Hi Andy, Roger and All,
I agree that the Touch has a lot going for it, but to me a major drawback is
that there's no auto-scrolling, which, when adjusted to personal taste, is
a nice way to read long Braille books.
I've never calculated it officially, but I'd estimate that I likely spend 60
to 70 percent of my time using the Apex in this mode.
Thus, I've purchased a Touch, but when I go out, I grab my Apex because it
has auto-scrolling mode, and my Touch sits on the shelf at home.
This isn't what I envisioned when I bought the Touch, but I didn't realize
auto-scrolling wasn't part of the package until the purchase was made. I
kept waiting for it to come in updates, because I didn't believe that
Humanware would decide not to include the most important feature I use
daily.
I know, I know. Some folks don't like auto-scrolling and never use it. They
don't have to, and that's fine.
But at least for now, the choice was made for me by Humanware.
Simply for wear and tear reasons, it makes sense to be able to auto-scroll.
If a Braille book has 25 lines per page, and an average of 150 pages per
volume (that's conservative for volumes these days), what does that yield
for a five-volume book? Nearly 19,000 thumb key presses to advance through
the lines.
In my case, I use the supplied keyboard instead of touch Braille. It's a
nice idea, but I don't excel at Touch Braille. Just because I'm not good at
it, I'd never advocate Touch Braille's elimination. I don't use KeyMath, but
that doesn't mean it shouldn't be there.
I wish the same philosophy had been applied to auto-scrolling, which isn't
among the features of the Touch.
--
Rick
-----Original Message-----
From: braillenote-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:braillenote-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger A. Behm
Sent: Tuesday, November 07, 2017 6:09 PM
To: ashields2@xxxxxxxxxxxx; braillenote@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [BNU] Re: Upgrading from the Apex
Hi Andy,
you are not understanding what Greg Stilson is saying about the touch.
The special patent 7 inch touch screen is not used like a regular touch
tablet or smart phone, but it is patent to do touch braille, meaning you lay
all ten fingers on the glass for less than a second then lift them up and
start typing like you have a physical perkins keys under your finger tips in
grrade one or two, UEB or U.S. braille It does not matter where they fall
on the touch screen.
The reason lots of young kids like typing that way, there is no sound what
so ever, even when compared to a laptop keyboard.
you can if you want to do swiping with your fingers by turning off touch
braille, but why suffer like the sighted or blind persons who use a smart
phone or tablet.
The touch uses first letter navagation, just like on the apex, but offers so
much moere.
The aps that work with nls bard or bookshare suck, but those were written
for smart phones or tablets, while HumanWare is in the process of upgrading
or re-writing the aps including the nls bard an dbookshare aps.
The touch has the victor reader software on it and when the nls key is put
on the touch and they re-write the aps for bookshare and nls so books
download to the Sd card or internal storeage drive, we have to put up with
those aps for now.
The touch is the same as the apex but runs android and is the same weight
outside its case as the apex, but 3/4 inches deeper from front to back.
having removable battery, removable internal drive, free upgrades for life,
KNFB reader ap free and a 8 pixel camera, there is so much more it can do
then the outdated apex and makes blind users more efficient then sighted
folks.
I stil use the apex for some functions, but own 2 apex bt 32 units, 3 touch
32 units and one voicenote qt apex, since obviously I am a dealer for
HumanWare for the past 17 years.
There is all kinds of information on the humanware support page you can
download or play or read.
If you have any questions, call me at, 608-758-0933, and I can tell you the
positive and negative about the touch or the HIMS Polaris android devices.
Regards,
Roger Behm
----
- Original Message -----
From: "andy shields" <ashields2@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <braillenote@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, November 07, 2017 1:23 PM
Subject: [BNU] Upgrading from the Apex
Hi, everyone,
My workplace is switching to Office 2016, and the necessary training has
shown some obvious ways that the Apex is outdated-a little to do with
connecting to networks and other devices, and (not surprising) that
worsening online issue in all directions because of the browser. It's
also certain that sometime soon we'll be changing o"er to some more
advanced version of Windows, and more "issues" are bound to appear. As my
boss says, "you don't want to get even further behind the curve of
technology and be unable to do anything about it." So, while I still have
an open case with my state commission for the blind, I guess it's logical
to move along to a more modern, multi-featured piece of equipment.
The short version of my reaction to this is that I'm just fine with the
Apex; it does everything I need to do, with few complications, including
more work-related items all the time. I don't even have many complaints
about the browser, which probably means I'm unnaturally patient, and don't
care about a lot of the social-media contexts that can be so limiting.
I'm fascinated by the versatility of the BrailleNote Touch and impresped
with all of the more up-to-date, inclusive things it can do, but there are
areas, such as downloading and reading books, where it sure seems to me a
case of "if it wasn't broke, why'd you fix it?", compared to the ease of
that process on the Apex. Yes, I know, whole different "platform" and
operating system.
Anyway, it looks like "the Touch" is where I'm headed, so I have three
questions. I'm addressing them to this list because I need to do a little
"comparison shopping", and I know a lot of you have experience with a wide
range of "adaptive equipment"; my counselor from "the Commission" has
almost none. First: is there a product (from HIMS or somewhere else) that
would be similar to the Apex, but with a newer browser? I doubt it, or
we'd be using it. Second: is there a general website, not promoting any
particular company or manufacturer, where I could find a detailed
comparison of notetakers and similar products, with features and prices?
(Maybe something from AFB?) Full disclosure here: no, I don't much like
the whole touch-screen-based direction things have gone, partly because it
seems so needlessly roundabout. Having said that, no, I don't know how
else you'd access a lot of these very visual things; yes, it's what people
are using, so there's not much I can do about it; and we do have friends
who are great with all of this, so it has a lot to do with familiarity.
So, question three, which concerns the "BN Touch": we've been posting the
"snapshot tutorials" on our Facebook page at work, and in all of them,
Greg Stilson points out that he's using the screen to write Braille. Why
would he (or any of you) choose that option when there's a keyboard
available?
OK, that's it. I realistically expect that, as Humanware likes to remind
us, there really isn't anything quite like the Touch, and that's where
this will go. And yes, I am aware and appreciative of the fact that I'll
probably have a device purchased for me because it's a work-related
expense, just as I did the Apex, and that I'm very lucky, because this is
an option many people will never have. Thanks for any help anyone can
give me.
Andy
-------------------------------
BNU: BrailleNote Users - a forum for users of BrailleNote family of
products from Humanware.
Website: www.braillenoteusers.info
IMPORTANT: By default, replies will be sent to individuals. If you feel
that your reply would be useful for others, please use "reply to all"
feature in your email client.
If you wish to unsubscribe from this list, send an email with the subject
line of "unsubscribe" to braillenote-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.
You can also visit our list page at:
www.freelists.org/list/braillenote
From this page, you can unsubscribe, change email delivery settings and
view list archives.
If you have any comments or questions for list moderators, please send an
email to braillenote-moderators@xxxxxxxxxxxxx. Thanks.
