Excuse me? I don't follow your question. --- Christopher Gilland JAWS Certified, 2016. Training Instructor.
clgillan...@gmail.com Phone: (704) 256-8010 Extension 401. ----- Original Message ----- From: Simon Fogarty To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, March 28, 2016 1:39 AM Subject: RE: Apple Watch: I love it, but I hate it. Hey Christopher, How much damage did you do to the door? From: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com [mailto:macvisionaries@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Christopher-Mark Gilland Sent: Monday, 28 March 2016 2:39 PM To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Apple Watch: I love it, but I hate it. You know, I have Time buzz, but regardless what scheme I use, I can't wrap my head around it quickly enough. I understand the logic of how things work with it, and how the vibration patters work, but trying to interpret it in my head to me, just feels real real clunky. When I want the time, darnit, I want the time, not to have to mathematically think through, OK, that vibration meant 0, ok, that longer one meant 5, that meant put my face in the door, and slammit, LOL! OK, I'm just kidding, but you get the point. --- Christopher Gilland JAWS Certified, 2016. Training Instructor. clgillan...@gmail.com Phone: (704) 256-8010 Extension 401. ----- Original Message ----- From: Jenine Stanley To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com Sent: Sunday, March 27, 2016 9:22 PM Subject: Re: Apple Watch: I love it, but I hate it. Hi Christopher, I completely understand your thoughts on the Watch. I’d say a couple things, not to retort yoursituations, but to agree and add my thoughts to them. Volume: I think a higher quality voice and variety of voices, US male as well as female, plus the slight volume boost might help people with some hearing loss. I had mine set for the British voice which is male, Daniel in fact, but it was too broken up at 9% volume and anything below 80% I can’t really hear unless in a very quiet place. It was like the old compact voices on the iphone. GPS: Why did I think Maps also could give you verbal turn by turn directions as well as haptics? I agree that developers could do so much more with GPs and haptics plus speech. I wish Blind Square would do so. It does have a couple Watch features but not enough imho. App Loading: this is probably my one and only real issue with the Watch over all. apps take what feels like forever to load. Apparently it’s not just with VO on either as plenty of sighted users complain about this. Beyond that, I do love my Watch and wear it every day. I was recently in the hospital for a few days for gall bladder surgery and didn’t take my Watch with me. I spent most of the time poking at my naked wrist. It was just weird. I have turned the sounds off and just have Voice Over speaking plus the haptics and love it. Also, Time Buzz did it right as well, really pushing the API and it and Just Press Record will pretty much always be complications on my watch face. Due is another app I like for reminders and Uber’s Watch notifications for ETA on your driver are priceless for me. So yep, you have been heard and understood here. Jenine Stanley dragonwalke...@gmail.com On Mar 27, 2016, at 9:01 PM, Christopher-Mark Gilland <clgillan...@gmail.com> wrote: Guys, let me intro this post by saying a few things, just to make sure none of us get off on the wrong foot. This post isn't going to be like a lot of things I've posted where I just flat out bash a product to shreds. I do have a bad tendency to do that. Actually, if anything, I plan in this message to give both the good and the bad, and to fairly contrast. My feelings actually of the watch are more good than they are bad, but I do have a few issues, and I'd like to see if any of you other watch owners feel the same way. So, a little background to start with. One of my friends, Jessie Hernandez, called me up one day about half a year ago. He had just gotten himself an Apple Watch, and wanted to tell me about it, and how floored he was at how well it worked. At first, I was really sceptical. I mean, really! really! sceptical. I thought, OK, firstly, how in the world can you type on the thing being it's a small watch face screen? Realize that this was before I understood that you kind a don't. It's all done with Siri dictation. I also thought to myself, OK, so I can check the time, set timers and alarms, send and receive texts/e-mails, and make/receive phone calls. Big whoo. I can't browse the web, I can't this, I can't that. I just didn't see how the watch really could be all that useful. Why not just use my phone to do what I need? I decided I'd have an open mind, and would give it a fair chance though. I therefore setup a time with Jessie to spend about an hour just going through the watch with me, and demonstrating for me over the phone how it worked. I must say that by the end of the hour, I was absolutely blown away! True, there were things I wanted the watch to do, that it simply put, couldn't. That said though, I was extremely impressed at how seemless the watch integraded with the phone, and how easy it was to do the things with it that it could! do. As the next few months went on, I debated back and forth if I really wanted to get a watch for myself. I was really torn. On the one hand, I loved what I'd seen, yet on the other hand, the new Apple TV 4 was coming out pretty soon, and the things I'd heard about it vs. the 3rd generation had me absolutely drewling! So, yeah, I was pretty torn. I couldn't afford both. It either had to be one or the other. I won't bore you with more background. I'll just get right to the point of the watch, but long story short, I wound up giving in, and I got the 38M stainless steel Apple Watch with the Milinese loop band. Once I got the watch, the first thing I realized was though very small, I'll give you that, to my defense, the speaker on the IPhone 6S is about the same size, maybe a little bigger, but not by much than that of the watch. That said though, on the watch when turned up all the way, it's ridiculously quiet! Don't get me wrong, if you're in a quiet area, and I do mean quiet, it is audible. It's certainly doable, but I guess I just would have expected it to be ever so slightly louder. When I listened to the demos that David Woodbridge did on Applevis, his watch sounded quite louder. Now, in his defense, he was! using a 42M, not a 38, but even still. So, the first few days, I wore my watch literally constantly. I wouldn't let the thing out of my sight. I really really enjoyed keeping the phone on the desk, or in my pocket, yet being able to get push notifications on my wrist, etc. I also really really! liked, and still do really like the cosmetic appearance of the watch along with the Milinese band. It looks very businesslike, and very masculine. It just looks very... well... me. I even went out a few times for lunch with my grandmother and got compliments from people walking by, or would overhear people talking, like, wooo, look at that guy over there. He's got an Apple Watch! Dang does it look nice! So, you probably by now are wonderring why I say, I love my watch, but I hate it, as up to this point, everything I've said indicates I am in love with the thing. For the most part, I am. I guess I'm just a little disappointed though with a few things. For one, obviously the sound quality. I was really really hoping that the volume would be a little bit louder. Yes, I know about turning up the volume of voiceover. Trust me. I've already done that. That did help some, yes, but not much. Realize though that I do have a quite moderate hearing loss, so that could be playing a factor in this, to Apple's credit. It might not be all them. After a while though, I confess, I've kind a quit wearing the watch so regularly. Don't get me wrong here, guys. I love the watch, but meh... I dunno. After a while, it just kind a got to the point where it got kind of old. I see the watch more now not so much as a killer product as I did at first, but more as a convenience. What I mean by that is this. Really honestly, all the watch really truly seems to do is maybe give me access to a few things without grabbing my phone. things like setting alarms, checking upcoming appointments, checking the time, setting timers, looking at the weather, etc. As for 3rd party apps, yeah, they're great, but realistically speaking, all they really do for the most part is one of two things. Either 1, they do nothing really more than just push notifications to the watch. OK, in some ways, this is kind a cool. I'll grantcha that. Admittedly, it is kind a nice to not have to grab my phone every time a notification comes through. The thing though is, I get a push notification, I raise my wrist, I tap the screen of the watch to see what it is, and hear Voiceover tell me. OK, let's say it's something important. OK, so I then double tap the face of the watch. This either pops me into the app on the watch, if I have it installed, or it just simply tells me it can help me on my phone. If the app is! installed on my watch, then usually it's incredibly limited. Anything that I try doing, it's gonna not carry out on the watch. At some point, I'm gonna have to grab my phone to finnish the task. Never mind, if I'm in a loud area, I can't really hear the watch anyway, which practically makes it useless. Here's another thing. What about developers not taking full advantage of all the API's that are available. Let me give you a very very simple example. Let's take the app Just Press Record. Nothing wrong with the app. In fact, this dev actually did things right in my opinion. Clearly, they used all API's. They have the ability to listen to your notes locally on the watch speaker. You don't have to listen on your phone. I mean, you can! don't get me wrong, but it's not required. Also, when recording, it doesn't make you hit record on the watch, then hand it off to your phone. I can't tell you how many apps I know of which would use your mike or would use audio do this. More that use audio. Skype, for instance: why on earth give me an app for the watch, when all it does is let's me text chat? And even worse. I can't even access my contact list from the watch. I first have to add my contacts from the phone into my favorites. then, and only! then, can I access them on the watch, but yet still! only engage via text, not via voice. I could see no video ability, I mean, that would be absurd, but at least! give us voice ability. The API's are both there for sound through the watch speaker, and for using the watch's internal microphone, so, what gives? What about Zello? This one's even more! a nightmare! I can see my contact list, but if someone zellos me, all I get is a notification on the watch saying Jane Doe is talking. Double tap that notification, and bam. Zello opens on my phone. Say on the watch I double tap on Jane Doe to initiate a conversation. Oh, I get the hold and talk button, yeah, but as soon as I double tap it and hold, I hear the chirp sound on my phone, not my watch, which never mind, is in my pocket, and never mind that it's now routing what I say through my phone's microphone, not the watch. Let's talk GPS. I love that maps works so seemlessly on the watch. There's just one problem as a blind person. The watch won't verbally give you turn by turn directions unless you physically tap on the screen. Yeah, it'll vibrate to tell you you have an upcoming turn, and believe me, I love that! But, then, I have to take my other hand, touch the watch, and see what it says. This is horrible! As how am I effectively going to hold my cane, or my dog's harnis, while touching the face of my watch? I didn't say it can't be done, but I probably look like a total dweebe doing it. Hold on hare Fido, let mih check mih wristers. Hee'ee'eel, fido. Goo'oo'ood doggy. LOL! You get the point. Never mind the treelemb I just smashed into because I was not using my cane while trying to look at the clock face. You say, that's why you stop while you look. Yeah yeah, I know. Don't rub it in. LOL! My point still stands. I dono. Clearly apps have ways to use the internal speaker, so why can't Apple make an option to either play voice guidance through the watch speaker, vibrate only, or do both. I like choices, of which right now, choices we don't exactly have. So, yeah, in conclusion, I love my watch, but after having it now going on about 4 months, I dono. I have mixed feelings. I'm not disappointed I got the thing, and I have no plans to sell it, nor get rid of it, but admittedly, I am a little bit saddened that in some ways it's very limited. Now one thing I do! like, is using Hey Siri on the watch. That is so convenient! Like today, I was eating an Easter lunch with family. I was putting the final touches on the deviled eggs, so obviously I had egg, and mayo all over my hands. Obviously, you don't wanna be touching the watch with your hands in that condition. So, while that was going, my mom put the apple pie, no pun intended, in the oven, and asked me to set the timer, being that the timer on our oven is broken for some weird reason. So, no biggy. I just raised my wrist, and set my timer with Hey Siri, no hand interaction at all. Or if I'm sitting across the room, and have my phone docked on my stereo, or am lying in bed. I can stay chillin in my recliner/bed and just say, Hey Siri, play the Greatest Hits by Alan Jackson. Boom! Seconds later, there comes Chatahoochee out my speakers. I can go to the next song, or previous song, stop and start playing, turn on and off repeat and shuffle, love a track/album, start a station, turn my crown to move the volume up or down, etc. So from the standpoint of the music app, that is gorgeous with hey siri integration. So yeah, there're things I love, but there are just enough that I also hate. What are you all's thoughts? --- Christopher Gilland JAWS Certified, 2016. 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