Thanks esther for this really nice review. I learned some things about the headphones while reading and examining them. I got them yesterday and have used them a bit but need to spend more time with the remote to get a better handle on how it works which was helped emmensely by the article.
For those wondering about recording, the nano manual provides a clue as to its opperation but the rest of the puzle is that when you plug in the headphones, There is a spoken menu for "voice memos". In this menu we hear two items, start recording and recordings. if you press the center button while sitting on recordings and there is nothing there, you hear nothing when you move the wheel. if you click start record, the nano begins recording and you do not hear anything till you stop. If there is an item in the recording menu or two, you will hear a click for each item as you move through the recordings menu. labeling them is not accessible. I suppose you could count through the labels to label them but don't know how you would find them once labeled. You can transfer them to the computer though and even convert them to mp3. Recording is stopped by pressing the menu button and then moving left once to "stop and ave" and pressing the center button, to pause recording, just press the center button and to resume, just press it again. you can also resume a stopped recording. This is all I have to add to the review unless someone has questions that aren't hanswered. Thanks! ----- Original Message ----- From: "Esther" <mori...@mac.com> To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of Mac OS X by theblind" <discuss@macvisionaries.com> Cc: <mac...@dane-trethowan.net>; <mac-acc...@tft-bbs.com> Sent: Saturday, December 13, 2008 11:15 PM Subject: iLounge Review of new Apple In-Ear Headphones with Remote and Mic Hi, Those of you who have been following the accessible iPod Nano 4G may be interested in the in-depth review of the new Apple In-Ear Headphones with Remote and Mic accessory ($79.95) that appeared at iLounge. This is the more expensive of the two headsets that can be used as combined headset, remote player control, and mic for voice recording with the new iPod Nano 4G (and other late 2008 iPods such as the 2nd generation iPod Touch, and 120 GB iPod Classic). The $29.95 headset option is still a few weeks off from release. The basic result is a recommendation, with a statement that while they preferred other in-ear headphones for their sound qualities, particularly for bass- heavy music, all these these alternatives cost considerably more (by at least $40 to $100). They were particularly positive about the voice recording mode, which only works for the late 2008 iPods (via a new sound-chip), and also gave good marks to the remote player control, with the caveat that because the mic and remote player controls were integrated, some people might find the placement of the remote controls less convenient (e.g. higher on the cord) than would be desirable for a remote in the absence of a mic. I prefer to save the iLounge reviews directly to TextEdit, because their web pages are busy with animated graphics ads and multiple advertisement links. (They do typically have many images of the products in the articles, so users who want to view these photographs should stick to the web pages.) There are also links to sample mp3 recordings comparing the mic's recorded sound with those of other microphones in different settings. You can access these from the selection saved to TextEdit by doing a search and find on "sample" (Command-f and type in "sample" for the first instance; use command-g for all successive "find-next" instances), and using VO-T to check the text attributes of each word "sample". Instances of "sample" in regular text will be announced as "gray" after their font type and size, while the text that is part of links will be announced as "a shade of dark orange". If you interact (VO-shift-Down arrow) and VO-space where "sample" or "samples" are parts of links in the TextEdit document, the linked mp3 file will start playing in Safari and you'll be able to listen to the sound comparison clips. I used the following settings: Verbosity setting in VoiceOver Utility: When text attributes change <Do Nothing> (keeps me from having to hear "align left", "align center", etc. as I go through the article in TextEdit). TextEdit is used with its default format setting of Rich Text. To save page to TextEdit: 1. In Safari, navigate to iLounge page for review of "Apple In-Ear Headphones with Remote and Mic" by Jeremy Horowitz, December 12, 2008: http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/reviews/entry/apple-in-ear-headphones-with-remote-and-mic/ 2. Select all (Command-A) 3. Navigate to the Services Menu (VO-M, Right Arrow to application, Down Arrow to menu, press "S" to go to "Services") 4. Navigate to TextEdit submenu (Right Arrow to services submenu, press "T" for "TextEdit") 5. Navigate to and select "New Window Containing Selection" (Right Arrow to "New Window Containing Selection" and press return) 6. Switch application from Safari to TextEdit with Command-Tab Note: you can also automate this process by assigning a keyboard shortcut to "New Window Containing Selection" using "System Preferences" and the "Keyboard Shortcuts Tab" of "Keyboard & Mouse". Press (VO-space) the button to assign a new keyboard shortcut when you VO-right past the table. Leave the popup button for Application set to "All Applications", type or paste in "New Window Containing Selection" (without the quotation marks) in the text space for Menu Title, then type in your selected keyboard shortcut in the text area for that input and press VO-space) the "Add" button to make your assignment take effect. You'll need to restart your computer for your new shortcut to activate. If you have a keyboard shortcut assigned, you can replace steps 3 through 6 with your keyboard shortcut for "New Window Containing Selection" Hope this is of interest. Cheers, Esther
