This weekend on Mosen At Large, Siri gets new voices, being a voice control efficiency ninja, editing efficiently with iOS and more

Submitted by JonathanMosen on Thu, 04/01/2021 - 10:06

Kia ora Mosen At Largers.

I’m getting up bright and early to do the show for you this weekend because daylight saving is ending in New Zealand on Sunday. With the US having gone one hour forward, and now us going one hour back, that means the show starts at 6 AM! 6 AM on a Sunday morning I tell you! Never mind, if I don’t wake up on time, I have substitute hosts standing by.

If you’ve been missing our usual healthy dose of talking Apple things lately, we’re making up for it this weekend. In a big surprise, iOS 14.5 is adding quite a substantial new feature, two brand new Siri voices. We’ll give them a good listen. If you have them already because you’re running the 14.5 beta, what do you think of them? Are you changing your Siri voices to one of the new ones? Will you use any of them with VoiceOver?

We also have an incredibly handy, if not fiddly, tip to improve efficiency with Apple’s Voice Control feature by simplifying the commands to give for controlling VoiceOver.

A listener has asked me to discuss editing efficiently with iOS and the virtual keyboard, so I’ll give it a shot.

There’s more on cochlea implants and hearing aids, as well as Braille things.

We’ll speak with one of the co-founders of Thinking Cap Innovations, a company that makes skills for Amazon Alexa, and I’ll demonstrate the skills.

As usual, there’s a wide array of blindness and technology topics from listeners on which you may like to comment once you hear them.

If you want to raise something new, you’re very welcome.

Getting your contributions in ahead of time leaves you free to hear the show, and gives me a chance to organise them all, so go for it. 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. Catch it on Mushroom FM, either on the station itself or in the Mushroom FM club on Clubhouse. 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.