For work, I reviewed the latest iPod Shuffle released by Apple and got to try out the VoiceOver technology it features. When I first heard about it, I thought it was gimmicky and that it would be slow and irritating to use. But after using the Shuffle, I found out my initial thoughts were incorrect – it works quickly and is a pretty neat feature that doesn’t require you to look at the iPod to see what song is playing and navigate around.
While on the train home the other night, I actually reached for the control button on my V-Moda headphones with the intention of activating VoiceOver to get the name of the song I was listening to since it was one I hadn’t heard in a while. At this point, I realized I was listening to music on my iPhone, not the Shuffle, and I was briefly disappointed to realize that I needed to get my iPhone out of my pocket and hit the home button to see the lock screen version of the now playing screen. Definitely not a hard thing to do, but I admit that I am creature who adores small conveniences.
Of course, this near-reflex and resulting disappointment made me wonder if this is a feature that Apple will add to the next iPhone. Or maybe a better question would be, why wouldn’t they? I’d bet good money that the next iPhone model will get a hardware change to allow it to receive volume control commands from a headphone remote control, just as you find on the latest pair of in-ear headphones released by Apple. VoiceOver is a feature activated via iTunes with the Shuffle and it must not take up much memory or it wouldn’t go over well on a 4GB Shuffle. Why not add the long press on the control button to activate VoiceOver, a command which does nothing now on the current iPhone? As far as I can see, there’s absolutely nothing to lose with doing this.
Wait a minute. I lied. A long press on the control button could be a good trigger for voice command functions with wired or Bluetooth headsets on the iPhone. Speaking as a geeky girl who doesn’t really need voice command functionality in her cell phone since her car can already do this for her with her iPhone, I still vote for VoiceOver instead. Unless voice command will allow me to do something super cool with my iPhone that has heretofore been impossible, like being able to dictate the contents of an SMS to be automatically sent to my husband to let him know this will be the weekend we buy him a new cell phone, I’m not interested. Plus, voice command wouldn’t be as useful a feature as VoiceOver on the iPod Touch in comparison. Bring on the VoiceOver!
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