Transcript: 2: Fooled by the Tech

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Welcome and Catching Up

Stuart H: Welcome back to The Tech Doc Podcast, and to our first full episode. Most of us are here, anyway, so let's go around the table and ask how everyone has been. So Jackie, how have you been? Have you been surviving?

Jackie: Yep, we have. And I got a new toy, which will be brought up in a later edition, and I'm really enjoying it.

Stuart H: Oh wow, I can't wait. She's made me a bit jealous telling me about it over the last month. And I'm going to keep you all in suspense. Maybe email in and try to guess what it could be. So Ken, how are you?

Ken: I'm good, Stuart, thanks. It's been a quiet month, just messing around with different apps and keeping busy, and thankfully the weather seems to be picking up now down here in Cork.

Stuart H: I'd say the same up here. Honestly, the last week has been quite good. We've had a bit of rain on and off, but it's Ireland. And Pat, how have you been getting on?

Pat: All as usual. Just the tropics up here in Cavan. Continuous sunshine. Nothing much. Just fighting with Siri the last month, getting a few updates, and that's been my battle the last month.

Stuart H: Oh yes, Siri. Painful, agreed. We'll come back to that later in the podcast, because our major topic is the most annoying technology you've encountered over your time using assistive technology. Are we missing someone here? Ken, do you know where Jade is?

Ken: I was talking to her last week, but other than that, I haven't really heard from her.

Stuart H: Jade, where are you? You should be here.

CSUN Exhibition Dispatches

Jade: Hello, everyone, and welcome back to The Tech Doc Podcast. I am in a busy exhibition hall in Anaheim, California, at the 41st CSUN Assistive Technology Conference. It's been exhausting but rewarding to find out what's new in the world of assistive technology. There is so much here, from braille to magnifiers to WeWALK to Glide. There's so much, and it was impossible to catch up with everyone, but hopefully I'll be able to give you a little sneak peek from Selvas, from Eschenbach and from Dot. So hopefully there'll be something in there to satisfy everyone.

Stuart H: Oh wow, there she is.

Jade: I'm back. Sadly back in Ireland. I was in the thirty-three degrees heat.

Stuart H: Oh, talk about good weather. I don't think we'll get up to thirty-three degrees Celsius any time soon.

Jade: No. It was a fabulous week, though. Lots of tech, lots of people to meet. It was a fabulous, fabulous exhibition.

Stuart H: Oh wow. And I believe you have some clips for us?

Jade: Yes, I absolutely do.

Stuart H: Ah, fantastic. What's the first one you're going to show us?

Jade: Last October, Sight and Sound Technology held an exhibition in TU Dublin, and we were lucky to meet Síle O'Modhrain, who is with NewHaptics. They have come up with a device that is absolutely incredible. I caught up with her at CSUN, so I have an interview with Síle telling us all about the Codex braille display.

Codex Braille Display Interview

Jade: Hi, everyone. I'm here with Síle O'Modhrain from NewHaptics. Síle, we met you back in October when you came to visit the exhibition in TU Dublin, and the device that is in front of me is the Codex.

Síle: That's correct.

Jade: Do you want to tell me some more about it?

Síle: Yeah. The Codex is a four-line braille display. Each line has thirty-two characters, and it's really high-quality braille, so we're trying to get as close as we can to existing refreshable braille displays. It has a fully interactive touch screen, so the dots actually come up through the touch screen. You can touch the display and move the cursor around just by double-tapping anywhere on it, instead of routing with cursor routing buttons.

Jade: And Síle, this device is pretty special, because it's a refreshable braille display, but it's done by something completely different.

Síle: That's right. The underlying technology that moves the dots is actually bubbles of air. That's why we're able to get them so close together. The device has a little air pump that drives the dots up and down, but that also means it's a really tight interaction.

Jade: So it's not a portable braille display, but it is unbelievable. The refreshable braille is very quick, and it's seamless. There's no noise. I like the fact that you can move the cursor, so if you're reading something and you're editing, you can just move your cursor. You don't have to go and look for it with arrow keys or something.

Síle: Exactly. It's got terminal mode, and it integrates with screen readers. So if you're editing in Word and you want to read on the device, and you want to fix something, you can just do it right there under your hand.

Jade: It supports JAWS?

Síle: JAWS and NVDA, yeah. It connects directly to your laptop. For people who write computer code, for instance, it's really annoying if you make a mistake and you have to go back through all the code to find it. But if you find it on the braille display, you just double-tap, the cursor comes to you, and you fix it right there.

Jade: Síle, this is so impressive. Thank you so much for giving us your time.

Síle: Well, you didn't tell them about the games.

Jade: I didn't, you're right. There are some fantastic games on it.

Síle: Yeah, and all the games have been designed for particular reasons. One is a coin-catching game, which is designed to show you that you can interact with a dynamic simulation. Another one is Battleship, which helps you do some spatial reasoning, basically: to remember where the ships were and where you tried to attack your enemy, if you like. So all of the games are on there, but they're really fun too. We have the card game Solitaire on here now, and I've wasted many hours trying to play that.

Jade: It is so good. And my favourite one, I think, was Whac-A-Mole. That was very, very good. But no, Síle, thank you so much for giving us your time, and hopefully we'll hear more from the Codex and NewHaptics very soon.

Síle: Thank you very much.

Jade: There you go. What did you think?

Stuart H: That sounded amazing, I have to say. That way of creating braille cells with air? I thought that was fascinating.

Jade: So yeah, it's plugged into an air pump, and honestly, it's the quietest. I don't know if any of you have ever seen a multi-line braille display of its kind... It's such a cool device. But one thing is, the Codex is very quiet. You can't hear the cells change. On some devices you can hear them refresh, so it sounds like an old kind of typewriter.

Stuart H: Wow, that sounds like my type of braille display. I hate unnecessary noise, please. I like things to be as quiet as possible, because I think it just feels better, to me personally.

Jade: And Jackie, while we were listening to that, I could sense Jackie thinking, "Hmm..." It's not available in Ireland just yet, but it will be.

Stuart H: What did you think of it, Jackie?

Jackie: I'm fascinated with braille anyway. I took it up during Covid. So anything that's different, basically anything braille, I'm all for it.

Jade: And we're not leaving Pat out, because this time I managed to talk to a guy called Ron, who works with Eschenbach, and they have released a device called the Optaro XL. So I think we'll hear from Ron now.

Eschenbach Optaro XL Magnifier Interview

Ron: Hi, I'm Ron, Eschenbach's South Regional Sales Manager here in the United States. We're going through the product that turns an iPad into a fully functional video magnifier. The first thing is, this is a hardware device. The product itself is here: it has its own battery, and it actually has two cameras, one for high-quality, low-vision near magnification. The product is turned on by itself, and it's connected through an app called the Optaro XL. Once you turn the device on, it automatically starts up, like I have right here. You can pinch for the magnification and move the material around.

You have automatic OCR, called the Tell Me feature. We also have the ability to do full-page OCR scanning. I hit the OCR button for this, which uses a separate camera, and it will automatically scan a full page. Then we're able to double-tap. So that's the OCR function there.

We have the background colours: the option of fourteen different background colours with this, but we can go into the menu and customise whatever is most practical for whoever would be using the device. I mentioned the OCR. You have orientation lines and windowing. You don't need to pinch; you can also use plus and minus. This will work with any accessibility features that you have on the iPad. For someone who's visually impaired, the controls are often difficult to use, but we have reading aloud: we can just swipe, it'll tell us what we want, and then we double-tap on the screen to use that function, change the background colours or capture, things like that. And there are multiple different languages that you can use, and it will translate from English into whatever language you've been using.

Stuart H: Oh wow, that sounded fascinating as well. And our magnifier expert here, Pat: what did you think of that?

Pat: I love the idea of just having something that connects to a device, be it a phone or an iPad, and takes care of a lot of the issues. From what I could hear, the steadying and the lag and all of that kind of thing has been taken care of, and the translations as well. Really interesting. I'd like to hear more about this.

Jade: Yeah, the optics on it were very, very good, and you can invert the colours and stuff. It's just a really good magnifier. So we'll hopefully have more information on it.

Pat: And how mobile is it?

Jade: It's literally like a case. It does add a bit of weight to your iPad, but it's literally a case.

Pat: Excellent.

Stuart H: Fantastic. And is it battery-charged?

Jade: Battery-charged.

Stuart H: Okay. So after those two fantastic clips, into our big major topic.

The Tech That Wronged Us

Stuart H: As I said at the beginning, our topic today is the most annoying bits of technology that you have encountered. I think we'll be nice and keep it broad: it could be software-related or hardware. I'm going to go around the table, and maybe I'll actually start. What bit of technology have I found the most annoying? I'm preparing for a little bit of a rant here. Trying to get our podcast up on YouTube, and Google: I have to say that was the most annoying thing I could imagine. It's so tied down with security that you're locked out of it. A twenty-four-hour battle with verification and some of the stuff. In the end, I had to rely on sighted people to finally get our podcast up on YouTube, and I'd say it took us the guts of at least a week to finally get there. And I have to say, I am completely surprised by how bad it was. I honestly thought it would be a bit better. Jade suffered along with me at points during this.

Jade: It really was the most horrific experience. It was traumatising, to the point that I realised Google and Apple don't really think alike.

Stuart H: No, they don't really. They're completely two separate ecosystems. So that's my mini rant. Jade, if you want to go next?

Jade: For me, the most annoying piece of tech... you've left it very broad, so I'm going to go back years and years ago, to when I was in secondary school. The most annoying piece of technology that was ever put in front of me was a distance camera called the Optiversal. At the time it was kind of revolutionary, because I could see the whiteboard and what the teachers were putting up. I could read it myself. But lads, it had this big long robotic arm, and you had to manually move the camera from left to right. You couldn't control it with the keyboard on the computer or whatever. You had to manually move this thing. I couldn't handwrite with it, because I had to be like Elastigirl from The Incredibles: I had to stretch my arm all the way to the other side to be able to put my hand on the page of the book to write. It really wasn't good. And then you'd have the computer magnifier that would sit on top. I had to go back to that, because I just couldn't.

Stuart H: What was this? Was this a magnifier?

Jade: No. Basically, it was a laptop computer that sat on a stand, and a USB connected into the computer to attach the camera. And the camera was on this long arm that was like a number seven shape. It had a ninety-degree angle, and it just wasn't nice.

Ken: It sounds very cumbersome and awkward.

Jade: Yeah, it wasn't good at all. But it was revolutionary in the fact that I could see what the teachers were writing on the board myself. I got this when I was in fifth year of secondary school, the year when all your Leaving Cert material is covered, and I just thought, I can't do this. It stressed me out so much. I think I took a lot of days where I had bad eye days, because there was just a lot of strain.

Stuart H: Wow. Pat, have you ever seen that device?

Pat: No, not that one. I remember those things, okay. But if I can just say it, the most positive reader that I got was like a little mouse that you ran across each line of the book, and it came up on the TV.

Jade: I started with one of them.

Jackie: Oh yeah, I had one of them as well.

Pat: That was the first time I could read a book from cover to cover. It was mind-blowing. I remember just thinking, "Wow," because everything else was so attached to a desk. Anything I was used to, you had to sit in one place, whereas this thing allowed me to just sit back and relax while reading. It was lovely.

Stuart H: So what do you have for us today, Pat? Let it rip.

Pat: Let it rip. Well, I'm going to try and be fair to Apple in some ways. I think the most incredible thing was the introduction of Siri, in one way, but it's so frustrating. It seems to work well at times in different versions of software, and then they so-called update the software, and it doesn't recognise a word you're saying. Because I have some vision, I can see when I dictate: it actually types what I've said, and then it changes it for some reason. It's so frustrating.

Jade: It doesn't like the Cavan accent, Pat. That's the problem.

Pat: So maybe that thing you were talking about, Stuart, the disconnection between Apple and Google, will be addressed as well.

Ken: It was never that bad, Pat. I feel in the last year or so it's gotten much worse than it was.

Pat: It's since the introduction of this huge launch of Apple Intelligence. It's gone just ridiculously bad. You cannot rely on it.

Ken: And the same with dictation. Dictation has totally gone out the window. It's typing things irrelevant to what you're even saying. It's just totally different.

Pat: Yeah, the whole voice recognition has just gone to hell. It really is so bad.

Stuart H: From what I understand, a lot of the Siri people have left Apple, as far as I know, and maybe a lot of the issues have gotten worse because of that.

Jade: All the good Siris have left.

Pat: But hopefully with the update now, now that they're working with Google and Google's AI, hopefully that'll correct it. It can't get any worse.

Ken: I know we joke about Android and Apple versus each other, but we might all be moving to Android if it gets any worse.

Stuart H: Ah, let's not go that far. Although the one thing I will say is, they do have a better one. No doubt. So Ken, what do you have for us? Have you had a bit of time to think?

Ken: I was sitting here, Stuart, before the podcast started, and I had a few things in mind, but I'm actually going to change. Alexa. I've probably set everyone's off now around the world. Last month I raved about Alexa, and she's brilliant. But this one feature bugs the hell out of me: when you get her to play a radio station or whatever, she'll start trying to sign you up for music. You're getting her to play audiobooks, she's trying to sign you up for this and that, and you're roaring at her "No!", and half the time you're wondering, is she actually doing it just to try and sign you up, just for the sake of getting money out of you? It really bugs the hell out of me, to be honest.

Jade: It sounds like a clever marketing ploy.

Ken: It really is.

Stuart H: I think, for safety's sake, we'll start addressing Alexa as Lady A from now on. My problem with Lady A is connecting to the radio. You get a few ads at the beginning, and then suddenly it goes silent. What happened there?

Ken: I wouldn't even mind that. It's the trying to sign you up for things. We'll just say, here in Cork, you'll say, "Lady A, play Cork's RedFM." I'm giving a bit of advertisement there on TuneIn.

Jade: Best station ever.

Ken: And she'll say, "Do you want to sign up to Amazon Music?" or whatever, and I'm like, that's not even what I said. You're just roaring "No, no, no." It's just annoying, to be honest.

Jackie: I'm a major Lady A user, but maybe I couldn't have the accent right. I'd be telling her to play a book, and then she'll say, "Do you mean...?" and give me another book: "This book costs one credit on Audible." And I'm like, bye!

Jade: I've actually found, Jackie, and I don't know if you've come across this, but my daughter has gotten very into it: we'll read a book on Audible at bedtime. And if I say "Play" such-and-such "on Audible", it won't do it. But if I say "Read", then it will read the book. If I actually ask her to play it, she won't do it.

Jackie: Yeah. And then there's books it won't play at all.

Stuart H: I'm surprised it wouldn't start reading the Kindle books.

Jade: For me, anyway, say we've just finished James and the Giant Peach: I'll say "Read James and the Giant Peach", and she says, "Picking up where you left off." I don't use a Kindle. My granny does, and it's linked to my account. But it boils down to listening to what you're doing and recognising your patterns. So it obviously knows I want to listen to it on Audible.

Stuart H: Yeah, it deduces. So Pat, what do you think of this? Do you have any Alexas?

Pat: I have, and I find there's no issue with her understanding what I'm saying.

Jackie: Weird.

Stuart H: Oh, Jackie, you have to be nice.

Pat: But that's interesting, that obviously she's learning whatever your patterns are and stuff like that as well. I don't like this whole bloat, trying to sell stuff all the time. It's not just Alexa. It's sneaking in everywhere.

Jackie: Or another Lady A one, and this is not my rant, my rant's coming shortly: if you're doing a quiz, say, "What happened at Easter?", the Easter Bunny or whatever, and the answer is A, B or C. So you go "A", and she says, "That is the wrong answer. The answer is A."

Stuart H: I've had that, especially on some of the quizzes where you're rushed and you only have a minute to answer the questions. You say "A", and the answer is A, and "Ninety-nine percent of people got this question right."

Jackie: And you end up spelling the word to her, because you know she's not going to understand what you're saying.

Ken: To be honest, she has her great points as well. But for me, it's her trying to sign me up to music when I don't want it. Us Cork people, as is probably well known, we're very tight, so we don't want to be signing up to things we don't want.

Stuart H: We'll stop bashing Lady A there, no matter how deserved or undeserved, and move on. Jackie, what's your rant?

Jackie: Okay. The Apple universe. I love everything Apple, except for the HomePod minis. You can't even use them as a doorstop. They don't stop the door closing. They are the biggest waste of money and energy and time, and you practically have to have your phone connected to do the thing. "Send a message": "You're no longer connected to your phone." I'm sitting here holding my phone. I might as well talk to my phone.

Jade: And I'm just playing devil's advocate here, Jackie: does your phone need to be unlocked?

Jackie: More than likely.

Ken: Did you eat an apple while you were trying to do it?

Pat: My question is, Jackie, do you regret buying them?

Jackie: Yes. Well, I actually bought two. I thought, "This is Apple." Nope.

Jade: So it's on the do-not-recommend list.

Jackie: And I gave one to my sister.

Stuart H: Wow. So for our listeners: we'd love to hear about your smart devices too, so do contact us.

Ken: To contact the show, please email thetechdocpod@outlook.com.

(The show's email address has since changed: you can now reach us at hello@thetechdocpod.com.)

Jade: So to cut in on your rant, Jackie: I had a Mr G, or a Mrs G, whatever you want to call her. This year I actually got rid of her, because I was given an Apple TV, and it's much better.

Ken: I was thinking, who's Mr G?

Stuart H: Mr G is the uncle of Lady A.

Jackie: Has anybody ever called one but said the wrong name?

Jade: Yes.

Jackie: A case of mistaken identity.

Jade: "I believe you have the wrong assistant."

Pat: I have a neighbour called Alicia, and I call her name by mistake so many times. She refuses to play music or anything else over here.

Stuart H: I think it's time to play some more of the clips Jade recorded over in America.

Jackie: Can we hear a bit more tech that won't give us headaches?

Stuart H: So we can cool off now.

Jade: After the last few, as well. So you're now going to hear Dave Williams from Dot Incorporated. We did a bit of a swap: he gave us a lovely podcast interview in return for me doing some video footage for him. So what you're going to hear now is Dave from Dot talking about the Dot Pad.

Dot Pad Tactile Display Interview

Dave: Hello, this is Dave Williams, Customer Experience Manager with Dot Inc. Dot Pad is a tactile information display. Dot Pad can show multiple lines of braille, eight lines of braille, or tactile graphics. And the difference between the original Dot Pad and Dot Pad X is that the X means the cells refresh ten times faster. We're using the third generation, what we call the D3 cell, in Dot Pad X, which means that the braille comes up quicker, and you don't have to take your hand away. It just makes the whole experience much more fluent and straightforward.

One of the challenges with braille technology for the last fifty years: there are over two and a half thousand little pins that move up and down, right? We all have natural oils in our skin, and there's dust and dirt in the environment. Dot, I think, have taken a very pragmatic decision to use what we call a cell protector. This is just a very thin layer, like a very thin sheet, that sits over the braille dots. You can still feel the braille through the cell protector very easily. It doesn't impair your ability to read. It just gives you an extra layer of protection, in the same way that some people might use a screen protector on their smartphone or tablet.

Jade: For our listeners, it feels like a poly pocket.

Dave: Yeah, and you can still feel the braille through that. The Dot cells produce a solid, more signage-type quality of braille, so this perhaps wouldn't work as well with more traditional braille cell technology that's a bit more springy or spongy to the touch. But the Dot cells work really well with this cell protector, and it does mean we've had previously unheard-of levels of reliability. Those of us who've been working in braille for some time know that the most common reason a braille display fails is ingress: dust or dirt or moisture getting inside the device. I've been with Dot now for about a year, coming up in May, and it has meant that we get a very, very low return rate as a result of a failed pin or anything like that.

The other important thing to say about the Dot cells is that they are revolutionary. Historically, when you're touching a braille display, it's a bit like a piano key: you're touching just the very end of quite a long component. The Dot cells are like little Lego bricks. They can be stacked vertically or horizontally, so that you can make a braille display of any size. And this is important, because on a single-line display, it's like looking at a painting through a keyhole, or reading through a letterbox. You don't get the same level of context. Imagine you're reading a table, and you want to know the heading of the column or row that you're on. Or imagine you're a programmer exploring some code, where formatting is very important and you want to feel the shape and the indentation. That makes much more sense when you have access to multiple lines. The cells are also very easily replaced: if a cell needs to be replaced, you can just go to your local distributor in your country, and they're able to swap out a cell with a tool. It's a very simple process. It only takes a few minutes, and it doesn't have to be sent back to the other side of the world for an extended period.

Our website is dotincorp.com. That's D-O-T-I-N-C-O-R-P dot com. There you'll find our blog. We also have our podcast, Raising the Dots, that you can hear anywhere you get your podcasts. You'll also be able to update your firmware and use the various Dot apps. And if you want to send an email and reach out, you can do that at info@dotincorp.com.

Stuart H: Wow. That was fascinating, I have to say. It reminded me of the Monarch, actually. Very similar.

Jade: Well, they do use similar technologies, yeah.

Stuart H: It's multi-line as well.

Jade: It is. You've got the multi-line display, and then there's a twenty-cell single line at the bottom. When I was looking at it, what they had on the display for me was your phone's calendar. It was the month of March, and you could quickly find the tenth of March just by running your finger down the numbers. It was very good.

Stuart H: It might make the calendar app a bit easier to use, I think.

Jade: Yeah. It was good to feel how it might be laid out on your phone screen.

Stuart H: What did you think of it, Jackie?

Jackie: I thought it was quite good. Again, I'm really into anything braille, because I think braille gives you so much more independence.

Jade: Another thing I did like about it: another image they showed me was the number fifty-seven, and it came up in print instead of braille, so you could feel the number five and the number seven. For people who have no sight, who would have never seen print, it's nice to feel it and go, "Oh, this is what sighted people read."

Stuart H: I think that is actually quite essential for people who have never seen print. To be honest, even though that might be a small thing, that has kind of blown my mind a little.

Jade: But again, once those images are described to you, you can understand them. If you were to just feel the numbers and you'd never felt them before, you'd kind of go, "What is this?" Once you're told what they are, you get a better sense of them.

Jackie: Because what shocked me was, with the referendums we've had here, some people don't actually know what an X looks like.

Jade: Exactly. So something like that is invaluable.

Pat: It's lovely connecting both communities, so people have a better understanding from both sides.

Stuart H: Yes: come together, don't be split apart. I think that is a lovely message to have.

BrailleSense 7 Interview

Jade: The very last one, I've literally saved the best for last. Selvas, who were formerly HIMS, had a product on display which I was very excited about. It's the new BrailleSense 7, and I was very lucky to get an interview with the one and only Jenny Axler, who I'm sure everybody will have heard of. So Jenny kindly talked me through the BrailleSense 7.

Joining me now is Jenny Axler from Selvas. Jenny, everyone walking around the exhibition has been talking to us about your new BrailleSense 7. I'm looking at it here on the stand. Can you tell me about it?

Jenny: Well, the BrailleSense 7 is kind of a departure from what we have done in previous years. The first interesting thing about it is that it actually comes with a QWERTY case, a detachable QWERTY case. You can get a regular case with it, but the default bundle is going to be the main braille unit with a detachable QWERTY case, so you can use either one. And with that, we also have an NVDA Remote function that's added to our terminal mode. In general, in terminal mode, you can access your computer via QWERTY with braille, but it's really cool, because you can actually access it from a distance. Earle's been doing that: he has his laptop somewhere at home, and he's been using his BrailleSense 7 to do his email on Outlook from his laptop at home. So it's been really interesting.

The other interesting thing about this is that the braille display is touch-capacitive. To navigate and activate functions, you're able to use gestures very similar to what you would use in VoiceOver or TalkBack. For example, you would flick left and right to navigate up and down. If you're in a dialogue, you can use a two-finger swipe to tab back and forth, very similar to what you do with a Windows touch screen. So a lot of this is really based on what you would use in mainstream devices with accessibility and touch screens. And of course, you double-tap to activate. The other method is, you can put your finger on the cell and press a cursor routing button that we have on the front panel, and that will route it too. So it's virtual routing, and it's tracking your hand movements. That's the other major function: it's a touch-capacitive cell.

We also have the smart scrolling function. Those who are familiar with the HelpTech ATC products, it's kind of similar to that. You can set it for either left-handed or right-handed reading. So it really does try to tailor to your natural reading preferences.

Jade: Amazing. And Jenny, what's the cell count?

Jenny: We actually have a 40, a 32, and a little bit later we're going to have a 20-cell. The 20-cell in this case, though, is not going to be a mini, and I do want to point that out, because in the past we have had mini models.

Jade: Jenny, thank you so much for giving us your time.

Stuart H: Wow, that is fascinating. Thanks, Jade. I am a bit disappointed... Another person on this podcast might be slightly disappointed as well.

Jade: Well, I have to point out something. First of all, Jackie didn't pay me to go after all those braille products, I really do promise that. And secondly, if anyone would like more information on any of the technology that was mentioned on the podcast, get in touch with Sight and Sound directly, and I'm sure you'll find out lots more information than was even mentioned on the podcast.

Listener Emails and Text Replacement Tips

Stuart H: Okay, I think we'll go to a couple of emails we've received since our last podcast. Jade, will you be our newsreader and read out the lovely emails we got?

Jade: Of course. We've had emails from Cearbhall O'Meadhra and from Paul Griffith. Paul, thank you for the name, by the way: you were instrumental in naming our podcast. Both wished us well and asked for more episodes from us in the future. And then we have an email from Eamon with a query. I want to put this to the one and only Stuart Haxell, because I do believe this is your domain. It says: "Hi Tech Docs, I really enjoyed your podcast episode, and I was wondering if you could explain how text replacement works and what are some good ways to use it."

Stuart H: Okay, that's no problem. Text replacements are a handy wee feature on your iPhone. If you type in a couple of letters, it will fill in a whole load of text automatically. So, for example, if you type in the letters E, M, L and a semicolon and press space, it could fill in your entire email address. You could do your phone number. And it's not limited to short bits: it can be whole paragraphs. For example, I have a specific paragraph that I put in whenever I call an Uber. Just four little letters and a space, and it puts in "I'm blind, could you please let me know when you've arrived," et cetera.

To actually set them up, you go to the General section of your Settings app, down to Keyboard, and the option there is Text Replacement. On this screen you'll have all your text replacements listed out, and you can jump through them by heading, in case you have a lot of them. To create a new text replacement, you go to the Add button up at the top right. In here you'll have two fields. The first is the Phrase field, where you type the entire phrase that you want your text replacement to put in. It could even be an emoji: I have that as well. In the next field, Shortcut, you type in your shortcut of however many letters. A small recommendation: put a punctuation mark alongside the letters, so you don't accidentally trigger a shortcut by mistake and wonder why your email address is in the middle of your sentence. Then you go to Save up at the top. While you're in the Text Replacement screen, there's a search field at the very bottom, so if you want to test out your text replacement, you can double-tap on that, type your shortcut and press space to see if it works. Go on there, Ken.

Ken: I presume that would work for passwords as well.

Stuart H: It will, but personally, I would use the Apple Passwords app. And a bit of a quick warning: text replacements don't work in every text field. Some websites, Google probably, won't work with text replacement. I don't know if that's me just being a bit biased, based on my good experience with Google...

Jade: Let's not go there.

Stuart H: Let's not go there. So I'll open it up to the table.

Jade: I'm laughing, because that has happened to me before with the preset Apple one, "omw" for "On my way!" If I'm typing really fast, I'll type OMW instead of OMG, and I've written back and my message says "On my way!" I've actually deleted that preset one, because I can't.

Pat: That's really interesting. I'm trying to remember what that was called on Windows, using that kind of feature. I remember learning that years ago, that you didn't have to fill in all the text. I didn't realise you could do that on the phone, so that's really interesting.

Stuart H: That's where I first came across it, personally.

Jackie: I've used it, and I agree with the punctuation. I have one for "EU", and no matter how you try to change it, it works for a while and then goes back, changing it to "Euro". So then I did "EU" with a full stop. And then also, for Irish people, there's the gardaí and Garda, which, for people not from here, is the Irish police service, with the fada. So for anybody's name that has fadas in it, I put their name down with the fada and give it a shortcut, so it comes out with the correct spelling and the proper fada attached to it.

Pat: Well, do we need to explain what a fada is for those who don't know?

Jackie: Yeah, explain what a fada is.

Pat: It's virtually an eyebrow on a letter.

Jade: Yeah. Basically, it changes a vowel sound in Irish. For example, the name Órla would typically be spelled O with a fada, then R, L, A.

Stuart H: It's similar to the umlaut.

Jade: Exactly!

Stuart H: So for our listeners, I have another challenge for ye. If ye have text replacements, or have some great ideas for text replacements, please do email them in to us. And we will not steal your ideas... unless they're fantastic.

Uh oh, the Tech Doc alarm.

Jade: I think we're being called.

Stuart H: The Tech Docs are being summoned. Code red. Code red, meaning shut up. Evacuate the building! So we hope you all have a very happy Easter and a very happy April Fool's Day.

Jade: Thanks, everyone, for listening.

(The episode closes with a song about Alexa.)