“I like the iPhone’s dictionary – if you don’t know the meaning of a word on a website you just have to tap on it to get its meaning. So simple and easy.” Anibul
The dictionary was added for iOS 5 and it is important to just tap and hold on a single word to see the ‘Define‘ menu appear beside ‘Copy, Select All and Speak’. It does not work in all applications. In messages the complete message is highlighted on tap and hold but you can use Copy and use Speak.
The iTunes U app from the Apple Store has lots of open courses. It is very useful for my studies – you can listen to the course at the same time as looking at the slides in iBooks.
Henry – Web and Internet Science
It works on an iPhone and iPad – you need to register on the Apple store. Many of the courses are American. ‘Internet Economics’ as a lecture is an example from one of the courses and you have a podcast plus slides from Stanford University – “Future of the Internet by Ramesh Johari” You can speed up the voice up to 2x, pause the lecture and return to it later and rewind in short steps.
Sandra sent an email about her work with links to her TeachTapin blog and there she mentioned her use of iPads and an iPhone “Assistant App is a great new app powered by the Nuance voice technology used for Dragon and other applications. It allows you to organise your time by way of a calendar with all dates and events now added by voice recording. As a dyslexic it allows me to take ownership in planning my time but also means that others can set me reminders. Hearing a voice relay the information to me is a great help.”
“I was given an iPhone that I use for calendars, calls, texting with speak selection, camera shots of articles using Image to text and video capturing of lectures. I use it to organise everything and sync with iCloud so I can view and work online from my desktop as well. This does not work for videos at the moment – those have to go through iTunes.”
Fiona – Multimedia and Design
iCloud-transfer.com is the site which can provide you with the iCloud tips/tricks, iCloud tutorials, and iCloud resources to help you use iCloud easily
“I use the free university iPhone bus timetable and map app when I am in a hurry and need to find my way about. It also has my timetable and modules.”
Nicole – Engineering
Speak selection from text on an iPhone
“My workaround may be a little complicated to include.[…] It’s a million times better than VoiceOver for dyslexic users – it’s designed for dyslexics rather than VI [Visual impairment]. It’s a built in accessibility feature for iOS5, so works everywhere.
Apple say: Speak Selection
Want to select text from websites, email, messages, and more? Speak Selection lets you highlight text in any application by double tapping it. Even if you don’t have VoiceOver enabled, Speak Selection will read you the highlighted text and give you formatting options like cut, copy, and paste. Turn on Speak Selection in Settings.
A video:
Neil – Psychnology