I don't know much about this except what is contained in this post, but 
here's one you may want to consider.  But generally speaking I don't think 
Ipods are that accessible.
Harvey
----- Original Message ----- 
Subject: fw: [B P T] talking ipod




At last - The talking iPod has arrived Stephen N Plumbton

Apple has released the new iPod Nano in a variety of colours and in 8 
Gigabyte or 16 Gigabyte guises. The menu structure on the iPod can now be 
spoken using a synthetic voice, so now if you can't see the iPod screen, you 
will not be left wondering what tracks you have downloaded or have selected 
to play.

The model evaluated is the Nano Red, which means that Apple donates some of 
the purchase cost towards fighting Aids in Africa. The great news is that 
this is an iPod that anyone can buy and use, not a specialist product or 
needing an add-on for blind or partially sighted people to use. This is the 
first talking iPod to come to the market. You can expect other MP3 players 
to follow suit as Apple is the market leader in this segment. The spoken 
menu feature is expected to be well received amongst fully sighted people 
also because the iPod is an audio device and people will find the spoken 
menu coming through their earbuds.

The spoken interface can be used on a Macintosh or Windows PC but you must 
use iTunes version 8. When the iPod is plugged in the first time, it will 
begin to charge up the battery. Eventually a start up screen appears which 
allows you to choose how you want to set up the iPod. One of the tick box 
options is "spoken menus". Tick this box if you want iPod menus to be 
spoken.

The voice used is a synthetic voice (i.e. computer generated voice) so might 
not be totally clear or understandable. The voice used is the one chosen in 
Speech in System preferences folder on a Mac and the speech folder in the 
Control Panel on a Windows PC. These are text to speech voices that are 
installed on your computers hard drive. The more synthesizers you have 
installed then the greater the number of voices you have to choose from.

The PC used to trial the iPod Nano had Microsoft Sam installed which was 
very basic but quite clear and also Voiceware Kate which is a very human 
sounding voice.

Using the iPod

The iPod has an LCD screen, which is approximately half of the height of the 
device. The screen can be used to watch movies, or photo albums or even TV 
shows that are now available to download from iTunes. The screen also shows 
albums and songs installed on the iPod. Below the screen is a touch wheel. 
This touch wheel is made up of four buttons that can be pressed - so left 
side of the wheel is rewind or backwards but also can be volume down, the 
right side of the wheel when pressed is fast forward or volume up. The top 
of the wheel is Menu and the bottom of the wheel when pressed toggles 
between play and pause. The touch wheel can also be used as a touch 
sensitive scroll wheel. Sliding your finger around the wheel will move 
backwards or forward through the menus. Finally the inside of the wheel acts 
as an on and off button.

To listen to tracks simply move through your menu list of tracks and press 
play on the one you want to hear. If you want to browse for another track 
whilst listening to a song, the iPod fades the music playing into the 
background while speaking the menu contents. Once you finish navigating in 
the menus the song returns to the set volume.

Shuffle the Shuffle

The iPod has an accelerometer built in so it can detect which way it is 
being held up. This is mainly as a feature for sighted users viewing photos, 
movies or downloads. However the accelerometer allows the iPod to detect 
when it is shaken. This shaking is used as the shuffle feature and a track 
is played randomly from the playlist.

Disable touch wheel mode

When the iPod is in your pocket, bag or even on your arm you can set it to 
play then disable to touch wheel functions so that it does not change songs 
or stop playing by accident. Its similar to keypad lock on a mobile phone. 
On the top left of the iPod is a tiny round slide switch. Sliding it to the 
right puts the iPod into keypad locked. To the left, unlock touch pad.

Display and font sizes

The display is small - after all, the device is called a Nano! However there 
is some accessibility built in. In the General folder the backlight, 
brightness, font size can be adjusted. The font adjustment has two settings 
standard and large. Large is approximately 14 point print size. The colour 
scheme appears to be set as black text on a white background. There is a lot 
of adjustment in the Brightness setting if people find the bright white 
background causes glare however contrast does deteriorate if the brightness 
is turned down low. A useful feature is the "clicker", which registers 
movement on the touch wheel by clicking through menu items.

In conclusion

A desirable, great little device that just got even better. Why not give one 
a try and join the iPod generation! -------------- next part --------------  
An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: