New nanos to get spoken menus

One of the interesting minor details on the iPod nanos released today is the inclusion of some new accessibility features. There's even an Accessibility section on the spec page, which notes the addition of spoken menus and an alternative larger font. The spoken menus "allow listeners to hear many of the names of menus, song titles, and artists without viewing the screen."

While this is clearly a boon to those with some visual disabilities I suspect it could also be handy to other folks as well, since it will presumably allow changing song, playlists, etc. without looking at the screen, which would be really nice while driving. According to Infinite Loop a nano with this feature turned on will even inherit your Mac's VoiceOver voice. Unfortunately, it's not clear if other iPods or the iPhone will also gain this feature at some point.

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Source: http://www.apple.com/ipodnano/specs.html

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One of the interesting minor details on the iPod nanos released today is the inclusion of some new accessibility features. There's even an...

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jonico

Spoken menus are nothing new to the ipod, at least if you running Rockbox on your ipod. http://www.rockbox.org/

September 10 2008 at 10:08 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

mtt

I think the audio prompts are a great idea, but I have another reason I want them. I would like to have a way to have the iPod/iPhone announce the name & artist of the track currently playing. If the player is on shuffle, surely we've all had songs play that we didn't recongnized, but it wasn't worth digging out of our pocket or breaking our stride to read the display. How about pressing & holding the pause button would have the player read aloud the track info?

September 10 2008 at 10:04 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

James Jolley

As a blind user myself this is significant. I will be certainly trying out this functionality.

Regarding Itunes under windows, there are a set of JAWS scripts available from www.tandt-consultancy.co.uk I think the URL is. In any case, google JTunes and your on your way.

September 10 2008 at 4:28 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Jash Sayani

Voice-command iPod. Nice Apple.!

September 10 2008 at 12:35 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

totoro

I'm guessing it doesn't speak in "Alex"'s voice-that one is pretty storage/memory intensive.

September 10 2008 at 11:29 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Shawin

Does the iPod Touch update have Accessibility options as well. It's on my iPhone that I wish sms text was larger. My parents can't read anything right now. (Maybe that's a good thing though. lol.)

September 10 2008 at 11:26 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Dave

Apple - it a wonderful thing to do but its only halfway.

I've tried to help my blind sister in law setup itunes on her XP laptop (unfortunate I know) along with her reader program "Jaws".

It just doesn't work, you can't make playlists, or copy tunes to the pod without dragging and dropping.

If I'm wrong, someone please post a response, I'd love to help her use the Shuffle someone bought her.

September 10 2008 at 11:03 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

2 replies to Dave's comment

Can you get it to sync automatically when the iPod is inserted?

I did something similar for my Dad, who's blind. But I couldn't use iTunes. I got an iPod shuffle and used a program called AutoRun and Shuffler and some Python script so that when the iPod is inserted, it would automatically purge the old files, copy the new files and rebuild the database.

September 10 2008 at 12:53 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

OlsonBW

Yes you are wrong.

There is File -> Add to Library. On Macs it is Command-O. I don't know what it is on Windows computers, probably ALT-O. I then asks where to import them from. There must be voice controls for ALT-O.

Also, if you are importing from a CD you just put in the CD and tell iTunes to import from there.

September 10 2008 at 2:28 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Speed8ump

How long do you think it will be before the shuffle comes back with voice control? The screen has got to be one of the more expensive parts of the nano. I'm betting they want to play around with voice control so that they can get rid of it. Smart move if they can make it not suck.

September 10 2008 at 10:23 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Speed8ump's comment

DaveAronson

Voice *control* will probably take quite a while; for now, AFAIK, none of them take any audio *input* (except obviously the iPhone). (Disclaimer: I haven't been watching the newer features closely. For all I know, some might. Certainly mine doesn't.) Adding spoken "display", OTOH, is a logical extension for the entire line, and especially the Shuffle. It should be quite doable w/o any new hardware.

September 10 2008 at 11:12 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Josso

I care!!
Especially for my grandmother - she is blind, and love reading books. We've considered buying her a iPod, but didn't cause of the menu.
I'm pretty sure we'll do it now. :)

September 10 2008 at 9:21 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Murray Stevens

I would really like a large font on my Touch so that I can see the track name that is playing while it sits in the adapter I use in my car.

September 10 2008 at 9:10 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply