shownotes_MCM20111214

Apple wants to help
  OS X and iOS have a bunch of features that are there to help us accomplish tasks and get work done.
  Some of these are obvious and some aren't. Also some are designed specifically for users with special needs, but those features are automatically available to all users so everyone benefits.
Assistive technologies
  Zoom
    On OS X Lion
      System Preferences > Universal Access > Seeing (tab) > Zoom: section
      Options… change depending on if 'Zoom in Window' Is checked or not.
      Useful for presentations and screencasts
      Zooming in on the detail of an image to maybe make out some text
    On iOS 5
      Settings > General > Accessibility > Zoom. Toggle on or off.
      While on
        Double-tap with three fingers to Zoom
        While zoomed use three fingers to move around
        to change Zoom level, use three fingers to double tap, holding on second tap and dragging to adjust zoom level.
      Help show someone some text in an app that doesn't support pinch to zoom
      Screen captures some detail
        Press home and sleep/wake buttons together to take a screen shot and save to your Library
  Large Text
    OS X Lion
      Typically under the Format menu in most app Command+ '+' or Command "-'
      In Finder you can change the View options for a folder or the desktop
      combine with Zoom
    iOS 5
      Settings > General > Accessibility > Large Text
      Works for the Calendar, Contacts, Mail, Messages, and Notes apps
    Can help if you forgot your reading glasses or are needing to show something to a small group
  Speak Selection
    OS X Lion
      Should be part of the built-in Services
      In most apps where you can make a selection you'll find it under Edit > Speech > Start Speaking (or End Speaking)
      Adjust your Voice setting in System Preferences > Speech > Text to Speech
        Select from Default voices or choose 'Customize…' to sample and download additional voices. This includes international ones. They take up a lot of space.
    iOS 5
      Settings > General > Accessibility > Speak Selection. Toggle on or off.
      When you make a selection you now see an additional 'Speak' option in the copy/paste pop-up
      You can also control the speech rate with the slider.
    Useful for having selections read to you while you do other work.
    I've also found it useful for proof reading, sometime you hear errors that you may miss reading, although with the quality of the voice there can be false positives.
    Can also write a Simple service in automator to convert selections to audio files and add them to iTunes to take for listening in the car or while you do other things.
  Custom Vibrations and LED Alerts
    iOS 5 and iPhone only
    Settings > General > Accessibility > Custom Vibrations > On or Off toggle
      Settings > Sounds >Vibration (under Vibration Patterns)
      There are some built-in ones
      Create New Vibration > tap out a custom one.
        Records when you start tapping.
        Play to "feel" back the pattern
        Save to name it
      Can assign as default or use for specific contacts
        Find the contact in Address Book
        Click 'Edit'
        Under Vibration' you can assign a custom pattern to just that person.
    Now you can identify individual callers when you phone is in silent mode (assuming you feel the pattern). Useful to know if you need to step outside and take a call or can ignore it all without taking your phone out.
    Settings > General > Accessibility > LED Alerts > On or Off toggle
      I could not get this working reliably
        Change notification to old "banner style"
        Turn off custom vibrations
        Hard reset phone
      Did work once, and could be useful in situations where you have the phone in silent mode and visible. Say while in a power dock.
  Assistive Touch
    Another iOS 5 only feature, but cool and what prompted this episode
    An older gentleman at my IOS group had this on and said a friend enabled it. I thought the device may have been jailbroken
    Settings > General > Accessibility > Assistive Touch
    Adds a 'circle' icon to the side of your display. Always there, but you can move it around the edge and it dims when not active
    Tapping it give a pop up with gesture options.
    Gestures, 2 3 4 or 5 "virtual" fingers. you now swipe with 1 finger, but it acts like multiple
    Device, virtual controls
    Virtual home button
    Favorites
      Pinch, grab handle with one finger
      Record gesture "macros". Tap to play once active.
    tap edit from the main Assistive Touch screen to delete custom touch gestures.
    I had to play with it a bit, but was able to create 4 finger swipe left and right gestures on the iPad for Multitouch gesture actions
      2 taps and I could do a 4 finger swipe
      did have some glitches at first. Make sure you swipe all the way when you record the macro.
    The "shake" gesture is good for undo. I always feel still and worry I may drop my device.
  Incoming Calls
    iPhone only.
    Always send incoming calls to a speaker or headset.
    Useful for when you know you'll be in the car (should happen automatically), but still.
    Also when you know you want to get calls and go right to speaker phone. Maybe in conference situation.
  Triple-tap home
    Toggle different features, or ask.
Auto-correction
  I call this "mini" TextExpander
  OS X Lion
    System Preferences > Language & Text > Text tab
    Add your own text "shortcuts" by clicking the '+'
  iOS 5
    Settings > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Add New Shortcut
  Good for auto replacing words with specialized characters or accents
  Also if you often misspell a word that built-in auto correct may not pick up.
The "Rotor"
  This is one gesture I'd like to see leveraged and go main stream
  It's part of VoiceOver on iOS and allows you "rotate" a virtual knob with two fingers to change how Voiceover behaves
    For example rotate from a control to read character by character, word by word, or line by line.
    Once set a flick up or down advances or reverses the selection.