Tag: accessibility

How to Use Your Smartphone to Counteract Vision Loss (2024): iPhone, Android, Apps

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If it hasn’t popped up on your Android device, download the Reading mode tool from the Play Store. Go to Settings > Accessibility and tap Reading Mode and then Allow to turn it on. When you want to use it, simply tap the onscreen accessibility button. You can customize how it looks via the gear icon at the bottom left, hit the play button to have it read aloud, and increase or decrease text size by tapping the icon at the bottom right.

For a similar option on the iPhone, open a web article you want to read in Safari and tap the AA icon at the bottom left, then select Show Reader. (Unfortunately, not every website supports Reader mode, so if the option is grayed out, the website you are on likely doesn’t.) If you tap AA again, you can change the background color, font, and text size. You can also tap Website Settings and toggle on Use Reader Automatically for the website you’re visiting.

How to Magnify or Zoom

Even after customizing your display, there may be times when you want to magnify something on the screen. Thankfully, there are built-in options to do just that. On the iPhone, go to Settings > Accessibility > Zoom to configure different magnification settings for text and other content on your iPhone screen. With Android phones, go to Settings > Accessibility and tap Magnification to turn on the shortcut. You can choose full-screen magnification (including zooming in temporarily), partial-screen magnification, and magnifying text as you type.

What if you want to zoom in on objects or signs around you? The built-in camera app on your phone can zoom in, but the clarity of the close-up will depend on the quality of your phone’s camera. You can pinch to zoom, and zoom levels appear as numbers (like 2X) at the bottom of the camera view. If you press and hold on the zoom level, you get pop-up controls showing the full range of zoom options. But any movement while zoomed in can make it hard to read or examine details.

iPhone via Simon Hill

iPhone via Simon Hill

You can also use the Magnifier app on every iPhone. Swipe down on the home screen and search for it, find it in the Utilities folder in your App Library, or download it from the App Store. Point it at whatever you want to see and zoom in using the slider. Tap the cog at the bottom left, choose Settings to decide which controls you want to include, and select filters to make things more readable. We will discuss the handy Detection Mode and some of the other features of the Magnifier app in the “How to Identify Objects” section below.

There’s no built-in equivalent on Android, but Android phone owners can choose from several popular magnifier apps in the Play Store, such as Magnifier + Flashlight.

How to Get Audio Descriptions

Screen readers describe what is on your device screen and tell you about alerts and notifications.

The Android screen reader is called TalkBack, and it can be turned on via Accessibility > TalkBack > Use TalkBack. You can also say, “Hey Google, turn on TalkBack” or use the volume key shortcut (press and hold both volume keys for three seconds). With TalkBack on, you can touch the screen and drag your finger around to explore as TalkBack announces icons, buttons, and other items. You simply double-tap to select. To customize things like the verbosity, language, and feedback volume, tap the screen with three fingers or swipe down and then right in one stroke (gesture support depends on your device and Android version) and select TalkBack Settings. You can also turn on the virtual braille keyboard in these settings, as Google beefed up out-of-the-box support for braille displays in TalkBack with the Android 13 update.

Google via Simon Hill

Google via Simon Hill

Select-to-Speak is another Android feature that might be of interest. It provides audio descriptions of items on your screen, like text or images, and enables you to point your camera at pictures or text to hear them read or described aloud in certain languages. Turn it on via Settings > Accessibility > Select-to-Speak. Once activated, you can access it with a two-finger swipe up (three-finger swipe if TalkBack is on). Tap an item or tap and drag to select multiple items and tap Play to hear them described.

Apple’s screen reader is called VoiceOver, and you can find it in Settings > Accessibility, where you can set your preferred speaking rate, select voices for speech, set up braille output, and configure many other aspects of the VoiceOver feature. Tap VoiceOver Recognition to have images, whatever is onscreen in apps, and even text found in images described to you.

Apple via Simon Hill

If VoiceOver is more than you need, consider going to Settings > Accessibility > Spoken Content, where you will find three potentially handy options. Toggle on Speak Selection to have a Speak button pop up when you select text. Toggle on Speak Screen to hear the content of the screen when you swipe down from the top with two fingers. Tap Typing Feedback and you can choose to have characters, words, autocorrections, and more spoken aloud as you type.

For audio descriptions of video content on an iPhone, go to Settings > Accessibility and turn on Audio Descriptions. On an Android phone, it’s Settings > Accessibility > Audio Description.

How to Use Voice Commands

You can use voice commands to control your phone. On iPhone, go to Settings > Accessibility > Voice Control and tap Set Up Voice Control to run through your options and configure voice controls. On Android devices, go to Settings > Accessibility > Voice Access and toggle it on. If you don’t see the option, you may need to download the Voice Access app.

You can also dictate text on Android phones or iPhones by tapping the microphone icon whenever the keyboard pops up.

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June 13, 2024
How to Use Your Smartphone to Cope With Hearing Loss (2024): Tips for iPhone, Android

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MFi hearing devices usually have additional settings (it depends on the manufacturer) and can be configured from Control Center (with Hearing added) or through the Accessibility shortcut, which you can turn on and configure in Settings > Accessibility > Accessibility Shortcut.

To use hearing aids with Android phones, pair them like any other Bluetooth device by going to Settings > Connected Devices and Pair New Device. You may also have the option to pair through Settings > Accessibility > Hearing Devices and Pair New Device.

Additional features vary by phone manufacturer. Look for hearing aid compatibility (HAC) to see what your phone supports. For example, here is the Google Pixel hearing aid compatibility page. Some hearing aids can now stream music and podcasts directly to hearing aids from Android phones, but it’s wise to check compatibility before you buy.

When using hearing aids with Pixel phones you should also open the Phone app, tap the three vertical dots for Menu at the top right, and tap Settings > Accessibility to toggle Hearing Aids on.

If you don’t yet have a hearing aid but think you might need one, read our guide on how to buy a hearing aid. We also have a guide on how to stream audio to hearing aids and cochlear implants.

How to Use Real-Time Text With Your Phone

Some folks may prefer to type responses on a call, and you can do this with the real-time text (RTT) feature. Sadly, availability depends on your region and carrier. If there’s no RTT option, you will likely have Teletype (TTY) support instead. (RTT is more advanced and can transmit audio as you type.)

On Android phones, open the Phone app, tap the three vertical dots for Menu at the top right, and tap Settings > Accessibility to turn on RTT or TTY. If you choose Always Visible, you can tap the RTT icon (a capital T) after dialing someone to start an RTT call, and you can tap to launch it during a call.

To review transcripts of calls on Android, open your Phone app and tap Recents, choose the call you want, and then Call Details > See Transcript.

For iPhone, you can turn on RTT or TTY in Settings > Accessibility and you can select Answer All Calls as RTT/TTY. You can also choose RTT/TTY Call when calling someone and tap the RTT/TTY icon (looks like a landline phone) to answer a call or switch to text during a call.

To review transcripts of calls on iPhone, open your Phone app and tap Recents, then the i next to the call. You will see the RTT/TTY icon next to calls with transcripts in your call history.

Why Some Android Accessibility Features Are Baked Into Pixels

You may be wondering why some hearing accessibility features are baked into Google’s Pixel phones but offered as separate apps for other Android devices. Angana Ghosh, director of product management for input and accessibility at Google, says this allows the accessibility team to try new things on Pixel, where Google designs the hardware, especially since some phones may not be capable of the same level of on-device processing.

Keeping certain features as stand-alone apps also allows for regular updates so other Android phones can benefit from the latest developments without requiring firmware updates, which are often less frequent on non-Pixel phones.

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June 12, 2024
The Best Hearing Aids of 2024, Reviewed by Experts

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If you have hearing challenges, you long had but one option for dealing with it: An expensive, bulky hearing aid prescribed by a doctor. That all changed in 2022 when the US Food and Drug Administration approved over-the-counter hearing aid devices, giving consumers access to a vast and growing array of alternatives. Today, there are more hearing aids than ever, and they come in all different shapes, sizes, and most importantly, prices. How does a $100 hearing aid compare to a $5,000 prescription device for treating mild to moderate hearing loss? We’ve been testing products for the last two years to answer that question.

To help us out with this analysis, we brought in an expert. Licensed audiologist Dr. Ruth Reisman analyzed all of these hearing aids in a scientific lab setting, only approving models that amplified noises at safe levels. At the same time, I did hands-on (ears-on?) testing of these hearing aids around my home, outside, and in noisy environments.

We’ve found plenty to like on the market today—and plenty of aids we’d avoid. The Jabra Enhance Select 300 has the current crown as the best hearing aid, with the Eargo Link and Sony CRE-C10 close behind. Here’s our complete roundup of the best prescription and over-the-counter hearing aids we tested and approved.

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What to Consider Before You Buy

Every person is unique, and so are their hearing loss needs. To find a device that suits your needs and lifestyle, consider these factors. Check out our guide on How to Buy a Hearing Aid for more.

Hearing aids shouldn’t bankrupt you. With such a steep price and minimal insurance coverage, it’s no wonder why so many people put off hearing loss treatment. Between audiologist visits, hearing aid orders, custom fittings, and maintenance, it’s justifiable that you might postpone treatment rather than fork over your credit card. Knowing your budget is vital before you start browsing for hearing aids. Many brands offer trial periods where you can test out the device for a set number of days and, if they’re a bad fit, return them free of charge.

It doesn’t have to be obvious that you’re wearing a hearing aid. Despite cartoonish media depictions of hunched-over seniors screaming “WHAT?!” at every person who tries to talk to them, hearing loss doesn’t discriminate by age. With nearly 10 million Americans under the age of 60 affected, more should be taking advantage of the sleekly designed hearing aids on the market. Similar to the stigmas that keep people from seeking mental health treatment, the hearing loss community is plagued by self-consciousness when it comes to wearing these devices. Modern in-the-ear (ITE) hearing aids have come a long way in subtlety.

Opt for a professional hearing test over an online one. While online and app-based tests are a good way to dip your toes in and see if you have hearing loss, a detailed audiogram that only an in-office visit can provide is a far better option. A hearing professional can use this audiogram to calibrate hearing aids to your specific needs.

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June 7, 2024
Signia Silk 7X Review: Fuss-Free, Super Expensive Hearing Aids

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Signia’s vast range of hearing aids includes, by my count, a whopping 20 different models, but one of the smallest and most discreet is the company’s Silk X line. There are currently five different sub-models within the Silk X lineup, the most advanced and most expensive of which is the Silk 7X, reviewed here. Note, however, that while it’s still being actively marketed, Signia says the Silk X line is considered “outdated technology” and will eventually be phased out in favor of the Silk Charge&Go IX line.

The Silk 7X are a pint-sized powerhouse that sit completely in the ear canal and are virtually invisible save for the tiny retrieval wires that stick out just above your earlobes. Weighing in at 1.34 grams each, their heft is kept at a minimum by using tiny replaceable batteries (size #10) instead of rechargeable ones. Distinguishing right from left is easy: The right aid is clad completely in translucent red plastic, the left in blue. No hunting for tiny R and L signposts here. To turn the aids off, open the battery hatch a bit. Close it to turn them on again.

Photograph: Save Hear

Aside from the color scheme, the aids themselves may appear familiar in design—specifically, they look a lot like Sony’s CRE-C10 hearing aids, which were released as part of the first wave of over-the-counter hearing aids back in 2022. Sony’s version is all black but otherwise identical in appearance. That’s for a reason: Signia is Sony’s hearing aid technology partner, and it made the C10 (as well as Sony’s E10 model) for the company.

Why would Signia make two versions of the same hearing aid? That’s a complicated question, but the crux is that Sony’s model is purely over-the-counter, with no audiologist visit required (or available), whereas Signia’s Silk X line comprises prescription models you can get only through a professional. This matters a great deal, and which type of hearing aid you purchase depends heavily on how much handholding you want and need.

Case in point: Sony’s C10s aren’t the easiest to set up—they don’t have a Bluetooth connection—so novices may become frustrated during the delicate configuration process, which is performed via high-frequency sound waves emitted by your phone. The C10s also rely on an in-app hearing test to tune them to your hearing profile. On the other hand, the Silk 7X are configured in person by an audiologist. The user doesn’t have to do a thing except get themselves to the doctor’s office.

Functionally, I didn’t notice any real difference between the two models—though I do not have Sony C10s on hand anymore to test them side by side—and I even had the same notes about the default settings causing the bass to be too heavy on the Silk 7X. There’s no way to make any major adjustments in the mobile app—Signia’s AI-powered Signia Assistant isn’t available on this device —aside from adjusting volume, sliding balance between “soft” and “sharp,” and making directional hearing choices that let you focus on sounds originating from all around you, just one side, or somewhere in between.

Photograph: Save Hear

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June 7, 2024
Eargo Link Review: Basic Hearing Aids That Are Too Pricey

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Eargo is widely known for its ultra-luxe over-the-counter hearing aids; the company makes some of the most expensive OTC aids on the market. But to make its lineup a bit more accessible, there’s the Eargo Link, a low(er)-priced, no-frills alternative to its more sophisticated options.

At first glance, the Link hearing aids don’t appear any different than standard Bluetooth earbuds. You get a glossy black plastic and a bulbous design that rests inside the ear’s concha, albeit bulging out a little. At 4.74 grams (fitted out with a small ear tip), it’s considerably heavier in the hand than a lot of modern hearing aids, but it doesn’t feel particularly weighty in the ear, due to the particulars of its design—even after sustained use. They can, however, be tough to wrangle into the right place as they need to be carefully rotated into the ear to fit snugly.

Photograph: Eargo

In addition to its design, the Link is distinguished from its forebears by its lack of an app. While it pairs to your phone like a set of standard Bluetooth headphones, it doesn’t work with Eargo’s standard hearing aid control app. It doesn’t have any physical controls either. Rather, the earbuds are touch-sensitive and rely on (well-placed) taps to operate them. More on that in a bit.

These control limitations mean there’s not a lot to using the Link hearing aids; there’s not even a traditional way to control the volume. Instead, you’ll spend most of your time double-tapping your way through four Listening Programs, each one offering a higher amplification level (reportedly tuned to speech) than the last. A final mute setting turns all amplification off before cycling back to Program 1. The four programs don’t seem to vary in any other way aside from overall loudness, and there’s no way to tune the aids for certain environments such as TV watching or outdoor use. By and large, you’ll just have to experiment to find out what works.

The good news is that the Link does a solid job at boosting audio, though I found it a bit blunt, amplifying everything across the board from voices to footsteps to wind noise. Moving up the programs, each is, well, one louder. Other than increasing levels of loudness, I didn’t hear any difference among them.

Eargo includes six sets of ear tips—three sizes in both open and closed designs. The default medium ear tips are gargantuan for me, and even the small size is a snug fit. Using open ear tips, I experienced a fair bit of echo and the usual “booming own voice” effect, but neither is overly onerous. Screeching feedback was common when inserting the aids, but otherwise, I never encountered any. Neither did I experience any problems with hiss except when using the highest volume program.

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June 6, 2024
How QWERTY keyboards show the English dominance of tech

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Last week, MIT Technology Review published an excerpt from a new book, The Chinese Computer, which talks about how this problem was solved in China. After generations of work to sort Chinese characters, modify computer parts, and create keyboard apps that automatically predict the next character, it is finally possible for any Chinese speaker to use a QWERTY keyboard.

But the book doesn’t stop there. It ends with a bigger question about what this all means: Why is it necessary for speakers of non-Latin languages to adapt modern technologies for their uses, and what do their efforts contribute to computing technologies?

I talked to the book’s author, Tom Mullaney, a professor of history at Stanford University. We ended up geeking out over keyboards, computers, the English-centric design that underlies everything about computing, and even how keyboards affect emerging technologies like virtual reality. Here are some of his most fascinating answers, lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

Mullaney’s book covers many experiments across multiple decades that ultimately made typing Chinese possible and efficient on a QWERTY keyboard, but a similar process has played out all around the world. Many countries with non-Latin languages had to work out how they could use a Western computer to input and process their own languages.

Mullaney: In the Chinese case—but also in Japanese, Korean, and many other non-Western writing systems—this wasn’t done for fun. It was done out of brute necessity because the dominant model of keyboard-based computing, born and raised in the English-speaking world, is not compatible with Chinese. It doesn’t work because the keyboard doesn’t have the necessary real estate. And the question became: I have a few dozen keys but 100,000 characters. How do I map one onto the other?

Simply put, half of the population on Earth uses the QWERTY keyboard in ways the QWERTY keyboard was never intended to be used, creating a radically different way of interacting with computers.

The root of all of these problems is that computers were designed with English as the default language. So the way English works is just the way computers work today.

M: Every writing system on the planet throughout history is modular, meaning it’s built out of smaller pieces. But computing carefully, brilliantly, and understandably worked on one very specific kind of modularity: modularity as it functions in English.

And then everybody else had to fit themselves into that modularity. Arabic letters connect, so you have to fix [the computer for it]; In South Asian scripts, the combination of a consonant and a vowel changes the shape of the letter overall—that’s not how modularity works in English.

The English modularity is so fundamental in computing that non-Latin speakers are still grappling with the impacts today despite decades of hard work to change things.

Mullaney shared a complaint that Arabic speakers made in 2022 about Adobe InDesign, the most popular publishing design software. As recently as two years ago, pasting a string of Arabic text into the software could cause the text to become messed up, misplacing its diacritic marks, which are crucial for indicating phonetic features of the text. It turns out you need to install a Middle East version of the software and apply some deliberate workarounds to avoid the problem.

M: Latin alphabetic dominance is still alive and well; it has not been overthrown. And there’s a troubling question as to whether it can ever be overthrown. Some turn was made, some path taken that advantaged certain writing systems at a deep structural level and disadvantaged others.

That deeply rooted English-centric design is why mainstream input methods never deviate too far from the keyboards that we all know and love/hate. In the English-speaking world, there have been numerous attempts to reimagine the way text input works. Technologies such as the T9 phone keyboard or the Palm Pilot handwriting alphabet briefly achieved some adoption. But they never stick for long because most developers snap back to QWERTY keyboards at the first opportunity.

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June 5, 2024
Apple Makes It Easier to Stare at Your Phone in the Car

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You’ve been there, sitting in the passenger seat of a car, trying to focus intently on your phone as a way to ignore all your karaoke-belting seatmates. And then there’s a lurch, or a buildup of motion that causes a swirl of unease in your gut. What you’re feeling is the onset of motion sickness, and it forces you to look away from the screen and stare out the window like a commoner, lest you hurl.

Well, that may be a thing of the past. Apple introduced a software feature called Vehicle Motion Cues on iOS and iPadOS to stave off motion sickness while looking at your phone. The update comes as part of a larger release of new accessibility features on Apple devices.

Motion sickness occurs when you’re paying attention to something stable—like your phone, or a book—while your surroundings are moving around you. (Sensitivity to this sensory clash could also come from issues with inner ear development.)

Courtesy of Apple

The way the motion cues work to fix that is delightful. To trick your brain into synchronizing your stable handheld and the moving surroundings, Apple will use your iPhone or iPad’s sensors to detect the subtle movements of the vehicle you’re in. Then, it will display small dots alongside the edges of your screen that move along with the car, ideally syncing up as you move and preventing that disconnect between sight and sensation. Users will be able to turn the feature on and off in their device’s settings.

Apple also introduced several other accessibility updates along with the motion sickness reduction. Eye tracking will now be available as an alternative method of device navigation on iPhones and iPads. A music haptics feature makes it easier for Deaf or hard of hearing people to feel the music they listen to via subtle vibrations in the devices. There are also better voice-control features that understand atypical speech, more accessibility options in VisionOS, and Live Captions for video across most of Apple’s devices.

Here’s some more consumer tech news.

One Brick to Rule Them All

Do you fantasize about one day constructing your very own spire of doom from which to turn a fiery gaze upon your barren lands? Well, now you can, at least in Lego form.

Lego has a new Lord of the Rings–themed sculpture set that will be sure to appeal to all the Dark Lords out there. The Lord of the Rings: Barad-Dûr set is an upcoming Lego set that, when built, will stand more than two and a half feet tall. But the set is also modular, which means if you have more than one set (wink, wink) you can stack them.

As you can tell by the giant fiery eyeball at the top, it’s the slightly more evil of the titular Two Towers featured in the Lord of the Rings books and movies, where the Dark Lord Sauron chilled menacingly for most of the story. The set—which is objectively rad as hell—contains 5,471 pieces and costs $460. The great eye atop the spire glows when plugged in, and every bit of the tower is chock-full of the nefarious goings-on of orcs, spiders, and skeletons. It also comes with minifigs of iconic LotR characters (including an appropriately disturbing Gollum). If you order it in the first week it is available, Lego will throw in a sick Nazgul-riding Ringwraith on top of it all.

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May 18, 2024
Sennheiser All-Day Clear Hearing Aids Review: Quirky, Noisy, Ineffective

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One of the bigger consumer audio companies to dive into the over-the-counter hearing aid market is Sennheiser. The brand’s efforts are the product of a partnership between the earbud giant and Sonova Hearing, which acquired Sennheiser’s hearing aid division in 2022. The new operation’s first product, All-Day Clear, arrived last summer, though it’s sadly missing the Dee Snider spokesmanship from Sennheiser’s previous hearing aid product.

Those expecting a fully in-ear product like Sony’s C10 and Sennheiser’s older Conversation Clear Plus may be surprised to see that the new All-Day Clear is a traditional hearing aid design that fits behind the ear and snakes the receiver into the ear canal on a thin wire. Each exterior housing contains a rocker with two physical buttons that control the volume. Either aid can be used to control the volume level for both left and right aids simultaneously. Holding one button down also lets you switch among three sound modes: default, “live music,” and a mode that works with the optional TV connector ($350), so you can stream audio directly from your television.

I immediately found these hearing aids more difficult than most—or really all other models I’ve tested—to get situated in my ear properly. The units are quite large, and the wire that connects to the in-ear receiver is long and difficult to wrangle. The main challenge I had was getting the receivers sufficiently into the ear canal, as the floppy wire kept pulling them loose. Once you get them placed properly, they stay there well and are comfortable to leave in for long stretches, but I typically spent a minute or longer getting that placement just right each time I put them on.

The All-Day Clear app is about as basic as they come. It sets up quickly and easily, walking you through a simple and straightforward tuning session to get things started. Controls are decidedly spare. The main display features a universal volume slider which can optionally be split between left and right channels. The aforementioned two or three sound modes are available here, as is a “fine tune” feature that pops up a very basic equalizer with three options: bass, mid, and treble, each of which can be tweaked from a –5 to +5 level. These tweaks make an impact, but if you’re looking to really fine-tune your hearing levels, they may be insufficient. A wind noise reduction option is available here too, but I didn’t get much out of it.

Let’s talk next about audio quality. I used these aids for multiple hours a day over the course of more than a week and was surprised to find they just weren’t all that effective, at least for me. In a typical household setting, I didn’t find conversations or television were significantly clearer with the hearing aids in versus without them—even at maximum volume. While all hearing aids tend to have a low level of hiss to contend with, the All-Day Clear units showcased some particularly annoying background noise whenever I moved the mid and/or treble sliders up, even a little. This wasn’t a typical static rumble but sounded more like a vacuum running in another room. At one point I genuinely thought someone was cleaning the floors in my house until I removed the aids, only to be greeted with blissful silence.

On the plus side, the design of the All-Day Clear hearing aids made them effective at minimizing the jarring amplification of your own voice to deafening levels, a drawback common to other hearing aids. And while I didn’t find that typing created a booming clack-clack-clack in my head (another common issue), I did find the aids uncomfortably amplified high-pitched squeaks that I didn’t know were there before, including noises from my keyboard and my office chair.

Photograph: Sennheiser

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January 31, 2024