Archive for December 21st, 2009



iPhone VoiceOver: Greatest Tip Ever? Yep.

December 21st, 2009 by Gregory Silvano Posted in Business, Technology | 1 Comment »

I switched from the Blackberry (8830) to the iPhone in January 2009 and other than AT&T’s coverage, I’m a big fan.  I know every screen, every option, every setting.

This weekend I stumbled on something I consider the best feature yet on the iPhone.  I haven’t seen this tip on any of the “Best iPhone Tips and Tricks” lists, but it really should be.

The scenario: you’re driving and get an important email.  Wouldn’t it be nice to have your iPhone read the email to you?  It can – all you have to do is “triple click” the home button!

To set this up, go to Settings, General, Accessibility.  At the bottom of the screen you’ll see a “Triple-click Home” option.  Set it to “VoiceOver”.  Done.

 

iPhone VoiceOver

 
Now when you have text you want read (like an email), triple-click the Home button and you’ll hear “VoiceOver On”.  Simply click the paragraph you want read and it’ll read the text to you.  When VoiceOver is on, you’ll see a black box around the text to be read:
  

VoiceOver in Email

When you’re done just triple-click the Home button to shut VoiceOver off.
 
Trust me, you don’t want to keep VoiceOver on all the time.  It hijacks the navigation of the iPhone.  When VoiceOver is on you have to click a button, wait for it to read the text of the button, then double-click it to click the button.  And in order to scroll you have to use three fingers.  So VoiceOver isn’t a fun feature unless you can toggle it on/off at will.

 Tags: ,