4 ms·

It's really remarkable what Apple has achieved here. Random thought: She could turn down the screen's brightness all the way to save battery and improve privac

by Tepix 5y ago

It's really remarkable what Apple has achieved here. Random thought: She could turn down the screen's brightness all the way to save battery and improve privacy... ;-)

eevilspock 5y ago
She probably has it turned up for the benefit of us who are utterly dependent on visible light ;)
CJefferson 5y ago
The first time I taught a blind student, I was teaching C. I walked up to them to find they were clearly irritated, and said something like "Nothing works, I don't understand". Looking at their computer, it appeared to be off. I said, delicately, that were they sure the computer was turned on. They laughed and turned their laptop's screen on, saying (as you say), they left it off to save battery life! The problem turned out to be they were using textedit, which while a nice light (and highly accessible) editor, by default turns "s into “”. Unfortunately, Apple's text-to-speech "helpfully" just described all these as speech quotes. This made it impossible to understand, from the compiler error, why the code wasn't working. A quick head into settings and the student was off (they soon changed to textmate, also very accessible).
- vmception 5y ago
  I hate text editor assumptions Well only the ones that don’t work for me But i hate how hard it is to find an assumptionless and offline text editor these days
  - asddubs 5y ago
    pluma is pretty good
  - throwaway77112 5y ago
    What about SciTE or Geany? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SciTE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SciTE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geany
- ufo 5y ago
  I didn't know it was possible to turn off the laptop screen while it's in use. How is that done?
  - jackson1442 5y ago
    I know you can turn a MacBook's brightness essentially off, just by bringing it to the lowest tick. On iOS there is a VoiceOver gesture to turn off the screen even while the phone is on, so there may also be a purpose-built version of that in VO for macOS. edit: Evidently there is VO-specific tooling: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201443 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201443
  - Vrondi 5y ago
    Most PC laptops have a key in the function key or media control row for this. Look for one that resembles a monitor, or check your laptop's owners' manual.
epmatsw 5y ago
There’s an accessibility feature called Screen Curtain that turns it off completely https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201443 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201443
- yreg 5y ago
  This seems cool for a11y development/testing as well. Sometimes I close my eyes but it's difficult not to cheat. Now I need to figure out how to press `VO-Shift-Fn-_`
- interestica 5y ago
  I've a Microsoft Surface Book 2 and I can't turn off the backlight entirely with the brightness adjustment. I also can't just turn the display off and have the computer keep processing unless I use a third party tool.
masklinn 5y ago
> Random thought: She could turn down the screen's brightness all the way to save battery and improve privacy... ;-) She probably turned it up so viewers could follow what was happening. Otherwise there’s a builtin companion feature to voiceover which disables the display (screen curtain).
8fGTBjZxBcHq 5y ago
I didn't catch if she said she was completely blind or not. She may be able to make out some shape or color distinctions and is using that as a navigational aid. I have a friend who is blind but keeps their phone on max brightness for this reason. Very little comes through but they still find it helpful.
not2b 5y ago
She probably does, but you're seeing a video she's making for you, a sighted person.
miki123211 5y ago
Funny you mention this. Most screen readers actually have that as a feature, and it's called screen curtain. As many things in this field, it was pioneered by Apple, but it's available almost everywhere these days. This opens up really interesting opportunities, think cheating at school for example. Previously, other tricks have been used to achieve the same effect, including not having a display plugged in at al, Configuring Windows to use a second display while none was actually plugged in, or using a fake HDMI dongle.
freeflight 5y ago
Without using a headset it's less privacy, as the phone would read out the screen contents to anybody in hearing range.
- Tepix 5y ago
  Well that's a given, the screen isn't

by Tepix 5y ago

It's really remarkable what Apple has achieved here. Random thought: She could turn down the screen's brightness all the way to save battery and improve privacy... ;-)

eevilspock 5y ago

She probably has it turned up for the benefit of us who are utterly dependent on visible light ;)

CJefferson 5y ago

The first time I taught a blind student, I was teaching C. I walked up to them to find they were clearly irritated, and said something like "Nothing works, I don't understand". Looking at their computer, it appeared to be off. I said, delicately, that were they sure the computer was turned on. They laughed and turned their laptop's screen on, saying (as you say), they left it off to save battery life! The problem turned out to be they were using textedit, which while a nice light (and highly accessible) editor, by default turns "s into “”. Unfortunately, Apple's text-to-speech "helpfully" just described all these as speech quotes. This made it impossible to understand, from the compiler error, why the code wasn't working. A quick head into settings and the student was off (they soon changed to textmate, also very accessible).

vmception 5y ago
I hate text editor assumptions Well only the ones that don’t work for me But i hate how hard it is to find an assumptionless and offline text editor these days
- asddubs 5y ago
  pluma is pretty good
- throwaway77112 5y ago
  What about SciTE or Geany? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SciTE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SciTE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geany
ufo 5y ago
I didn't know it was possible to turn off the laptop screen while it's in use. How is that done?
- jackson1442 5y ago
  I know you can turn a MacBook's brightness essentially off, just by bringing it to the lowest tick. On iOS there is a VoiceOver gesture to turn off the screen even while the phone is on, so there may also be a purpose-built version of that in VO for macOS. edit: Evidently there is VO-specific tooling: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201443 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201443
- Vrondi 5y ago
  Most PC laptops have a key in the function key or media control row for this. Look for one that resembles a monitor, or check your laptop's owners' manual.

epmatsw 5y ago

There’s an accessibility feature called Screen Curtain that turns it off completely https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201443 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201443

yreg 5y ago
This seems cool for a11y development/testing as well. Sometimes I close my eyes but it's difficult not to cheat. Now I need to figure out how to press `VO-Shift-Fn-_`
interestica 5y ago
I've a Microsoft Surface Book 2 and I can't turn off the backlight entirely with the brightness adjustment. I also can't just turn the display off and have the computer keep processing unless I use a third party tool.

masklinn 5y ago

> Random thought: She could turn down the screen's brightness all the way to save battery and improve privacy... ;-) She probably turned it up so viewers could follow what was happening. Otherwise there’s a builtin companion feature to voiceover which disables the display (screen curtain).

8fGTBjZxBcHq 5y ago

I didn't catch if she said she was completely blind or not. She may be able to make out some shape or color distinctions and is using that as a navigational aid. I have a friend who is blind but keeps their phone on max brightness for this reason. Very little comes through but they still find it helpful.

not2b 5y ago

She probably does, but you're seeing a video she's making for you, a sighted person.

miki123211 5y ago

Funny you mention this. Most screen readers actually have that as a feature, and it's called screen curtain. As many things in this field, it was pioneered by Apple, but it's available almost everywhere these days. This opens up really interesting opportunities, think cheating at school for example. Previously, other tricks have been used to achieve the same effect, including not having a display plugged in at al, Configuring Windows to use a second display while none was actually plugged in, or using a fake HDMI dongle.

freeflight 5y ago

Without using a headset it's less privacy, as the phone would read out the screen contents to anybody in hearing range.

Tepix 5y ago
Well that's a given, the screen isn't