2013-02-20-iFocus
Seminars@Hadley
iFocus: A New Quarterly Series
Focusing on Tips and Training
for iDevice Users
Presented by
Amy Salmon
Douglas Walker
Moderated by
Dawn Turco
February 20, 2013
Dawn Turco
Welcome to today’s Seminar@Hadely; I’m Dawn Turco and I will be moderating today’s session; it’s entitled iFocus. iFocus is a new series of seminars focusing on tips and training for iDevice users. For those of you who are regularly in our seminars you know that we do technology seminars all the time, and it occurred to us that we are regularly doing them on iDevices. So in an effort to be sure that we work this very popular topic into our calendar for the year, we definitely are slotting these iFocus seminars throughout the year.
And we have our regular presenters and iDevice users extraordinaire, Douglas Walker and Amy Salmon are with us today, and they will be covering they say four topics. And I know these two; I’ll be surprised if they can keep it to that. So without further ado, let me open up the mic and our presenters will get us underway. Welcome everyone.
Amy Salmon
Hi everyone, it’s Amy Salmon. Thank you for joining us today for the first in our quarterly iFocus series. First I want to welcome all of my past and current students that I see on the participants list. I’m glad to see you and look forward to your questions when it’s time. We’re going to start out with Douglas Walker on his training for the iDevices.
Douglas Walker
I am so excited about this seminar and the whole iFocus series of seminars that we’re going to be having every, it’s going to be a quarterly seminar, but Dawn is right. In today’s seminar the topics we’re covering, hopefully we can get through them because there’s so much packed into just these four things that we’re going to try to cover today. We’re going to start off with talking about keyboarding on the iPad and the iPhone, all of the “i” devices you keyboard exactly the same way.
Then we’re going to move into [Siri], and then Amy’s going to take over after that and talk about adding contacts to the address book. And later on, she’ll be talking about being able to download from the app store. So the keyboarding really needed to come first because you’ll be using that in the later topics for today. So we’ll get going on keyboarding.
So when the iPhone first came out, the iPhone 3S I was blown away just like everybody else. That a person that was blind can actually type on a piece of glass; this was just mind boggling to me. And I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it because I’m a blind user as well, and so I was just all intrigued about how this was going to happen and I thought “No way.” Well I have been using it long enough to be able to really get my speed up on the keyboard. And so hopefully, for those new users out there, I can give you some tricks that might help you around the learning curve, because believe me, there is a true learning curve for learning how to use the keyboard on here.
It’s always a great, the great place to start for me when I’m showing a new user how to use it is the search page of the iPad. And that’s a great place to go because it’s a safe place to go. You’re not texting anybody or not emailing anybody. It’s a way to search your whole iDevice. So I’m using the iPad right now, but you do this the same way with the iPad and everything else. So if you just tap the “home” button, it takes you to the search page on the iPad, and I will do that right now.
Alright, and you heard it say “search,” and it’s putting you right into an edit field, which is great because I’m right there and I can start learning how to type and experimenting and playing around. Now, in the search field I can search my entire iDevice. I mean it searches music, emails, everything on here. If I wanted to search for an app, to launch the app, that would be great. So this is a great safe place to start working on how to search. On the iPad, your iDevice there are two different typing modes – the default mode is standard typing and then we have touch typing.
So I’m going to start with the default mode and sort of show you guys standard typing, because that’s the way it’s going to come set up. And then I’m going to show you how to get to touch typing, which for me is a much faster way of typing on an iDevice. But we’ll start with the standard typing. So here I am in an edit field on the search page of my iPhone. We got there by tapping the “home” button. And I’m ready to start typing.
So we have the edit field at the very top and it’s very similar to Google, if you’ve ever used Google and you start typing in, you start getting search results that start popping down. And it’s going to start telling you that you have search results popping down, so you have to kind of bear through listening to that. But I’m going to just start by placing my finger on the screen and that’s the list, that’s the empty list that’s going to start popping up with the search results.
I’m going to drag my finger towards the bottom of the screen and eventually I will hit the “QWERTY” keyboard. And it’s just a standard keyboard. I’m going to pull my finger down and move my finger to the left and drop down a little bit and starting to move my finger to the right. So you can see, I haven’t lifted my finger, there’s the phonetic, which is really great because you know how the M and the N sound very similar? Well it gives you the phonetic if you don’t move your finger off that letter, so that you know exactly the one you have. So I’m going to slide to the right…alright, so you know you’re on M because it said Mike.
And V and B can always be an issue, it’s Bravo for B, so you know for sure you’re on the B. Okay so I’m going to lift my finger and nothing is going to happen. Now, if I wanted to input that character into the edit field I could double tap anywhere on the screen, just like activating a button, or any other link, just like you would any button or link on the iDevice, and that would input it right into that edit field.
But there’s another way, when using the standard typing mode, to input the letters as well. It’s a little bit faster, so I’m going to show you how to do that, and it’s called “split tap” using a split tap. It’s the same as double tapping, alright. So I’m going to touch the screen again on the keyboard, I’m going to find the B again; it said Bravo. And I have not lifted that finger; I’m still on the B. And if I wanted to, I could use another finger, the finger next to that index finger that I have on the B, to do the second tap.
So I’m going to do that by putting another finger – now remember, I have not lifted that first finger – I’m going to tap with the second finger and you hear the higher pitched “Capital B”; you know that that letter B has been placed within the edit field now at the top of the screen. Alright, so that’s how to do a split tap and that’s how to use touch type. And then your search results start popping down and it looks at the music first; I have a lot of stuff that starts with a B in my music, but it’s going to search the entire device – your email, your music, everything on there.
I know that on the top right hand corner of, when I’m using the iPhone is my delete button, so I can put my finger on the screen again and drag it up to that delete button…there it is. Now I can lift my finger and double tap or again, I can do the split tap since I haven’t lifted my finger I can tap with another finger and create that second tap. But I’ll just lift my finger and double tap to show you that you can use the double tap method as well. And it just deleted that capital B that was placed within the edit field, so you see how that works.
And that’s the standard mode, and it’s sort of cumbersome because you have to double tap to place every letter within the edit field, or whatever field you’re in. If you’re in a Word document or a Pages document or in your notes document that can kind of be cumbersome after a while, but that used to be the only method you had. Well there’s a newer method with later releases of the operating system that’s called Touch Typing. To get to touch typing you have to have a keyboard visible.
So this is a great place to go to your search area in your iPad or your search page, to access the keyboard first of all, and then you start using the rotor gesture. Alright, the rotor gesture kind of gets some getting used to, and the way that I try to describe this to people is if you place two fingers at the same time on your device, on the glass part of your device, your iPhone or iPad, and you start rotating those fingers in either a clockwise or a counter-clockwise motion, you start moving through different elements.
So headings, links, things you’re familiar with seeing and being able to navigate by, those are elements. So we’re looking for “typing mode” as one of those elements, and I liken it to screwing it on or off a medicine cap or a coke bottle top; you know screwing that on or off, it’s that same motion. So you just place two fingers on your screen and start moving those, and I’m going to move in a clockwise position now. So I place these fingers on there and start moving. Now I’m going to stop when I get to “typing mode” because that’s what I want to change.
And I’m having to lift my finger so I can go back and sort of get on through the list – there’s typing mode, okay I’m stopped. And I was rotating my fingers in a clockwise position and going through those different elements. Now visually you’d see a little dial on the screen, it’s almost like turning a knob or turning a dial, and it shows you those different elements. So now that I’m on “typing mode” I can flick up or down to choose the type of keyboard that I want to use. So I’m going to flick down, there’s my touch typing keyboard.
Alright, so now I can go into touch typing mode. If I wanted to get back to the other keyboard I just flick down again – there’s my standard typing. So I can choose between the two different types. I prefer touch typing and I’ll show you why. I’m going to flick down again. Alright, now I’m going to do the same thing – I’m going to place my finger on the keyboard and start dragging around. When I find the letter that I want, I’m going to lift my finger and you’re going to hear that higher pitched sound of the letter; you’ll know that it’s been placed within the edit field up there.
So that’s how you place the letter within the edit field, it’s simply just by lifting your finger, and it’s a little faster. So I’m going to type the word Beatles in here, because I’m going to look through my Beatles, we’re going to find some Beatles to listen to. So I put my finger on the keyboard – there’s the B, I have not lifted my finger yet, when I do it places the B within the edit field.
And now I’m going to type the rest of the word Beatles, so let’s go get the E. and you keep hearing it say “Top search results” because it wants to tell me what the top results are just like Google does whenever you’re typing something in an edit field. Alright, and now to see those search results I can place my finger towards the top of the screen and sort of start dragging my finger down the screen. And they’re going to be listed in alphabetical order, so I’m going to start dragging down here.
So I’m going to back to “All You Need is Love” and then, now that I’ve picked something that I’ve searched for, I’m going to double tap and I’m going to launch that. Alright, we’ll stop that, but that’s how easy it is to do touch typing. And you see how much faster it can be because you’re dragging your finger around the keyboard. And I’m going to tell you, you get much faster because muscle memory is great, your muscle memory starts kicking in and you really do get a lot faster. At first it’s going to seem very cumbersome, but you really do start moving along after a while.
So that’s a safe place to go and to practice your keyboarding, is within the search. And remember, let me get out of the music, we can always get to that search page by just tapping your “home” button. And there I am back in that search field. And then you can tap your home button to get back to your home screen or back to your regular screen there. And there I am. Alright, so that in a nutshell is touch typing on the, I used an iPad, but it’s going to work the same on all your iDevices. You’ll need that later on when Amy starts showing you how to put contacts and stuff in.
Alright, we’re going to move right into Siri. Now Siri, I love Siri and this is, we actually get more questions about Siri it seems than anything else. And Siri can be a lot of fun, but I’m going to tell you, when you’re doing a seminar with Siri, Siri can also be a scray thing. Because you never know what Siri is going to say and Amy and I have had conversations about the things that Siri can say, which we’re not going to talk about right now.
But Apple calls Siri your personal assistant. And you know, it really is in so many ways. It’s really a great thing because you can do so many things with Siri, it’s just amazing. So let’s get on into Siri. Just like just about anything on the computer, you can activate or launch Siri in several different ways. Now the most common way that people activate Siri is by just holding down the home button; the button on the bottom of the glass on your iPhone or your iPad.
And you’ll hear a “beep beep” and then you will just tell Siri what you want or give Siri the command that you’re wanting. And then when you pause for a couple of seconds you’ll hear another set of tones and then Siri will go searching for the information across the cellular network. Sometimes it can take a while depending on your cellular quality that you’re hooked up to, so you may have to wait a couple of seconds. But that’s one way to do it, and that’s probably the most common way to do it.
Now I am a huge fan of the Apple earbuds, especially the new ones that feel so much better in your ears. They come with your iPhone. Those Apple earbuds are so great because they have an inline microphone. There’s a place where there’s a mic on the cable itself or the cord itself and you can press and hold that and it will activate Siri that way as well. So that’s a great way to launch it, especially if you need some privacy when you’re talking with Siri, your personal assistant.
Another way to launch Siri is the raise to speak method. And you can turn this on under the Siri, the settings, the Siri settings under your settings menu. And for an iPhone it’s great because you simply just lift the phone to your ear and you’ll hear that “beep beep”; you can tell Siri what you want and Siri will talk right there in the ear piece, right into your ear. So it’s kind of a private way to have a conversation with Siri as well.
So there are three or four different ways to get to Siri. I’m going to launch Siri today by simply just holding down the hold button and launching Siri. And this usually takes a couple of times, if I haven’t used Siri in a while, but I’m just going to simply say “What can you do for me” to find out what Siri can do for us. So I’m going to hold down the home button – “What can you do for me.”
And I let that go to the end of that list for a reason, because you guys need to know how much Siri can do for you. And every time I listen to that list I start thinking you know, I need to start using this feature or that feature or having it do this for me and that for me, because there’s so much that can be utilized just using Siri, and it’s just holding that home button.
Now it is important to know that once you’ve activated Siri, Siri is still running. So you have like a black screen up there with the information that was just provided by Siri. And at the bottom of the screen there you have a listen button, and that’s where it is. Now that’s mainly for I guess a sighted user that’s not using voice over that can touch that listen button and it would automatically launch Siri again. I mean if you wanted to you could double tap and activate that again, or you could go back through the routine of holding down the hold button.