WEBVTT

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(gentle music)

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Welcome to Hadley Presents.

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I'm your host, Ricky Enger,

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inviting you to sit back, relax,

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and enjoy a conversation with the experts.

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In this episode, we explore the BlindShell Classic,

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a smartphone alternative

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for those who are blind or low vision,

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and joining me is Hadley learning expert, Steve Kelly.

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Welcome to the show Steve.

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Hey Ricky, how are you?

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I am great.

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I'm so glad that you could join me

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to talk about the BlindShell.

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This is a really cool device

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and looking forward to diving into all of the things

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that it can and can't do.

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Before we do that though, for those who aren't familiar

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with you yet,

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from Get Up and Go

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and various other discussion groups

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and even a podcast

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that you've done on Hadley Presents,

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tell us a bit about who you are and what you do.

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Well, I'm Ricky.

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I'm a learning expert at Hadley

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and have been doing that for about a year,

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and prior to that I was a vision rehab therapist,

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working with clients out in the field for a local agency.

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And in addition to what you do for Hadley,

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you actually sometimes get lucky enough to receive devices

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that you can review.

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So for example, in Access World,

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you have a couple of articles taking a look at some devices

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and one of those just happens to be the BlindShell.

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Yeah, I was very fortunate to get a demo

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of the BlindShell and really had a lot of fun with that.

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So let's talk about what it is.

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In the intro, we call this a smartphone alternative,

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but you know, that could mean just about anything.

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What are we talking about when we say,

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a smartphone alternative?

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What is the BlindShell?

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Well, you know, that's not a bad description.

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I would also say it's like a hybrid.

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If people remember what the candy bar phones looked like,

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you know, half of the phone was the number pad

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and the other half of the phone was a display,

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and it was probably about the same size as say,

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one of the older iPhones, I don't know,

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maybe about a quarter of an inch thick.

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So it, you know, it's not real heavy,

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but I would call it a hybrid

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because it's got the dialing pad still on it.

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And not only that,

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but there's plenty of space between the buttons

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and they're labeled in white on black

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and in large print.

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So for those of us with low vision,

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it makes it pretty easy to see.

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And the button spacing is one thing

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that often does come up for many.

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Just having a touch screen is not the thing,

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either because of neuropathy

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or it just feels like an awkward user interface.

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We like to have that tactile feedback.

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We like to be able to touch the one and know that it's a one

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because it feels familiar, like a keypad.

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So having button spacing where you can determine

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where you are on the phone,

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what button you're touching,

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and not try and press one button

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and instead press three at once

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because they're so close together.

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So that's excellent,

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as well as having this nice high contrast interface

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so that it's very easy to tell what you're touching.

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You know, it may sound like a minor thing

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and particularly to somebody who's younger,

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but I can just tell you from working with clients

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who grew up using a phone that had buttons

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that you could feel,

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it's really, it's a big deal.

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I mean, people are still looking for that.

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And frankly, I don't think

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it's just older folks who are looking for that.

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I think a lot of people just do better

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with a button that they can feel

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and a keypad, you know,

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where they can position their fingers

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and know where the numbers are.

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Exactly.

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So this is a phone that can work well

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for those who are totally blind

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and those who are low vision.

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And that would seem to indicate

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that there are features for both.

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So I'm assuming that the phone does talk.

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You know, that was one

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of the very first things I noticed,

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was that literally, out of the box,

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as soon as you press the power button,

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which is also the back button,

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it begins talking to you

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and to me right there, I mean that,

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everything about that was accessible.

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I just thought from that moment forward,

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the phone starts with text to speech, bravo.

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Whether, you know,

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whether you're gonna use the phone visually or not,

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It just told me that right out of the box,

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it's accessible and you don't always find that .

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That was just great.

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That's true.

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Oftentimes when you get a phone that is a smartphone

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or something else that's off the shelf,

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you're looking at starting the accessibility features

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by pressing a button or you know,

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saying something, dictating it

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and you are able to to launch that.

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But this happens right away.

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So not only does it talk,

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but I'm assuming that there are some text features as well

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that make it usable for someone with low vision.

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What's available for making the display look comfortable?

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Yeah, there are quite a few options.

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If I remember correctly, we have two text options,

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one of which I really didn't like the name of,

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it's huge text.

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It's about the size of a newspaper headline.

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So what happens is you get a few letters on the app

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that's describing it.

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Like for example, contacts.

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When you have it set as huge,

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you're not gonna see contacts all on one line.

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It's gonna break and wrap to the second line.

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But the great thing is, it's nice and large

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and it is in high contrast on the phone

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and you've got a couple of color options too.

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So for me, you know,

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I just immediately chose white letters

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on a black background, which was nice and easy to see,

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but you've probably got more options on this

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than you would find on any other flip phone

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in terms of changing background and foreground color

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and the two text sizes,

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while there's not a whole lot of variation,

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both are large and the larger text size is pretty good.

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And so we've talked about

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this not being a smartphone

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and that there are smartphones,

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and this isn't one of them,

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but we haven't really talked about

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what differentiates a smartphone from,

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I guess you would call it a feature phone.

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If you don't know that terminology,

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you might think, well,

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something that isn't a smartphone,

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all I'm gonna be able to do with it is maybe call someone

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or call emergency services if I needed to,

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and beyond that, there's really not much else there,

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but I think that's not an accurate description, right?

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What can you do with this phone,

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even though it isn't a smartphone?

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What it does have is,

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it has apps that have been developed

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for BlindShell specifically.

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And the cool thing is really I do think

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that there's somebody really thinking

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about usability at BlindShell.

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As you go through some

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of these tools like object tagging.

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Object tagging is just something where, you know,

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you can put a code,

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there's a sticker of the size of a postage stamp

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that you can put on something

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and then you can identify it by recording a label on that.

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So each time, you know,

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the phone sees the code on,

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I don't know, say your CDs

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or maybe something in the freezer,

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it will read that label back to you.

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And it's just a really useful tool and it's built right in.

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And that's something that you're not going

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to find on a smartphone without downloading the app

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and perhaps buying the tags to do that.

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So it is nice that this kind of thing exists

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on a phone developed specifically for those

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who are blind or low vision.

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What about some of the more basic things?

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Can you text with it?

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Can you check your email?

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What kinds of things can you do?

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And are there things that you might have expected

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to be there that weren't?

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Let me address the first couple of things.

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Yeah, you can do pretty much all

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of the basic things that you might want to do.

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You can certainly text or message.

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You've got an app for contacts.

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You also have an app for emails,

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which I think is great.

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One of the really nice features

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is the dictation on this phone.

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So for example,

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if you were doing texting or an email,

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you could simply press

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and hold the volume up or volume down buttons.

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If you do a long press on those,

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it begins the dictation.

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Dictation is quite good.

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You know, there's a notes app as well.

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So you could use the dictation on the notes app

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and there was actually on the main menu,

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a manual and you could click on the manual

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and there's the whole user guide is right there

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in text to speech.

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And I just thought, wow, you know, that is beautiful.

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I just love that, you know,

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so it's like you can right away go in

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and research all of the stuff

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that you might wanna know about the phone

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and you don't have to hunt it down on a website.

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Back to dictation for a moment.

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Did you find that you used dictation more often

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as you were playing with this phone

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and getting familiar with it?

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Well, I was never particularly good

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at the old style texting.

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So if it was something short,

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like five or six letters,

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I would just go ahead and text it in.

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But if it was anything longer,

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then I would use the dictation.

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Good dictation is something that is of interest

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to me to begin with.

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So, you know, as soon as I realized

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it looked pretty good,

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you know, I went right to the notes app

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and was able to dictate, you know,

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several sentences, nice and clear

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and a hundred percent accurate.

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You know, I'm sure that I could have dictated something

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that wasn't a hundred percent accurate

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'cause that's just the nature of these things,

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but it was excellent and it was pretty easy.

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Let's talk about pricing then,

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because that's always a biggie.

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You know, sometimes you find a piece of technology

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that would really, really benefit you as a blind person

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or as someone with low vision

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and then you discover, $6,000, what?

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What are we looking at?

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And this will be US-centric pricing,

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although BlindShell is available outside the US as well,

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but we'll concentrate just for the,

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for the sake of this discussion on US pricing.

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What's that like?

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I think if you buy it from LS&amp;S

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or like AT Guys, it's $349

261
00:11:03.790 --> 00:11:05.640
and from what I understand,

262
00:11:05.640 --> 00:11:09.035
if you buy it from BlindShell, it's 399.

263
00:11:09.035 --> 00:11:10.260
You're, you know,

264
00:11:10.260 --> 00:11:13.876
you're looking at mid $300 for the phone.

265
00:11:13.876 --> 00:11:17.430
And by the way, this is exclusively AT&amp;T

266
00:11:17.430 --> 00:11:18.630
for the moment, right?

267
00:11:18.630 --> 00:11:20.490
Yeah, it's the GSM network.

268
00:11:20.490 --> 00:11:22.200
So it'd be T-Mobile, AT&amp;T,

269
00:11:22.200 --> 00:11:24.564
anybody else who's got the GSM.

270
00:11:24.564 --> 00:11:27.120
So you could walk into one of those stores

271
00:11:27.120 --> 00:11:29.509
and say, "I'm signing up for a plan."

272
00:11:29.509 --> 00:11:32.219
And they go, "Hey, here's this free Android phone."

273
00:11:32.219 --> 00:11:35.865
There isn't anything wrong with Android

274
00:11:35.865 --> 00:11:37.774
and everybody likes free,

275
00:11:37.774 --> 00:11:39.840
but the thing to keep in mind is

276
00:11:39.840 --> 00:11:44.377
that many manufacturers will take what Google has done

277
00:11:44.377 --> 00:11:47.640
with Android and they will change that significantly,

278
00:11:47.640 --> 00:11:52.410
and so what can happen is that the accessibility features

279
00:11:52.410 --> 00:11:53.757
that Android does have,

280
00:11:53.757 --> 00:11:58.034
don't make it onto those lower-end/free phones

281
00:11:58.034 --> 00:12:01.980
that you get with your plan.

282
00:12:01.980 --> 00:12:05.760
There are even some flip phones that exist,

283
00:12:05.760 --> 00:12:08.190
but they certainly don't talk

284
00:12:08.190 --> 00:12:11.370
and they have few, if any low vision features.

285
00:12:11.370 --> 00:12:15.360
So free is not always good in this case, I think.

286
00:12:15.360 --> 00:12:17.700
There was one client in particular,

287
00:12:17.700 --> 00:12:19.620
although there have been several clients over the years,

288
00:12:19.620 --> 00:12:22.440
but you know, she was like this classic case

289
00:12:22.440 --> 00:12:24.270
of going into, you know,

290
00:12:24.270 --> 00:12:25.804
one of the GSM stores

291
00:12:25.804 --> 00:12:29.400
and looking for an accessible phone

292
00:12:29.400 --> 00:12:31.830
because she had recently lost her vision.

293
00:12:31.830 --> 00:12:36.480
And so they handed her the low end Android phone.

294
00:12:36.480 --> 00:12:37.680
You know, don't get me wrong,

295
00:12:37.680 --> 00:12:40.104
I'd fight for my Samsung Android phone

296
00:12:40.104 --> 00:12:41.808
because I really love it.

297
00:12:41.808 --> 00:12:44.670
But one of the things that I discovered working

298
00:12:44.670 --> 00:12:45.990
with this client was

299
00:12:45.990 --> 00:12:48.510
that the TalkBack just didn't work on the phone.

300
00:12:48.510 --> 00:12:49.403
It was broken.

301
00:12:49.403 --> 00:12:52.710
I actually went and checked with another store,

302
00:12:52.710 --> 00:12:55.680
the same model, just to make sure that it wasn't me

303
00:12:55.680 --> 00:12:58.410
and the training process that was broken,

304
00:12:58.410 --> 00:13:01.500
but in fact the TalkBack just did not work.

305
00:13:01.500 --> 00:13:03.510
So we really struggled with that

306
00:13:03.510 --> 00:13:06.180
and the client just was not able to do something

307
00:13:06.180 --> 00:13:08.337
as simple as dialing the phone

308
00:13:08.337 --> 00:13:10.800
without using the Google Assistant.

309
00:13:10.800 --> 00:13:12.900
That was the only way she was able to do it.

310
00:13:12.900 --> 00:13:14.730
So in a lot of ways, you know,

311
00:13:14.730 --> 00:13:16.290
when I see a phone like this,

312
00:13:16.290 --> 00:13:20.250
which is pretty rock solid in terms of the accessibility,

313
00:13:20.250 --> 00:13:22.805
at least the time that I used it,

314
00:13:22.805 --> 00:13:26.634
that person's gonna be able to use and it's gonna work.

315
00:13:26.634 --> 00:13:30.660
It's gotta be a challenge for people

316
00:13:30.660 --> 00:13:34.830
who are either looking for a new phone themselves

317
00:13:34.830 --> 00:13:38.049
or people who are the experts in the field

318
00:13:38.049 --> 00:13:41.730
and they're being asked, what phone should I use?

319
00:13:41.730 --> 00:13:42.870
Should I get a smartphone?

320
00:13:42.870 --> 00:13:44.490
Should I get one of these things,

321
00:13:44.490 --> 00:13:45.874
like the BlindShell?

322
00:13:45.874 --> 00:13:48.329
You know, why might someone gravitate

323
00:13:48.329 --> 00:13:51.778
toward something like the BlindShell

324
00:13:51.778 --> 00:13:56.310
as opposed to an iPhone or an Android phone

325
00:13:56.310 --> 00:13:58.541
because they both are accessible,

326
00:13:58.541 --> 00:14:01.189
but it's a very different user experience.

327
00:14:01.189 --> 00:14:02.610
You're so right,

328
00:14:02.610 --> 00:14:04.680
and I think you bring up a really good point.

329
00:14:04.680 --> 00:14:06.960
A lot of times people want something that will,

330
00:14:06.960 --> 00:14:08.370
they can just make a phone call

331
00:14:08.370 --> 00:14:09.510
while they're out walking.

332
00:14:09.510 --> 00:14:11.400
So in a situation like that,

333
00:14:11.400 --> 00:14:14.610
you know, a flip phone that is accessible is perfect

334
00:14:14.610 --> 00:14:17.116
and it doesn't need all the features of the BlindShell.

335
00:14:17.116 --> 00:14:19.980
But then you have people that want to be able

336
00:14:19.980 --> 00:14:20.850
to do something like,

337
00:14:20.850 --> 00:14:22.749
well, I'd like to check my email

338
00:14:22.749 --> 00:14:25.350
and I'd like to do some texting on it.

339
00:14:25.350 --> 00:14:28.274
And you know, I just discovered, for example,

340
00:14:28.274 --> 00:14:30.845
that BlindShell had added a YouTube app,

341
00:14:30.845 --> 00:14:33.591
which seems to work really, really well.

342
00:14:33.591 --> 00:14:36.960
So, you know, when you start hearing that people want some

343
00:14:36.960 --> 00:14:38.850
of those other features,

344
00:14:38.850 --> 00:14:40.410
that's when you start considering,

345
00:14:40.410 --> 00:14:43.924
okay, so maybe the BlindShell would work for them

346
00:14:43.924 --> 00:14:47.906
or maybe they should go on to a smartphone.

347
00:14:47.906 --> 00:14:50.977
Are there features that immediately come to mind

348
00:14:50.977 --> 00:14:55.145
that you don't see on the BlindShell

349
00:14:55.145 --> 00:15:00.028
that you would need an actual smartphone to access?

350
00:15:00.028 --> 00:15:02.880
The one that comes to my mind right away

351
00:15:02.880 --> 00:15:06.120
is either BARD, or Bookshare, or both of those.

352
00:15:06.120 --> 00:15:08.490
There's currently a book reader

353
00:15:08.490 --> 00:15:10.890
and a media app that's available.

354
00:15:10.890 --> 00:15:15.450
So you could connect the phone to your computer using USB

355
00:15:15.450 --> 00:15:17.926
and you could just download a book

356
00:15:17.926 --> 00:15:20.580
or like an audio book

357
00:15:20.580 --> 00:15:22.080
or just a textbook,

358
00:15:22.080 --> 00:15:23.490
put it on the phone

359
00:15:23.490 --> 00:15:25.440
and use the book reader to read it.

360
00:15:25.440 --> 00:15:28.200
But those are two that I would love to see.

361
00:15:28.200 --> 00:15:30.660
And it really doesn't have a web browser per se.

362
00:15:30.660 --> 00:15:33.360
Although adding YouTube

363
00:15:33.360 --> 00:15:36.180
and internet radio really, you know,

364
00:15:36.180 --> 00:15:38.790
that covers a lot of stuff for people.

365
00:15:38.790 --> 00:15:40.196
It absolutely does.

366
00:15:40.196 --> 00:15:43.922
The one thing that you probably don't see

367
00:15:43.922 --> 00:15:47.876
without a web browser or a specialized app,

368
00:15:47.876 --> 00:15:50.970
you're not gonna see social media, right?

369
00:15:50.970 --> 00:15:52.710
So no Twitter, no Facebook,

370
00:15:52.710 --> 00:15:56.580
if you're hoping to keep up with your children

371
00:15:56.580 --> 00:15:58.986
or your grandchildren on social media,

372
00:15:58.986 --> 00:16:03.390
this is not what you're going to use to do that, right?

373
00:16:03.390 --> 00:16:06.869
So you would go to a PC or perhaps a smartphone.

374
00:16:06.869 --> 00:16:08.130
Yeah, absolutely.

375
00:16:08.130 --> 00:16:09.750
And I think for some people that,

376
00:16:09.750 --> 00:16:11.550
those are gonna be deal breakers.

377
00:16:11.550 --> 00:16:13.260
And I think one thing to keep in mind

378
00:16:13.260 --> 00:16:17.115
is that you can have different needs

379
00:16:17.115 --> 00:16:21.240
that don't all get met by the same device.

380
00:16:21.240 --> 00:16:22.279
So for example,

381
00:16:22.279 --> 00:16:26.408
you may wish to browse the web,

382
00:16:26.408 --> 00:16:29.915
you may wish to do some online shopping,

383
00:16:29.915 --> 00:16:33.159
and those are things that you might find better suited

384
00:16:33.159 --> 00:16:34.560
to a computer,

385
00:16:34.560 --> 00:16:37.255
whereas taking the BlindShell with you,

386
00:16:37.255 --> 00:16:39.742
you know that you're able to text,

387
00:16:39.742 --> 00:16:41.921
you know that you're able to call someone,

388
00:16:41.921 --> 00:16:45.060
and you could check your email in a pinch,

389
00:16:45.060 --> 00:16:48.390
and that's really all you care about a phone for.

390
00:16:48.390 --> 00:16:51.750
And so it does nicely fit into that niche, I think.

391
00:16:51.750 --> 00:16:52.987
Yeah, it does.

392
00:16:52.987 --> 00:16:53.910
And you just reminded me too,

393
00:16:53.910 --> 00:16:56.040
of one of the apps that's on the phone that's,

394
00:16:56.040 --> 00:16:56.940
it's kind of interesting,

395
00:16:56.940 --> 00:16:58.770
it's called Localization.

396
00:16:58.770 --> 00:17:02.511
Localization is a GPS app on the BlindShell

397
00:17:02.511 --> 00:17:04.560
where when you're outside,

398
00:17:04.560 --> 00:17:06.540
it really does not work well inside at all,

399
00:17:06.540 --> 00:17:07.560
but when you're outside

400
00:17:07.560 --> 00:17:10.513
and you're able to connect to a satellite,

401
00:17:10.513 --> 00:17:12.630
you press the button and it will tell you

402
00:17:12.630 --> 00:17:14.693
what address is closest to you,

403
00:17:14.693 --> 00:17:16.461
and it was pretty accurate.

404
00:17:16.461 --> 00:17:18.996
And I thought, you know, for the casual walker,

405
00:17:18.996 --> 00:17:22.994
somebody who may not be up to using a GPS on a smartphone,

406
00:17:22.994 --> 00:17:24.853
what an ingenious app.

407
00:17:24.853 --> 00:17:27.270
I mean, sometimes that's all you need

408
00:17:27.270 --> 00:17:29.400
if you've gotten yourself turned around, right,

409
00:17:29.400 --> 00:17:31.200
is to find out this is the address,

410
00:17:31.200 --> 00:17:33.960
you know, now I've got an idea of where I'm at.

411
00:17:33.960 --> 00:17:34.793
Absolutely.

412
00:17:34.793 --> 00:17:37.500
So it's not full fledged GPS,

413
00:17:37.500 --> 00:17:39.220
but it really doesn't need to be.

414
00:17:39.220 --> 00:17:41.850
For a lot of people, I don't think it does.

415
00:17:41.850 --> 00:17:45.540
But you know, again, if somebody really wants direction,

416
00:17:45.540 --> 00:17:48.087
street to street, turn by turn walking directions,

417
00:17:48.087 --> 00:17:50.546
then this is not gonna work for them.

418
00:17:50.546 --> 00:17:54.090
As we kind of come to the end here,

419
00:17:54.090 --> 00:17:56.322
let's say that someone is interested

420
00:17:56.322 --> 00:17:59.150
in getting a BlindShell phone,

421
00:17:59.150 --> 00:18:03.420
and that's available directly from BlindShell

422
00:18:03.420 --> 00:18:06.570
as well as places like AT Guys and LS&amp;S,

423
00:18:06.570 --> 00:18:09.750
that's only a part of the puzzle, right?

424
00:18:09.750 --> 00:18:14.750
So you would still need to have a phone plan

425
00:18:15.432 --> 00:18:20.285
that's not included in purchasing the device itself, right?

426
00:18:20.285 --> 00:18:21.900
Yeah, that's correct.

427
00:18:21.900 --> 00:18:23.160
I mean, you would need to take,

428
00:18:23.160 --> 00:18:25.380
for example, I took my demo to,

429
00:18:25.380 --> 00:18:27.270
I use T-Mobile for mine.

430
00:18:27.270 --> 00:18:29.460
So I took it in to them,

431
00:18:29.460 --> 00:18:30.949
they got me a SIM card,

432
00:18:30.949 --> 00:18:32.940
they added it to my plan,

433
00:18:32.940 --> 00:18:35.070
and you pay the monthly plan.

434
00:18:35.070 --> 00:18:36.540
And I think with this too,

435
00:18:36.540 --> 00:18:38.160
you're gonna need a little bit of data

436
00:18:38.160 --> 00:18:40.350
and which I had on my second plan.

437
00:18:40.350 --> 00:18:43.476
So those are things that you will definitely need.

438
00:18:43.476 --> 00:18:46.740
And that is a question that we may not be able

439
00:18:46.740 --> 00:18:49.500
to answer ourselves, but may come up.

440
00:18:49.500 --> 00:18:51.030
So it's a question that those of you

441
00:18:51.030 --> 00:18:53.527
who are listening might want to ask back

442
00:18:53.527 --> 00:18:57.103
in say like the nineties or so

443
00:18:57.103 --> 00:19:01.650
we had a smartphone plan,

444
00:19:01.650 --> 00:19:03.810
which you had to have data for,

445
00:19:03.810 --> 00:19:06.030
and then there was a feature phone plan

446
00:19:06.030 --> 00:19:09.180
where you had a tiny bit of data,

447
00:19:09.180 --> 00:19:13.262
but it was treated as kind of a different tier.

448
00:19:13.262 --> 00:19:18.262
And so it may be that you're not going to be using a ton

449
00:19:18.480 --> 00:19:21.148
of data with this feature phone.

450
00:19:21.148 --> 00:19:24.654
And so when you go in, ask your provider about

451
00:19:24.654 --> 00:19:28.517
what data plans are available

452
00:19:28.517 --> 00:19:31.874
and if this phone is considered a feature phone,

453
00:19:31.874 --> 00:19:35.700
can you perhaps pay less per month

454
00:19:35.700 --> 00:19:38.554
to get access to talk and messaging.

455
00:19:38.554 --> 00:19:42.150
And you know, in the nineties it was like 300 megs of data

456
00:19:42.150 --> 00:19:43.110
or something like that,

457
00:19:43.110 --> 00:19:44.940
and it's probably changed since then.

458
00:19:44.940 --> 00:19:47.238
But just see if there are tiers

459
00:19:47.238 --> 00:19:49.200
that you don't have to pay

460
00:19:49.200 --> 00:19:51.220
for unlimited data that you'll never use.

461
00:19:51.220 --> 00:19:52.745
You know, I think you have to be

462
00:19:52.745 --> 00:19:53.853
honest with yourself too.

463
00:19:53.853 --> 00:19:56.816
I mean, since the phone will connect at 4G,

464
00:19:56.816 --> 00:19:59.771
you've got pretty good connectivity

465
00:19:59.771 --> 00:20:03.172
with both YouTube, internet radio,

466
00:20:03.172 --> 00:20:05.460
the things where you're gonna have

467
00:20:05.460 --> 00:20:07.228
some streaming services, right?

468
00:20:07.228 --> 00:20:09.561
So if you're really into streaming services

469
00:20:09.561 --> 00:20:12.150
and you're not gonna be near WiFI,

470
00:20:12.150 --> 00:20:14.460
you're gonna be out and about a lot of time,

471
00:20:14.460 --> 00:20:16.654
you are gonna be using a fair amount of data.

472
00:20:16.654 --> 00:20:19.380
On the flip side, you know, it connects nicely

473
00:20:19.380 --> 00:20:21.367
to WiFi, it's pretty easy.

474
00:20:21.367 --> 00:20:23.520
So, you know, if you're gonna be doing

475
00:20:23.520 --> 00:20:27.060
that streaming stuff at home, or at school,

476
00:20:27.060 --> 00:20:28.828
or work where there is a WiFi,

477
00:20:28.828 --> 00:20:33.240
then that'll take care of that data usage for you.

478
00:20:33.240 --> 00:20:35.640
So for those who wish to,

479
00:20:35.640 --> 00:20:37.080
they can check out the show notes

480
00:20:37.080 --> 00:20:39.139
and read your Access article,

481
00:20:39.139 --> 00:20:42.840
which goes into greater detail about what's available

482
00:20:42.840 --> 00:20:46.500
in the menus, an overall description of the phone,

483
00:20:46.500 --> 00:20:48.690
and it also covers some of the things

484
00:20:48.690 --> 00:20:50.310
that we've touched on here.

485
00:20:50.310 --> 00:20:51.840
Do you have any final thoughts, Steve,

486
00:20:51.840 --> 00:20:53.430
that we didn't touch on

487
00:20:53.430 --> 00:20:57.080
that you feel like we should mention before wrapping up?

488
00:20:57.080 --> 00:21:00.711
You know, I was just really impressed with,

489
00:21:00.711 --> 00:21:02.607
again, the overall accessibility.

490
00:21:02.607 --> 00:21:06.180
And you know, sometimes we've had this conversation

491
00:21:06.180 --> 00:21:08.037
before too about accessibility.

492
00:21:08.037 --> 00:21:10.860
Accessibility can be different than usability.

493
00:21:10.860 --> 00:21:12.660
You can have something that's very accessible,

494
00:21:12.660 --> 00:21:14.130
but really it's not usable,

495
00:21:14.130 --> 00:21:15.768
meaning it's just clumsy.

496
00:21:15.768 --> 00:21:19.318
And so you find both with this phone,

497
00:21:19.318 --> 00:21:21.466
which is really something I like.

498
00:21:21.466 --> 00:21:23.370
And as I mentioned before,

499
00:21:23.370 --> 00:21:24.749
it does seem like a pretty solid phone.

500
00:21:24.749 --> 00:21:26.584
The menus were all working.

501
00:21:26.584 --> 00:21:28.260
It wasn't quirky.

502
00:21:28.260 --> 00:21:31.230
And even YouTube, which clearly is going out

503
00:21:31.230 --> 00:21:32.718
to the internet and coming back again,

504
00:21:32.718 --> 00:21:34.890
worked really, really well on this.

505
00:21:34.890 --> 00:21:39.122
And I think is gonna be easy for a relatively new user

506
00:21:39.122 --> 00:21:40.816
for some of these features.

507
00:21:40.816 --> 00:21:42.757
Thank you so much for

508
00:21:42.757 --> 00:21:44.082
spending a little time, Steve,

509
00:21:44.082 --> 00:21:46.245
and telling us about this really cool device.

510
00:21:46.245 --> 00:21:47.850
Oh, it's been a great pleasure.

511
00:21:47.850 --> 00:21:49.646
Thanks Ricky, I enjoyed talking with you today.

512
00:21:49.646 --> 00:21:51.011
Thanks for listening.

513
00:21:51.011 --> 00:21:52.776
Got something to say,

514
00:21:52.776 --> 00:21:56.857
share your thoughts about this episode of Hadley Presents,

515
00:21:56.857 --> 00:22:00.270
or make suggestions for future episodes.

516
00:22:00.270 --> 00:22:02.040
We'd love to hear from you.

517
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Send us an email at podcast@hadley.edu,

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that's P-O-D-C-A-S-T@hadley.edu.

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Or leave us a message at 847-784-2870.

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Thanks for listening.

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(gentle music)

