Have your say ahead of this weekend's Mosen At Large, new Apple software, more on voting blind, audiobooks and Envision AI

Kia ora everyone. It’s going to be a pleasure to get your written or audio contributions for this week’s Mosen At Large.

Hopefully, you have Mosen At Large in your favourite podcast app so our podcasts simply come to you whenever a new one is published. If so, you’ll have already heard our recap of the Apple time flies event, and a special episode demonstrating some of the new features in iOS 14 and watchOS 7. A few people were disappointed by the Apple event because there were no iPhones announced. The moral of the story? Listening to Mosen At Large avoids disappointment, as on last week’s show we let you know not to expect iPhones at this event.

First, have you upgraded your iPhone, iPad and/or Watch to the new releases yet or are you choosing to hold on for a bit? If you’ve made the jump, what do you think? So far, what are the new features you are enjoying.

While I knew there would be no iPhones at this event, what surprised me and angered many developers was that Apple didn’t adhere to its usual practice of giving developers around a week with the golden master of iOS before they released it to the public, allowing developers to test their updated apps with the official software and submit the updates to the App Store ahead of the public release. So it’s been a scramble for developers to get their updates out. Nevertheless, some extremely cool updates are now appearing. Have you found that any of your favourite apps are making good use of the new features such as widgets and stereo recording with the built-in mics? Is the way you use your device changing as a result?

If you have ordered a new watch or iPad, what are you going for and when do you expect it?

We’ve been getting more feedback on audiobooks, what makes a good and a bad narration, and whether you prefer audiobooks over Braille or TTS. You’re welcome to keep that conversation going.

Also this week, more on voting blind, a subject about which there is huge variation around the world and even within some countries. the sacred right to a secret ballot in elections is something people have fought and died for. Yet it has often been something denied to blind people. Please continue to share your experiences of participating in elections.

We had some late-breaking stories that prevented me from playing our extended interview about Envision, but I expect to get to it this week. Envision AI is a relatively young app, but they are a nimble, innovative company who are making waves, particularly with their new Envision smart glasses which they hope will serve as a platform for third-party providers to leverage. I’ll speak this weekend with Karthik Kannan about how they got started, what they do now and where they are headed.

There are plenty of other interesting contributions coming in, so if you’d like to raise something completely different, feel free.

You are very welcome, and in fact encouraged, to get contributions in ahead of time. Please don’t be shy, I’d love to hear from you. To contribute, send an email with an audio attachment or just written down to Jonathan at MushroomFM.com, or call the listener line, +18646066736, that’s 1-864-60Mosen.

The best way to hear Mosen At Large is when it airs live and in full on Mushroom FM at 2 PM Eastern, 7 PM UK on Saturday. It will then be available in abridged form on the Mosen At Large podcast, available anywhere you get podcasts.

Thank you so much for listening and contributing to the show, and see you soon for Mosen At Large.