I wanted to touch a bit on the proper terminology in terms of the blind community.
So I myself am low vision/legally blind since birth due to ROP.” (That’s retinopathy of prematurity). “Although I regarded myself all throughout my school years as visually impaired, I did not come upon the term low vision until recently.
Is the term visually impaired outdated? You have mentioned off and on your podcast that it is respectable to be blind. What does this actually mean? I know that blind encompasses all sorts of causes, but I want to ask this of your low vision listeners. Do you feel comfortable saying that you’re blind even if you have some usable vision?
I don’t know how it is nowadays for children and young adults who are low vision. When I was growing up, I received large print accommodation and orientation and mobility instruction, mostly relying on the vision that I had. I was not cane trained, nor was I taught Braille, I presume because teachers figured I could just rely on my vision.
Looking back, I think that was somewhat damaging, as I never really considered myself impaired, never considered that there was anything wrong with me. And the cane would have definitely helped in terms of identifying myself as somebody with low vision, and also not having to look down at the floor when I walked, and also being able to judge the height and depth of things. Not that we can change the past.
Anyone else have similar stories?
I believe that my experience has made me more convinced that regardless of a student’s level of vision and their diagnosis, even if they have some functional vision, they should be taught to use a cane, at least for identification purposes to begin with. I unfortunately, as I mentioned, was not one of those, and I really have had a hard time adjusting to the cane being a good thing. How do I get past this?”
Thanks for sharing your experience, Larissa. Your experience is sadly far too common. And in chronicling your experience, you’ve actually answered the question that you asked me about what it means when we say it’s respectable to be blind.
It can be really tough for kids sometimes who just want to fit in. Difference is not really encouraged in kids. You need to be part of the in crowd. So for some, a white cane and some of the technology that blind people use can be quite othering, even if it improves outcomes, even if it makes your life easier. It’s not “normal”. It’s not what everybody else is doing. So it makes a kid stand out, and that means that they may resist it.
And that’s where the whole concept of mentoring and blind pride and saying actually, a cane is a badge of honor. With this cane, I can do all sorts of things that I otherwise wouldn’t be able to do as well, as safely, or as efficiently.
And that all comes back to the statement, it is respectable to be blind. There may be things that you have to do in an alternative way, but that doesn’t make them an inferior way. And traveling with a cane is one of those things.
Using Braille as an alternative form of literacy is another one. If your vision is low and it can cause you eye strain and difficulty in certain lighting conditions, then Braille is a superior form of literacy, and we’ve got to get that message out.
The other problem, of course, is resourcing, and what often happens is that only the blindest children, so-called, get access to braille and to O&M instruction. And those with a bit of vision, regardless of the prognosis, regardless of the challenges and certain conditions, don’t get the attention that they deserve. The constraints on resources are real, and it’s unfortunate that in 2024, we have to keep making these arguments. Because whether you look at it from a moral or an economic perspective, it is just not right that kids are still having to struggle to get these techniques of blindness. Investing in them for children is an investment in people being productive and capable.
We know about the data when it comes to Braille readers and employment. The unemployment rate is high for blind people. It is much lower. It is much closer to the average unemployment rate among Braille readers.
Braille is absolutely essential. We’ve got to keep fighting for it. We’ve got to make sure that everybody has access to it.
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Talking glucometer, and transportation
Voice message: Well good afternoon, Jonathan and all you Living Blindfully folks out there. This is Marvin Rush in southwest Louisiana. I haven’t gotten to contribute in a while, but I have heard a few things that I wanted to talk about.
The first thing is medical devices. I have recently had to stay in the hospital. And because of some things happening, I have now started to use insulin every day.
So I have had to find a good talking glucometer, which I’ve found one. The Embrace talking glucometer works fine, but there are a couple of things. You can’t set the clock without sighted assistance, nor can you look back through your recent readings. But if you just want a thing that will give you your blood sugar, there you go.
I am working toward getting a Dexcom G7 since I’m having to test 3 times a day, inject insulin, and do all that kind of thing.
The next thing, autonomous vehicles. The number one problem that blind people have, as you very well know, Jonathan, that number one thing is transportation. So would I get into an autonomous vehicle? You bet I would, if I could go out and get in a vehicle and go where I wanted to go when I wanted to go there. I mean, that would be for sure a game changer.
Jonathan: Good to hear from you, Marvin. Hope all goes OK as you adjust to the insulin thing. I’m sure that’s a big adjustment.
I reckon that transportation might be the number 2 or number 3 thing. For me, the number one problem that blind people face is other people’s attitudes about blindness because it constrains public policy. It could even constrain the degree to which we can get into self-driving vehicles. But not to negate your point at all, really, because transportation is right up there.
I’m really looking forward to seeing these autonomous vehicles develop, and it’s so critical that they develop in a way that includes blind people. There was a resolution at the NFB convention about this very thing. It’s critical that there not be any requirements that you have to have a driver’s license before you get into autonomous vehicles, and we also have to make sure that systems are accessible.
Accessible Grammar Checker
Voice message: Hi, Jonathan and Living Blindfully listeners! This is Rich Yamamoto from Kansas City, Kansas.
I just started college classes this week at the time of recording, and I want to know if anybody has any recommendations for a good accessible grammar checker. My college professors told me that the AI checker thingy in Microsoft Word isn’t going to cut it, and there isn’t really a good grammar checker in Pages, I don’t think, like, built in. So I’m wondering if there’s something that’s specifically designed to do that kind of thing, grammar, spell checking, stuff like that, that I could either download as an extension to the word processor, or purchase a subscription and use, like, a web-based platform or something. I really don’t care. I just want to have something that I know will be reliable and that I know will work for these back-to-back papers that I have to write each week. And I don’t really want to have to worry about fiddling with something to make something else work or the inaccuracies of the Microsoft Word dictionary or whatever.
Jonathan: Grammar checker? Grammar checker? We don’t need no grammar checker.
Far be it for me to contradict your professors, Rich. But I wonder whether we might be talking at cross-purposes here because Microsoft Word has had a grammar checker in it for a long time, long before the current crop of AI things that has so many of us animated in one form or another. And I consider that grammar checker to be reasonably good. So when your professors are disparaging Microsoft Word, I wonder whether they are talking about CoPilot and some of the things that it is doing.
I think the problem we have is that the gold standard does appear to be Grammarly. And I know many people have attempted to get Grammarly interested in accessibility. Last I heard, they just are not. I’d love to hear that that has changed, but I’ve not heard that it has changed.
So the grammar checker in Word, by default, actually comes up when you do a spell check. So you press F7, and by default, the spell checker and the grammar checker comes up at the same time. And I believe that should resolve the most egregious grammatical errors that people tend to make.
Now, I did go to the ChatGPT site on my PC, particularly now that it is so much more accessible. They’ve got ChatGPT automatically speaking back now when you use it with a Windows screen reader. They also have labeled a lot of those unlabeled buttons, so it’s much better to use on the PC now.
And I said to ChatGPT, I said, GP, I said, can you check grammar? And it said yes, it can. Upload a document, and I will check it for you.
But it didn’t come back with a list of grammatical errors that it suggests that you fix. It just rewrites the document. And I certainly agree with your learned professors that that’s not the answer. You don’t want to put it through AI and have it rewrite the document so it doesn’t sound like you. And I wonder whether that’s what they’re talking about.
But the word grammar checker should be OK.
Real-world Experience of the Seleste Glasses
Understandably, there is a lot of interest in the blindness wearables market, which is manifesting itself, mostly at the moment, with these smart glasses products.
Let’s go back to a product we’ve talked about in the past. We’ve got more real-world user testimony on it.
Voice message: Hello, Jonathan! My name is Gregory Hinote, and I live in Illinois. I am a 64-year-old gentleman with RP that has some light perception, and I can see movement and shadows.
These Seleste glasses are maturing very nicely with frequent updates from the developers Shubh and Sunwoo. You have interviewed Shubh on your podcast in the past. These two young men Are competing with some big companies and big money, but they are doing some good work. Like all wearables, there is some hallucinations and latency, but the hallucinations are becoming far less, and latency is getting better.
I also have the Ray-Bans, a Meta Ray-Ban, and I use both glasses every day. I don’t leave the house without them.
Jonathan: Well, we like hearing from our regulars, but we also love hearing from people who haven’t contributed to the show before, Gregory, so thank you very much for getting in touch.
You have put this mental picture in my head though, of blind people walking around with a pile of glasses on their heads to get the right effect – the Ray-Ban, the Envision, and the Seleste. I know that can’t work, of course, because it’ll obstruct each other’s view. [laughs]
Anyway, I’m going to be quiet (Yes. Yay!), and play a recording that Gregory has sent us, which illustrates how the Seleste glasses are working in a neighborhood situation. So let’s have a listen.
And as we do, just to let you know that I have done some extensive digital restoration on this file, because there’s a little bit of wind noise in the mix blowing into the microphone.
[start of recording]
Gregory: Open Seleste.
VoiceOver: Question, text field. Is editing.
Hey, Ella. Look ahead of me and warn me of any objects in front of me on the sidewalk.
Ask Ella, button.
Seleste: Scanning…
[Gregory walking, using the constant contact method]
Seleste: The sidewalk ahead looks clear. There are no immediate obstacles in your path. The sidewalk ahead of you is clear of any major obstacles. There are some small leaves scattered on the sidewalk, but nothing significant that would obstruct your path.
The sidewalk in front of you is clear of any objects. You can continue walking straight ahead. There are no significant objects obstructing the sidewalk directly in front of you.
However, there is a small red object on the sidewalk a few feet ahead. There is a large rock on the sidewalk ahead of you, slightly to the left. Be careful as you approach it.
There is a bush slightly ahead of you on the sidewalk. It is about 10 feet in front of you.
There are some weeds growing through the cracks in the sidewalk ahead of you. Be cautious of these, as they might cause you to trip.
There is a manhole cover slightly to your right on the sidewalk. Be cautious, as it might be a tripping hazard.
There is a small plastic bottle on the sidewalk slightly to your right, near the edge of the curb.
There is a wooden pole directly in front of you on the sidewalk, surrounded by some large rocks. Be careful as you approach.
The sidewalk ahead of you is clear. There are no objects obstructing your path. There are no significant objects directly in front of you on the sidewalk.
However, there is a slight crack and some debris scattered on the sidewalk. Please be cautious.
There is a parked truck on the right side of the sidewalk. Be cautious as you approach it.
There is a parked truck on the right side of the sidewalk. The sidewalk itself is clear.
The sidewalk ahead of you looks clear of any immediate obstacles.
There is a car parked partially on the sidewalk ahead of you. Be cautious and move slightly to your left to avoid it.
There are no immediate obstacles directly in front of you on the sidewalk. However, there are parked cars along the right side of the sidewalk.
There are 2 parked cars partially blocking the sidewalk ahead of you. One is closer on your right, and the other is slightly further ahead on the same side.
There are no immediate objects obstructing the sidewalk directly in front of you. The path ahead appears clear.
There is a black trash bin on the sidewalk directly ahead of you. It is slightly to your left.
There is a fire hydrant and directly in front of you on the left side of the sidewalk.
The sidewalk ahead of you appears clear of any obstacles.
There is a tree stump slightly to your left on the grass next to the sidewalk.
The sidewalk ahead appears to be clear.
There is a rough and uneven section of the sidewalk directly in front of you. Be cautious as you walk over it.
There are some patches of grass and uneven pavement on the sidewalk ahead of you. Be cautious of these as you walk.
Stopped scanning.
AI processing is taking too long. Please try again.
Gregory: Hey, Ella.
Seleste: Listening.
Gregory: Look ahead of me and warn me of any objects in front of me on the sidewalk.
Seleste: Scanning…
The sidewalk ahead of you is clear. There are no immediate obstacles in your path.
There is a utility pole directly in front of you on the sidewalk. It’s about 10 feet ahead.
There is a utility pole directly in front of you on the sidewalk. Be careful as you approach it.
[end of recording]
Jonathan: Gregory, thank you so much for sending that and taking a walk in your neighborhood with the Seleste glasses. I really appreciate it, and I found it interesting.
Gregory supplied about 28 minutes of audio, so I severely edited it there because most of the time, it was just playing its little jingle and saying that things are okay. There were no significant obstacles.
I understand that there has to be some means of letting someone know that the AI is still doing its thing. I would imagine that jingle could get quite annoying quite quickly, especially if you’re trying to listen for audible clues and that jingle keeps playing. And it’s challenging because if you’re in a noisy environment, maybe some sort of less obtrusive sound might not cut through. So I get the dilemma. So fair enough.
One of the things that irritated me about that was constantly hearing it telling the user to be cautious, be careful as you approach things. These glasses are being worn by grown-ups who probably have a lot of experience of getting about with blindness or low vision. It reminds me of when you’re just minding your own business walking somewhere. And out of the blue, someone pops out and says careful. And you think, how do they think I got on before they popped up and helpfully told me to be careful? So I think it could back off the caution and take care thing.
Assuming that that information was mostly accurate, that was pretty interesting. I’d be interested to know what it’s like if you’re approaching a building, for example, and looking for the door, or even if you’re attempting to cross a street, what’s it doing there? Because a lot of the time, it’s the last meter or 2 when GPS has got you roughly to the location and you’re trying to find the way in. It can be remarkably challenging at times.
Thanks again, Gregory. Really appreciate that very much.
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Review and Demonstration of the Day One Journalling App for iOS
Today, I’m going to take a look at the Day One app, which is a powerful journaling tool available for iOS, Android, and Mac. There are ways of getting content into Day One from a Windows device, and I’ll describe those as part of this review.
Day One was acquired in 2021 by Automatic, the company that produces WordPress and Tumblr.
Before we get into what this app does, let’s talk about the why. Why would you want to use this app? Why would you want to do journaling?
In Oscar Wilde’s play, The Importance of Being Earnest, Gwendolyn Fairfax says that she always keeps a diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.
It’s a great line, and keeping a journal of the events that happen in your life is certainly one good use of a journaling app. You can review it and see how you’ve changed over time. Perhaps it’ll serve as a demonstration that you’re more resilient than you give yourself credit for.
It can give you a sense of perspective. If you write frankly in your journal, you may realize that many of the things you worried about never came to pass, or weren’t as bad as you feared. Reviewing the journal allows you to become familiar with patterns that may be holding you back in your relationships and life in general.
If you want, you can make a personal journal available to people who survive you after you die, so future generations know who you were, the things you thought about, the triumphs, the challenges, and even your thoughts on current events.
There’s plenty of scientific evidence that journaling is a good way to relieve stress. Writing your thoughts down, or even recording them in audio, releases the thoughts from your head, where they often go around and around, and they amplify themselves. So get those thoughts out of your head, and onto your device. The very process of doing this can clarify your thinking.
Research shows that it actually lowers your cortisol levels, which can be unhealthily high when you’re under high stress, and that will improve your physical and psychological well-being. Even without reviewing the journal, research shows that the very act of writing something down means you’re more likely to remember more of it. The benefits for memory are cumulative. All the information gets processed through writing, neural connections grow stronger over time, so recall becomes easier.
A good journal app can be used for more than just a personal diary, and you may have journals devoted to different topics. For example, you may like to have a journal that records all the books that you’ve read. Making notes about the books as you read them will strengthen reading comprehension. And in years from now, if your journal has good metadata, you’ll be able to locate a book whose title has come up in conversation, but which you don’t immediately recall.
If you’re seeking to improve your health, you might like to keep a record of your food intake, along with reflections on how modifications to your diet are making you feel, so you can make evidence-based decisions on how to optimize your health.
If you have a job where you meet a lot of people, or you’re involved in a lot of advocacy, you might keep a journal of meetings that you’ve had, who they were with, and what was discussed. If you’ve established some personal rapport with the person that you’re meeting with, you may write down the name of their spouse or children while it’s fresh in your mind, so the next time you’re going to meet with that person, you can refresh your memory.
Whether you include it in your personal journal or you have a dedicated one for the purpose, you may also like to adopt a daily gratitude practice, which is how I got into journaling. When I became interested in meditation, many people talked of the benefits of writing down the things you’re grateful for. For those of us involved in advocacy, or when we’re going through hard times, it can be a grounding exercise that helps keep a sense of perspective.
For years, I kept my gratitude journal in a password-protected Word document. But several listeners (and I have to thank Mike Feir in particular for being consistently effusive about this) sang the praises of an app called Day One. I signed up for the free month of premium and haven’t looked back. I’ve only used it on iOS and on that platform, it’s very accessible.
First, let’s look at the two different tiers that Day One offers.
Day One Basic is free to use indefinitely. It has some limitations, but they may not matter to you, particularly if you’re just getting started with journaling. You can only have one journal on the Basic plan, but that journal can contain an unlimited number of entries. When you’re creating entries in that journal, you can only add one photo to each entry.
Day One Premium costs US$35 per year and in my view, they’ve packed so much into the premium tier that it’s excellent value for money. When you pay, it unlocks the premium options on all supported device types. So the one subscription will get you premium on iOS, Mac, and Android.
You can create unlimited journals. You can create up to 30 media items per entry including photos, video, audio, which you can record right in the app if you want, and you can upload files like PDF documents. You can also transcribe the audio. It can import items from Instagram, and it lets you post to each of your journals via email, which is the easiest way to post a journal entry from a Windows device. You can also send entries via text message. You can use the IFTTT service to connect Day One Premium with other services. If you want to, you can even order your journal as printed books. That’s available on Basic too, but there are discounts for Premium subscribers.
Apple has been paying increasing attention to mood and mindfulness lately. You can record your mood in the Health app as of iOS 17, and they’ve introduced their own journaling app in iOS 17.2.
So it’s a fair question: why would you want to download a third-party app and potentially pay for one when Apple has journaling built in?
Well, anything that gets people into journaling is a good thing, but Apple’s app is much more rudimentary than many of us (myself included), were expecting.
Formatting in Apple’s journaling app is very basic.
You can’t set up multiple journals.
One important feature of a good journaling app is that you should be able to categorize items and search past entries effectively. Apple’s journaling app lacks these essential search features, and you can’t even assign tags to entries.
In Apple Journal, you can’t create your own templates. This can be a huge aid to regular journaling, as I’ll demonstrate later in this review.
Apple’s app isn’t available on the Mac, or even on the iPad. And if you’ve been using another journaling app like Day One for some length of time, there’s no import function.
Apple’s Journal app will let you record audio, but you can’t transcribe audio to text as you can with Day One Premium.
And finally, Apple’s Journal app does not allow you to share journals, but Day One now does. This is a fairly recent feature that Day One has added. There might be all sorts of valuable use cases for shared journals, but one I can immediately think of is if you are traveling with someone and you both want to chronicle your journey, then you can both add text and multimedia to the same journal, which is a pretty cool feature.
So let’s get into a demonstration. I’m going to launch the Day One app. And although I do have my entire device protected by Face ID, I also have an extra layer of Face ID configured specifically for Day One, and that’s configurable in settings. So I will get Siri to open the app.
Open day one.
VoiceOver: Alert. Face ID authenticated.
Day One.
Toolbar. Create new entry.
Jonathan: I think that illustrates the degree of thought that’s been given to Day One’s accessibility with VoiceOver, Apple’s built-in screen reader. Not only do you have focus on the toolbar, but you actually have focus on the create new entry item. So all you have to do is double tap, and you will be creating your journal. So that’s how the process works for those of us who’ve been using day one for a while.
If you’re just using this app for the first time, then obviously, you will need to create an account. You can sign in in several ways. I chose to sign in with my Apple ID, and that seems to work very well.
Once you’ve created your account, you’ll need to create your first journal, and Day One guides you through that process.
In addition to double tapping the create new entry item, you can also, if you have a keyboard connected, press command N.
VoiceOver: Text field. Is editing. Insertion point at start.
Jonathan: Right away, you’re placed in an edit field where you can start to type. And that’s the basics of adding a new entry. It really is as simple as that.
If you press enter, you’ll insert paragraph breaks, all the things that you would expect.
There are also some things you might not expect that make writing in this journal editor very nice, the most significant of which is that it supports Markdown. Markdown is supported by many iOS apps, and it’s a good thing to learn if you intend to create content on your iPhone or your iPad. And it’s by no means exclusive to mobile devices. Markdown is all over the place. You will see it on the web. You will see it in some Windows applications. So Markdown is a very useful thing to learn.
If you want a bit of a tutorial or a refresher on Markdown, you can go back to episode 48 of this podcast, where I teach you the basics of working with Markdown.
I was a bit of a cynic about Markdown for a while. When I first heard about it, I thought, what is this, 1984? It took me back to working with programs on the Apple IIe like Braille Edit and Braille Edit Express, which probably most people listening now don’t even know of or remember.
But actually, Markdown is really useful, and it is available in Day One. What that means is that you can create headings, you can create bulleted lists, You can create hyperlinks, all the things that you might want to do to create a beautifully formatted document.
So if I want to create a heading level 2 at the top of this journal entry, I can type the # sign twice, and then press the spacebar. We heard a bit of a sound there. It has changed the formatting, and we can verify this in just a moment.
I’m just going to type welcome to this test demo journal entry, and I’m going to press enter twice.
VoiceOver: New line.
Jonathan: Putting 2 blank lines in here means that we are no longer working with a heading level 2. This is just regular body text, and I can type this is my demo journal entry for Living Blindfully. I will press enter twice, and make a new paragraph.
VoiceOver: New line.
Jonathan: If I go to the top of this document now by pressing the command key with up arrow, …
VoiceOver: Start of text. Welcome to this test demo journal entry.
Jonathan: I can query the formatting to check whether the heading level 2 style has in fact been applied. To do that, I can press VO with T for Tango.
VoiceOver: 20 point. Bold. Left justified.
Jonathan: Brilliant! So that tells us that this is a little bit bigger because it’s a heading level 2.
Now, I can down arrow.
VoiceOver: New line.
This is my demo journal entry for Living Blindfully.
18 point. Not bold.
Jonathan: VoiceOver volunteered the format change there without me having to press anything. It indicates it’s 18 point and not bolded. So that means we’ve moved on from the heading level 2.
Very easy to insert Markdown text. If you want to bold and italicize, there are the standard keyboard commands available here. You can use Markdown. But if you prefer, you can press Command B to make text bold, and Command I to italicize text.
You can also select text, and then press Command K, and that will make a hyperlink, and you’ll be invited to enter the URL of the hyperlink. So pretty fully fledged text editor here in Day One.
Having written a little bit of text, let’s explore what else is on the screen in addition to this text edit field. We’ll go to the top of it.
VoiceOver: Fri, January 26, 2024, [6:56] AM.
Go down, button.
Jonathan: By double tapping this item, you can change the date and time of the entry. If you’re going back and you’re thinking about something you should have written about, you’re able to go on here, change the date and the time, and write something that will be recorded in your journal as having been written at an earlier time.
I’ll flick right.
VoiceOver: Entry actions, button.
Jonathan: There are a number of entry actions that you can take.
One little bug, or anomaly or something that I’ve found is that sometimes, when I double tap this button, it doesn’t work. There usually are other ways to do the same thing from the actions rotor if you invoke that actions rotor on a particular entry.
But hopefully, the technology Gods are smiling on me and when I double tap this button, it’s going to work this time.
VoiceOver: Undo, button.
Jonathan: Look at this. So let’s go through the options.
VoiceOver: Tag, button.
Jonathan: Tags are a very powerful feature of Day One. In my personal journal, I have a lot of tags. They might be relating to family members that I journal about regularly. If I write about this podcast, I have a Living Blindfully tag that I assign to a post. If I’m writing about boards I’m on or somewhere where I’m working, I will have a tag for that.
It may sound like hard work, but the work pays off when you’re searching your journal. Let’s say that it’s the end of the year, and I’m looking at Living Blindfully in review. And I want to remember the highlights, the things that were so important that I wrote about them in my journal. By choosing the Living Blindfully tag, I can see all the journal entries where I mentioned the podcast.
If you didn’t tag your entries at the time, there is a way to go through and tag the untagged ones at a later time. But if you’re going to be using Day One regularly, it’s good to get into the habit of tagging your entries.
To create a tag, you simply double tap the tag button. And then, type the tag’s name.
When you’ve used a tag once, you’ll be able to flick through existing tags that you’ve used before and double tap them, which makes selecting tags in the future really simple. The more times that you use a tag, the higher it will be up the list. So you’ll see your most frequently used tags first.
VoiceOver: Move to…
Jonathan: If you accidentally wrote something in the wrong journal, or perhaps you create a new journal (let’s say that I’m writing so much about Living Blindfully that I decide to create a Living Blindfully-specific journal), you can move your entry from here.
The move screen is just one of several places that give you the opportunity to create a new journal as well. So if the mood strikes you when you’re reviewing your entry and you think, you know, I should really create a journal about this topic, you can go ahead and do it right from that screen.
VoiceOver: Copy to…, button.
Jonathan: Same as move except if you want a journal entry to appear in multiple places, you can copy to another journal from here.
VoiceOver: Move to trash, button.
Jonathan: You can delete the entry, if you want.
VoiceOver: Entry info, button.
Jonathan: Now, let’s double tap the entry info button and see what’s there.
VoiceOver: Entry info.
Wellington, New Zealand.
Jonathan: And then, it goes on to speak my specific address. You have full control over the metadata that Day One has access to. So if you don’t want Day One to know where you’re journaling from, you can absolutely not give it permission to access your location.
I don’t mind it. I find it quite useful because one of the filters that you can apply is journal entries that you wrote in a particular place. and if you travel a lot, there’s value in being able to do that.
I’ll flick right
VoiceOver: Tags. Add, button.
Jonathan: you can add tags from here as well.
VoiceOver: Journal. Personal diary, button.
Date: [6:56] AM NZDT. Fry,, January 26, 2024, button.
Last edited. [7:04] AM NZDT. Fry, January 26, 2024.
Edit duration. 2M7S.
Weather. 11 degrees C, clear, button.
Jonathan: This is more metadata that you can optionally give Day One access to. It means that if you want to know what the weather was like on a particular day when you wrote this entry, it’s all recorded for you without you having to insert it.
VoiceOver: Moon phase. 5, full moon.
Jonathan: Oh, that could explain a lot. [laughs]
VoiceOver: Altitude, 151M.
Entry creation device, the Isophone, iPhone, iOS 17.3.
Stats. 16 words, 95 Char, 0 Photos.
Favorite. Mark as favorite.
Jonathan: If you mark a journal entry as a favorite, then it has a special place where it appears to make it easy to access.
VoiceOver: Entry ID.
Jonathan: And there’s an entry ID there.
VoiceOver: Activity. Stationary, button.
Jonathan: If you’re not stationary, it will record that. Perhaps you’re writing while you’re moving in a vehicle, like you’re doing some journaling on the bus, or the train, or something like that. It will record that.
VoiceOver: Step count, 125, button.
Jonathan: I can’t explain that number because as I understand it, the step count should reflect how many steps you’ve taken today before the entry was created. And actually, even though it is just 7 in the morning, I’ve done a good, healthy workout before coming down to the studio to work on this. And my watch and my phone are telling me that I’ve taken about 4,100 steps already today in my effort to get to the fabled 10,000 steps. So I don’t know where that number is coming from, but it’s wrong.
VoiceOver: Music. Set, button.
Jonathan: If you want, you can simply set the music that you’re listening to. But if you were writing a journal entry while you’re listening to music, something’s playing in the music app, then Day One should be able to pick that up, and it will automatically record what you’re listening to.
VoiceOver: On this day, January 26. 0 entries, 0 photos, 0 years, button.
Jonathan: On This Day is a nice feature. It allows you to look back at journal entries that you’ve written on this day in years gone by.
VoiceOver: This day, Friday, January 26th, 2024. 2 entries, zero photos, button.
VoiceOver: Share/export, button.
Jonathan: If you double tap this button, it will invoke the iOS share sheet, and you’ll be able to share the text of the journal entry to various other apps.
Next, …
VoiceOver: View PDF, button.
Jonathan: Which is self-explanatory. You can create a PDF of this.
VoiceOver: View plain text, button.
Move to trash, button.
Done.
Jonathan: And those are the options available here.
I’ll double tap done.
VoiceOver: Fri, January…
Jonathan: Now we’re back in our journal entry screen.
I’ll flick right.
VoiceOver: Entry actions, button.
Jonathan: That’s what we’ve just been looking at.
VoiceOver: Done, button.
Jonathan: And if we double tap done, we will save our entry and go back to the main Day One journal screen.
I’ll continue to flick right for now.
VoiceOver: Welcome to this test demo journal…
Jonathan: There’s my text that I’ve written.
And finally, if I flick right, I will get my address and some other metadata that we’ve already seen.
So I’m going to flick left, …
VoiceOver: Done, button.
Jonathan: and double tap the Done button.
VoiceOver: Personal diary.
Jonathan: I’ll flick right.
VoiceOver: Search, button.
More options, button.
Sync status, button.
Settings, button.
Personal diary, button.
January 2024, heading.
Fri. 26, button.
Entry. January 26, 2024 at [6:56] AM.
Welcome to this test demo journal…
Jonathan: And that’s a little preview of the entry that we just wrote. it’s kind of like flicking through your inbox in Apple Mail, on your iPhone. You’ll get a little bit of a preview of the entry, but not the full thing.
Actions are available here as well. So if I flick down, …
VoiceOver: select.
Tag.
Trash.
More.
Activate, default.
Jonathan: most of those things is self-explanatory, but just to make the point that if you choose select, you can perform actions on multiple entries.
What I’m going to do is create another new entry by pressing command N. You can also double tap the create new entry button if you prefer.
VoiceOver: Keyboard visible. Text Field. Is editing. Character mode. Insertion point at start.
Jonathan: But this time, I’m not going to type anything. This time, I’m going to flick right.
VoiceOver: Photos, button.
Jonathan: Here, we can add photos. By double tapping this button, you can choose to take a photo and import it directly into Day One right there and then. Video works the same way.
The first time that you attempt to do this, you’ll have to grant Day One permission to access the camera. But you can also browse your existing photos and add those to Day One. Hopefully, because geotag information is being spoken and with apple’s text descriptions of photos, you may be able to work out the photo that you want to add in some way. It could be based on the date and time as well.
If I flick right, …
VoiceOver: Templates, button.
Jonathan: Templates are a very handy aid to journaling efficiently, and they can give you ideas. Day One comes with quite a few templates that you can investigate in settings (and we’ll talk about that in a little bit), or you can create your own.
One thing that has really supercharged my journaling recently is a podcast episode of the podcast called Feel Better, Live More that I listened to over my summer break. I enjoy this podcast. Not every episode is of interest to me, but a lot are. And some of them are very long. They can be well over 2 hours long in some cases. But they’re interesting, and they’re full of useful information.
At the beginning of the year, the host of Feel Better, Live More did a feature on journaling. He’s a doctor, and he’s recommended journaling to a lot of people over the years. And based on scientific research, and I guess trial and error, he came up with some questions that you can ask yourself in a journal at the start of the day and at the end of the day. I’ve been doing this since he suggested it, and it’s been very helpful.
I’m disciplined about this. I write first thing in my journal when I wake up. Before I check the myriad notifications that have come in overnight, before I do anything else, I answer those start of day questions in the journal.
I found this to be very helpful. It sets good intentions for the day. It gives focus to the day.
And then, at the end of the day, there are different questions that you ask at the day’s end, and they help you unload what might be on your mind that might be preventing you getting a good night’s sleep. The whole process is brilliant.
So if I double tap templates, …
VoiceOver: Templates.
Alert. My templates.
Jonathan: I’ll flick right.
VoiceOver: Start of day, button.
Jonathan: This one is called start of day. And if I double tap this, …
VoiceOver: Text field. Is editing.
What’s the most important thing today?
What are you grateful for?
What is the quality you want to show the world?
Jonathan: So those are the 3 questions that he suggests you ask at the beginning of the day.
What’s the most important thing today? If you write that down, you’re likely to get it done.
What are you grateful for? So that’s the gratitude journal practice that I’ve been doing for many years, and is so important.
And finally, what’s the quality that you want to show the world?
When I set this template up, I made each question a heading level 2. And then, there are some blank lines where I can go down and write those answers in. So it’s a very straightforward process to complete this. It probably only takes me a couple of minutes in the morning, maybe a little bit longer at night, but the rewards are worth it.
I’m going to delete the text.
VoiceOver: Selection deleted.
Jonathan: And now, we’ll go back.
VoiceOver: Photos.
Templates, button.
Jonathan: and look at the end of day template.
VoiceOver: Alert. My templates.
Start of day.
End of day, button.
Jonathan: Let’s see what the end of day questions are.
VoiceOver: Text field. Is editing.
What went well today?
What can I do better tomorrow?
What did I do for someone else today?
Jonathan: That third question is a really good one. What did I do for someone else today?
There may be some days where you realize well, maybe I haven’t been as outward looking as I ought to have been. So these are great questions that you can ask yourself at the end of the day.
What I have found is that not all things fit into those 3 questions at the end of the day that I want to get out of my head and into the journal. In that eventuality, I just have a section at the bottom of a journal entry that says, in other news, basically, and I write what I feel like writing because freeform writing is also very important.
You don’t want to get too formulaic, but these questions do help you focus. And templates in Day One make it easy to set all this up.
I’m going to delete that text as well. I’ll just press Command A.
And we’ll go back and have a look at what else is here.
VoiceOver: Photos, button.
Templates, button.
Suggestions, button.
Jonathan: If you double tap the suggestions button, Day One will suggest some things that you might like to write about based on what it knows about you. What it knows about you depends on the access that you’ve given it. If you’ve given it location data information and you’ve visited a store or a restaurant, your office, your school, whatever it might be, then Day One knows about that and it will suggest that you write about that.
As far as I can tell, it doesn’t seem to know about podcasts that I listen to in Overcast. But I believe it may know about podcasts that people listen to in Apple Podcasts.
If you’ve taken photos recently, or you’ve taken a video, then that might come up as a suggestion as well.
And after suggestions, we have…
VoiceOver: Audio, button.
Jonathan: You can record audio directly into Day One. By double tapping this button, you’ll instantly start recording.
There are a couple of important points to note with this audio feature.
The first is that if in settings you have told day one to transcribe the audio, there’ll be a limit of 10 minutes per entry. This is a limit that Apple imposes. If you’ve turned transcription off, then you can record for up to 3 hours in one Day One recording.
This could be a very useful way to record lectures, for example, because everything’s going to be organized by date and time. You could conceivably have a journal for each course that you are taking if you are a student, and record each lecture in the appropriate journal.
I choose to have transcription turned off by default so I can record, well, effectively for as long as I like. I can’t imagine myself sitting here and talking to my phone for 3 hours.
If I triple tap the button though, we get a little menu.
VoiceOver: Add an audio recording. 10 minutes. Transcribed, button.
3 hours, button.
Dismiss context menu, button.
Jonathan: So if I want a transcribed audio entry, I can do that, and I can invoke it from here.
I’ll dismiss this.
VoiceOver: Text field. Is editing.
Jonathan: If you want, you can go on to a more actions menu where there are, funnily enough, more actions. One of which includes the ability to attach all kinds of files to a journal entry – whether that be additional media, or a PDF file, or a word document, whatever it may be.
I’m going to exit the screen. It won’t save anything because we haven’t written anything in this entry.
VoiceOver: Personal diary, button.
Jonathan: Now, I’m at the top of the screen, and it says personal diary.
If I double tap, …
VoiceOver: Streaks, 23 days.
Jonathan: I’m on a 23-day streak at the moment, which means I’ve been posting every day for 23 days. I did take a bit of a break over Christmas. But now, I’m very much back into it.
VoiceOver: Streaks. 23 days.
Today, 3.
On this day, 0.
Daily prompt. What am I looking forward to in the coming year?
Answer, button.
Jonathan: You can also get some inspiration about what to write about by invoking daily prompts, and they can be pushed to you, if you like, at a specific time that you nominate. They will ask you a question like what you’re looking forward to this year, and they are quite thought-provoking prompts.
VoiceOver: More, button.
Pop-up, button.
Jonathan: I’ll double tap.
VoiceOver: Dismiss today’s prompt, button.
See recent prompts, button.
Don’t show prompts, button.
Dismiss context menu.
Jonathan: Let’s show some recent prompts, so you get a feel for the kind of thing that Day One can ask you in this section.
VoiceOver: Don’t show prompts.
See recent prompts, button.
Done, button.
Jonathan: We’ll flick right through them.
VoiceOver: Recent prompts, heading.
What am I looking forward to in the coming year?
Where do I hope to be 1 year from now?
What is my mood today?
What do I need to embrace about myself?
What do I need more of in my life?
What is my biggest dream for the year ahead?
What is the biggest goal I have for this coming year?
What are 5 things I’d like to do this year?
What values will guide my choices this year?
What is one relationship I’d like to improve this year?
Jonathan: And so on. Now, these things are very much new year-related because I’m recording this in January, but the nature of the prompts change over time.
There are other items on this menu that appears at the top of the screen, and one of the critical ones is actually the bottom choice.
VoiceOver: Settings.
Jonathan: I’ll double tap settings, …
VoiceOver: Settings, heading.
Jonathan: And will flick right.
VoiceOver: Done, button.
Jonathan Mosen. JM. Account status, premium.
Privacy.
Security.
Reliability. Day One was built from the ground up to safeguard your memories.
Sync, button.
Jonathan: Let’s double tap sync.
VoiceOver: Sync. Secure sync keeps your journal safe on our private servers while allowing you to edit entries on any device, anytime.
Learn more, button.
Jonathan: When you press the learn more button, you are taken to an explanatory page with some information. And I’d like to cover that because obviously, if you’re going to pour your heart out to a journal, you do want some confidence that that information is going to be safe and secure. So this is what they say:
“Day One Sync is our service for syncing and backing up your Day One Journal on all of your Mac, iOS, and Android devices. It is available for premium users. You can sign in to DayOne.me” (that’s D-A-Y-O-N-E.me), “to verify your synced data or to manage your account.
It goes on to say that they have 3 main reasons for creating Day One Sync.
“Stability and reliability.
Dropbox and iCloud were never 100% successful for all of our users. On Dropbox, we had continued challenges with duplicate entries appearing in journals. On iCloud, we had problems with data loss. On both services, when things went wrong, we were at the mercy of systems beyond our control that weren’t tailor-made for Day One data.
Understandably, our technical requirements and product roadmap aren’t the same as either iCloud or Dropboxes, so we don’t expect them to change their services to meet our data’s needs. With our own service, we can quickly respond to changing needs and bugs that might arise.
Platform expansion and new features.
Shared journals, a web version, robust APIs, and more features are dependent upon our having our own back-end and sync services. It’s been far more expensive for us to do this, but we felt it is worth the investment for the sake of future features and continuing to expand the Day One platform.
Security.
We’ve architected Day One sync to securely store your data. In the future, we’ll be offering end-to-end encryption on top of our current server-side encryption.”
The article continues.
“By default, Day One Sync encrypts the data at rest on our servers and securely transfers the data from our servers to the Day One app, the same level of security that Dropbox and iCloud provide. As of our 4.2 update, all new journals created are end-to-end encrypted by default.
Our encryption features utilize the user’s privacy key to encrypt all entries before they reach the server. In short, the server will have no access to the user’s unencrypted data.”
You can read more about this on the Day One website, but security is clearly highly considered.
And the good thing is that if you sign in with an Apple ID, then Apple has some pretty robust authentication. So if anyone’s going to sign in, they’re going to have to get through that 2-factor authentication.
And if someone has your Apple ID, your password, and your device, then you’ve got even bigger problems than Day One.
And if, for example, you sign in to a new device, not only would you need to sign in with your Apple ID and password and then authenticate with that, if that’s how you’ve chosen to authenticate with LiveJournal. But if you want to decrypt an encrypted journal, you also need to sign into iCloud where the encryption key is backed up so that Day One can access that to give you access to your journal on a new device. So it is pretty robust.
There are some other settings relating to journals, and you can explore them at your leisure if you choose to install Day One. But I did want to focus on security because understandably, that’s an important issue in this case.
Going back to the main settings screen, the next item is…
VoiceOver: Journals, button.
Jonathan: You can go in here and have a look at the journals that you’ve created. You can also create a new personal journal, which is unique to you.
Or you can create a shared journal. Shared journals are quite new at the time that I’m recording this. But my understanding is that a premium user can create as many shared journals as they like, and then they can invite other members who may not necessarily be premium members.
I’ll flick right.
VoiceOver: Reminders, button.
Jonathan: The reminders feature is robust. You can create your own custom push notifications that have whatever text you like, or you can get the prompts that we saw before pushed to you as well.
If you don’t want any push at all, that’s fine, too. You can turn it all off.
So the reminders one was first. And then next, …
VoiceOver: Daily prompts. [12:15] PM, button.
Jonathan: I don’t mind getting the daily prompt in my lunch hour. It can get me thinking.
VoiceOver: Templates. 2, button.
Jonathan: This is where you set up your templates.
I’ll double tap.
VoiceOver: Selected. Gallery, button. 1 of 2.
Jonathan: This is the gallery where Day One has quite a few prompts.
VoiceOver: My templates, button. 2 of 2.
Jonathan: And then, my templates. And I’ve created a couple, as you saw earlier.
So we’ll flick right, and have a look at some of these in the gallery.
VoiceOver: Getting started.
Templates are a great way to add structure and consistency to your entries.
Daily Gratitude, button.
5 minutes AM, button. 1 photo, button.
Daily Goal Plan, button.
To-Do List, button.
Jonathan: Let’s have a look at the Daily Goal Plan, as an example.
I’ll double tap.
VoiceOver: Edit, button.
Jonathan: This has brought up a handy screen where you can see all these templates actually in one place. So if I flick left from this edit button, we’ll get to the one we’re interested in.
VoiceOver: Daily goal plan.
Today’s goal: How can I break this goal down into smaller steps today?
Today’s plan for meeting my goal:
Today’s obstacles for meeting my goal:
My plan for overcoming these obstacles:
Text field.
Jonathan: There are some questions there that you would be expected to fill in, if you used this template in Day One.
If I flick right, …
VoiceOver: Edit, button
Jonathan: We’ve got the edit button for the daily goal plan. I could go in here, make any changes, determine whether I want any reminder to complete this template, and then save it.
I’ll go back to the previous screen.
VoiceOver: Selected. Gallery.
Jonathan: And we’ll go back to the previous screen once more to get on the main settings screen.
VoiceOver: Templates. 2, button.
Jonathan: I’ll flick right.
VoiceOver: On this day, button.
Jonathan: Here, you can configure the on this day feature. Some people really like this because they can look back at what happened this time in years gone by and have a look at the entries.
VoiceOver: Appearance, button.
Jonathan: You can customize the appearance. This could be particularly useful to you if you’re a low vision user, and maybe you’re working with Zoom.
VoiceOver: Passcode and Face ID. Immediately, button.
Jonathan: You can specify how quickly you need to use Face ID or enter a passcode in order to get into Day One.
VoiceOver: Import/export, button.
Jonathan: I do like this about so many third-party apps. If there’s something better that comes along in future, you can export your journal. And you might want to export it to keep it somewhere safe, or read it in a different way.
So if I double tap this, …
VoiceOver: A variety of export options ensure your entries always stay yours.
Jonathan: I’ll flick right.
VoiceOver: Learn more, button.
Include. Personal diary, button.
Date range. All entries, button.
Only include tags. All, button.
Jonathan: This is another reason to tag your entries because if you want to export a set of entries based on a particular subject, then you can do this very easily by saying only include entries that have this tag.
VoiceOver: Excluded tags. None, button.
Jonathan: And you can exclude tags as well. That’s another way to get to the same objective.
VoiceOver: 1 journal.
103 entries.
5 media.
Export, heading.
Export Day One json.zip.
Jonathan: This is a file format that’s been around for a while. I do remember, I think, exporting LiveJournal, if you go back that far, to this format as well. And there are apps out there that will read that format, and it’s pretty complete.
VoiceOver: Export plain text.zip.
Jonathan: You can have a zip file containing all the entries from your journal in text.
VoiceOver: PDF, heading.
Export PDF.
PDF settings.
Jonathan: And you can configure how the PDF export works.
Then, we can go on.
VoiceOver: Import, heading.
Jonathan: And you can import things into Day One.
VoiceOver: Import day one json.zip.
Import CSV.
Import from Day One classic.
Import text only auto backup.
Jonathan: And those are the export and import options.
I’ll go back to the previous screen, …
VoiceOver: Import/export, button.
Jonathan: and flick right.
VoiceOver: Book printing.
Jonathan: I’ve not investigated this too much, but it is a feature a lot of people like, I guess, particularly sighted people because they can get a lovely-looking print book of their entries, and it makes it kind of look more formal and more official. So you can investigate this, if you wish.
As I mentioned earlier, there is a discount available for this service if you are a Day One premium subscriber.
VoiceOver: App icon, button.
Advanced.
Jonathan: If you double tap this, you’ll get some advanced settings including whether you want audio entries transcribed by default, with metadata, do you want temperature to be expressed in Fahrenheit or Celsius, and various other useful tools.
I’ll flick right.
VoiceOver: Location history, button.
Jonathan: If you double tap here, you will be able to see all the places from which you have made journal entries, and you can also determine how much access Day One should have.
VoiceOver: Instagram, button.
Jonathan You can set up Instagram. I’m not on Instagram so I haven’t investigated this, but you can import the posts you make on Instagram into Day One.
VoiceOver: Email to journal, button.
Jonathan: This is probably the easiest way that I’ve found to get entries from a Windows device into Day One. You do need to be a premium subscriber to make use of this feature, but each journal is assigned its own email address. It is of necessity quite lengthy so that nobody can start spamming your journal, with any luck. So you can add this entry to your contacts. And when you’ve done that, you can simply post from your email client on Windows to Day One, and it will appear.
There are some tricks in terms of tagging the entries as well, and that’s explained on the Day One website. So if you use Day One, but you also like to type things in on your Windows machine, this is a good accessible solution.
They do also have a web interface. You can log into this. It reminds me a little bit of the new, more modern block-based WordPress editor, which I must confess I’m not a fan of. I’m still using the classic editor, and I like it that way. Perhaps I’m a creature of habit, but I really do find it easier.
One of the big problems I have with it though, is at least with JAWS, when you bring up your list of tags, the check boxes have no text label. So if you want to be fastidious about tagging your entries, it is a bit difficult to do that on the web interface. And that’s one of the reasons, apart from convenience, actually, why if I’m writing on my Windows machines, I will use the Day One email address and not the web interface. Your mileage, as they say, may vary.
VoiceOver: Apple Health, button.
Jonathan: You can integrate day one with Apple Health. You have to give permission for all of that to happen. It is supposed to accurately record things like step count, and possibly other data.
VoiceOver: IFTTT, button.
Jonathan: Now, IFTTT is a service that some geeks who listen to Living Blindfully will know all about, but it might be a new concept to some people.
IFTTT stands for If This, Then That, and it can really do some wild things.
I can say for example to the Soup Drinker, watch TV, and it actually sets my hearing aids to a particular program and does a whole bunch of things like that. [laughs] So IFTTT can link what you would think might be unlinkable things together.
Facebook has phased out a lot of its APIs, which makes it a bit difficult for some of these apps to talk to Facebook. But if you use IFTTT, you can set up what they call an applet that will allow you to save your Facebook statuses direct to Day One.
There’s also an applet available for saving X posts to Day One, and I’m sure that it would be possible to set something similar up for Mastodon as well.
If you’re a YouTube user and you want videos that you’ve liked to be saved to your Day One journal, which makes a lot of sense, you can set that up through IFTTT as well.
Remember Swarm used to be called Foursquare, and then they kind of separated the check in aspect from the location thing? Swarm allows you to check in and get rewards like becoming the mayor of certain places if you check in enough. If you want to save your swarm check-ins to Day One, then you can do that through IFTTT as well.
IFTTT supports RSS feeds as well, so you can do all sorts of things by linking RSS feeds to Day One.
Todoist, the task manager app. You can send completed tasks to Day One because Todoist is IFTTT-aware.
Literally, it goes on and on. All the different permutations of things that you can link to Day One using IFTTT as a bridge.
If you’re a widgets person and you like to enliven your home screen or your today’s screen with widgets from apps that you use regularly, there are some widgets available for Day One as well, including keeping track of your streak and items that you’ve entered today, among other things. So do check out adding Day One widgets if that’s of interest.
I’m going to go back to the main day one screen.
VoiceOver: Close menu, button.
Jonathan: I’ll double tap that, …
VoiceOver: Personal diary, button.
Jonathan: and I’ll flick right.
VoiceOver: Search, button.
Jonathan: The search feature in Day One is powerful. And this is one of the joys of Day One that it’s obviously great to have so many tools to get information into the product, but then searching for things you want to look up is also important.
I’ll double tap.
VoiceOver:Text field. Is editing. Search. Character mode. Insertion point at start.
Jonathan: You can simply perform a text search, but there’s so much more that you can do in terms of narrowing the search.
So I’ll flick right.
VoiceOver: Filter, heading.
Jonathan: And the first heading pertains to filters. Let’s have a look at what we can filter by.
VoiceOver: Favorite, 0.
Checklist, 0.
Tag, 55.
Jonathan: I’ve got 55 tags now.
VoiceOver: Place, 2.
Jonathan: I tend to journal at home, so there are only two places there. But if you travel a lot more and you’re journaling a lot more, this can be very useful.
VoiceOver: Template, 2.
Jonathan: I’ve got these 2 templates that I use now, the start of day and the end of day. So I can filter by that, if I wish.
VoiceOver: Date.
Jonathan: This is great. I mean for example, if I want to read the journal entries I wrote when my granddaughter was born, I can just filter by date and go down to her birthday.
VoiceOver: Audio, 5.
Jonathan: I’ve only made 5 audio posts. But you can narrow the entries to just show you audio entries, if you like.
VoiceOver: Year, 2.
Jonathan: I’ve been using this since 2023, so there are only 2 years.
VoiceOver: Weather, 6.
Jonathan: And those are the things you can filter on.
If I were to double tap tags, for example, I could specify the tags that I wanted to search for. This gives you considerable granularity over finding the entries that you are looking for.
And hopefully, that gives you a feel for all the things that you can do with Day One. If you can make journaling as much of a habit as cleaning your teeth or getting out of bed in the morning, you’ll really benefit from it. And I don’t think there’s any better app to get into the journaling habit than this one. It’s accessible, it’s enjoyable, and it’s easy to use.
You can download Day One (that’s 2 separate words – D-A-Y-O-N-E) from your Google Play or App Store. And you can also visit DayOneApp.com for more information.
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The apps always supported the rear camera, of course. But the latest version of the apps also support the front-facing camera. And that means you can even get help to take your next great selfie for uploading to social media.
Regular Living Blindfully listeners will be very familiar with the Envision smart glasses. If you own a pair of those, you can use Aira hands-free to assist with a variety of tasks, including guiding you through unfamiliar locations. If you’re doing a bit of travel again, it’s a great alternative to waiting for meet and assist at an airport.
Aira is also on the BlindShell Classic, so you’ve got access to your phone at the touch of a physical button. And it’s on your PC and Mac as well, which makes it always within reach when you come across an inaccessible website, or you just want to speed up the process when you’re on a busy website and time is of the essence. Aira is there on your device, on your terms.
To learn more, you can visit Aira at their website at Aira.io. That’s A-I-R-A.I-O.
Zoom Recorders
Voice message: Hi, Jonathan! This is Rubin, and I live in Texas.
I’ve always enjoyed traveling, but I’ve never thought to record my travels the way that you do in sort of an audio diary kind of format. I’m not sure why I never thought about doing that, but now it’s something that I’d really like to try out.
I’m going on a trip to Spain in November, and I’d really like to try it out then.
Especially after your demonstration of the Zoom recorders, I’m thinking about getting one to do this for that trip, but I’m really not sure which one would be best for this. I know there are different kinds of microphones for recording different things, but I would like to record my interactions with people, you know, out on the streets, or in shops, even in the airport. I would like to be able to record sort of the soundscape of the city.
At the same time, I am a church music director, so I think a new recorder would be good for doing the kind of work that I do in my church music director job. I record parts for the soprano, alto, tenor, and basses of the choir on the piano. I record myself playing the piano so that the choir has something to practice with in their own time. If I can find one of these Zoom recorders to do both jobs, that would be wonderful.
I know the microphone setup would probably be different for each situation, but I’d appreciate any advice you have. I’d like to start, maybe with documenting my travel. So if you have any advice specifically for that and any sort of work overlap, would be very much appreciated.
Jonathan: Good to hear from you, Rubin.
I have been pontificating on this question. If you’re going into a travel situation, say, where you’re at an airport, that kind of thing where you’re recording actuality, If you get something that’s too complicated, you’re less likely to use it, I think.
One of the advantages of the Zoom H1 Essential is that it’s tiny. You can just walk around with it in your pocket. If you want to take it out of your pocket to point it in a specific direction, you can do that.
And while there are no XLR sockets in the Zoom H1 Essential, there is a 3.5 jack, so you might be able to find some binaural microphones that plug in there. So if you want to go that extra mile and clip a couple of binaural microphones to yourself, you may be able to do that.
It’s probably something you want to avoid when you’re going through an airport and you know you’ve got airline security to get through. But it is probably something you’d want to do if you were walking through the streets of some foreign locale, and you really wanted to capture the ambience in a binaural way. So you could get away with the Zoom H1 Essential.
And similarly, because this is 32-bit float, you could put it on top of the piano, or you could wear some binaural microphones and you could record for your music use case as well.
Now, that does deprive you of a lot of very good microphone options that come with an XLR connector. This is the professional standard of microphone connector, and there are so many good mics, some of them highly directional such as the ones I’ve been using for my interviews at the NFB convention, some of them exactly the opposite.
I’ve got an Audio Technica microphone that plugs into 2 XLR inputs, and gives you a lovely stereo pickup pattern.
So you’ve got a lot more flexibility if you go to that more professional grade of equipment. For that, you could use the zoom H1 XLR. The downside of that is there are no built-in microphones, but it’s very small. And then, you can just plug in whatever microphones you want. You’d be sure to be able to find some nice binaural mics for a device like that.
The lack of convenience though of just being able to take out the recorder and hit record, and record in any situation without having to worry about finding something to plug into it could be a significant factor there.
So maybe, the sweet spot would be the H4 Essential. It’s a bit bigger, Quite a bit bigger, but still quite small. You could carry it around with you. You’ve got built-in microphones on there. But then, you also have your XLR inputs, if you wanted to go to Pro grade recording.
So those are just a few thoughts. If you get a chance to go into a sound store somewhere where they have these recorders, there you might want to put your hands on them and just decide what you would be happy carrying around in a given situation.
If you could swing it, what I would probably do is go for the H1 Essential and the H4 Essential, and take the appropriate recorder for the occasion.
Best of luck!
Caller: Hi, Jonathan! My name is Mark Pighin. I’m one of those people listening to you for 25 years, if not longer, but never called in.
Anyway, what I wanted to say is I’ve got the H4 Essential Zoom Recorder, and I love the tutorial.
But the interesting thing about it (I’m not sure if you’re aware of it, if your listeners might care) is that there’s a limit for 2 gig per file. So I was going to be away out of the house, and I wanted to record a radio show. When I did it, after an hour and a half, it makes another file. So right in the middle of a song, it just went over to a different file and creates a different file. So I guess you get about an hour and a half to something like that per the 2 gig WAV file, and then it automatically starts creating another file.
I just pointed it out, as it may be a concern for some people who want to record longer times because, you know, you end up with 2 files, and you get a separation like in the middle of a song or whatever.
I guess it doesn’t have an MP3 decoder, which I know wouldn’t sound quite as good, but it might be nice for… Longer recordings.
Jonathan: Aww! Good to hear from you after 25 years, Mark. Thanks for listening all that time.
And look at you go! You got your recording in just in time.
You are right. I should have mentioned this. My apologies.
This is actually a limitation of the WAV file format. It can only be 2 gigabytes long. This is not something that Zoom is arbitrarily doing. They’re just adhering to the specs correctly.
It really isn’t that big a deal though, because Zoom handles this beautifully. If it does have to split the file up, in my experience, it does it absolutely seamlessly, and you don’t miss a thing. If you were to string those 2 files together, and then maybe save it as an MP3 file or something, so you take it into Gold Wave or Soundforge or Reaper or Audacity or whatever your particular digital audio workstation of choice is, and you stitch the two files together, you’re unlikely to even notice a blemish.
Streaming to Hearing Aids From Multiple Devices
Here’s an interesting question from Imke, who says:
“I am wondering what experiences you and others have had with streaming audio directly to hearing aids from more than one device.
For example, I routinely use my computer with speech and Braille” (with an uppercase B) “output, but I also want to be able to hear notifications from my iPhone as they come in while I’m on the computer.
Currently, I have Widex Moment 440 hearing aids. I have my iPhone set to stream only to the left hearing aid. To hear computer audio, I use the Unidex Neck Loop, which plugs into the computer’s line-in/out port. This usually gives me computer audio on both hearing aids. When a notification comes in on my iPhone, the left hearing aid automatically receives that audio, while the right one can still receive sound from the computer.
Unfortunately, the Unidex has been discontinued. A new, similar accessory called the FM-DEX does not work the same way. When I use it to stream audio from the computer to the hearing aids, the left hearing aid no longer receives any audio from the iPhone, even after I have turned off the FM-DEX. It is not until after I have turned off and on my left hearing aid that I again can get audio from my iPhone.
Now, I am considering trying Widex’s latest computer audio streaming accessory, the Sound Connect. It plugs into the computer’s USB port, and does not require wearing a neck loop to stream directly to the hearing aids. My audiologist inquired with Widex about the ability to hear iPhone audio while using the Sound Connect with a computer. They answered that they recommend turning off Bluetooth on the phone while using the Sound Connect because devices can only have one Bluetooth connection at a time.
Obviously, that is not a satisfactory answer, so I am wondering what luck you and others are having with hearing computer and iPhone audio as needed. And if it works for you, which hearing aids and accessories are you using? In particular, how is it working for you, Jonathan, with the Roger On accessories?
Thanks for everything you do to maintain this informative podcast and rich community.”
Thank you, Imke. Good to hear from you.
[laughs] And I’m so sorry that I make you write down the pronunciation every time you write into me now, because I messed it up before. I do remember now. I’ll Braille it on my hand, or something.
This is, indeed, a tricky situation. My Phonak Lumity aids can pair with 8 different devices, and you can have 2 active connections at a time, but they’re not simultaneous. So if I pair my laptop via Bluetooth and then I pair my iPhone via Bluetooth, generally they will seamlessly switch between those 2 connections. But if both try to talk at the same time, then I think there is a kind of a priority system.
So let’s say that I’m using Bluetooth on my ThinkPad with JAWS. And then there’s a phone call that comes through. Because that’s a different phone call, the hearing aids are programmed to say, nothing else matters more at this moment than the phone call. And even if JAWS is talking, I will no longer hear JAWS, and I will hear the phone call audio ringing in my ear, getting ready for me to take the call.
It’s different though if I’m just using it for text-to-speech. So if I listen to something with JAWS and I’m getting a notification on my phone, the notification from my phone won’t speak through my hearing aids. In fact, I’ll miss it altogether.
But if I’m just typing away on my keyboard and I have keyboard echo off, there’s nothing hogging the Bluetooth channels at that stage. So if a notification comes through from my phone at that point, I will hear that.
What can also sometimes make this a little bit less reliable is if you enable the avoid speech cutoff option in JAWS, which sends a constant stream of silence to the sound card to keep it awake.
So how do I get around it? Well, when I’m here in my office/studio, I do disconnect my iPhone from Bluetooth from the iPhone side. And because I’ve got a mixer in front of me, I have JAWS and the iPhone plugged into the mixer, and I’m hearing everything through the one source. It works beautifully.
And you don’t have to have a massive, big, fancy schmancy Allen & Heath mixer such as the one in the studio. You could even just use a Zoom PodTrak recorder or something very minimalist that just has a couple of channels and connect your iPhone and your computer to it. That’s what I would do. And particularly with the Roger, you get very very low latency, much more low latency than the Bluetooth option.
I’m glad for you in a way that you’re getting rid of that Comdex thing, because I tried that 5 years ago, and it was mono. That drove me batty. I couldn’t use it. It wasn’t viable for me.
it might not matter for you if all you care about is text-to-speech. But hearing everything in mono, particularly when I’m doing audio production like this, was a total non-starter.
There is one more thing you could potentially do, and that is to use the PhoneLink app on your Windows computer. And if you get that set up correctly, you should be able to then hear JAWS speak your iPhone’s notifications. So that’s another option worth playing with and worth considering.
I really do quite like the PhoneLink app from Microsoft. And sometimes, on my ThinkPad, I do that.
I never do it in my studio because I have the mixer here.
When I worked in my previous job in an office, I just had a very cheap tiny mixer with a couple of channels. I plugged everything into that, and that was really sweet.
I hope that’s of some help.
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Closing and Contact Info
And I will close the podcast properly this time. Because if you were listening carefully and attentively, you will have noticed that I mangled the line at the end of the iPhone one, which is a live situation, you know. We don’t edit that one because we do it live, and we just get it out there.
So when somebody pointed out to me that I mangled my own closure, I was mortified! Mortified, I tell you, especially when there aren’t many closures of this podcast left, because we’re ceasing publication at the end of the month.
So I’ll do it right this time, and look forward to the next one.
When you’re out there with your guide dog, you’ve harnessed success. And with your cane, you’re able.
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