AI-Generated Transcript
Speaker 1
Hello and welcome to Ask Bits for Saturday, April 18th, 2026. I am Liz. I am your facilitator for today. I have several people who are helping me out on the panelist side as well. But before I throw it over to them, I would like to get a few introductory things out of the way first. The first is that Ask Bits is a call that is sponsored by Blind Information Technology Specialist or BITS, which is a special interest affiliate of the American Council of the Blind. We in BITS do a lot of things and are very, very busy doing those things. But in doing those things, the main mission that we try to make happen is that we meet people where they are in their technology journey and help them get to where they want to be and learn what they want to learn. And you can find out more about all of what we do and how to get involved and in touch with us by visiting the website, which is bits-acb.org. And then so with me on the behind the scenes side of things, I first want to thank Mika for hosting and Holly for streaming. And I believe we’re in Clubhouse. So thank you, Holly, also for helping us all talk with each other and get connected. And we are being streamed on Media 6. And so thank you to both of you. It takes a village. I say that a lot, but it does take a village to make these community calls happen. And those are the people who are helping us out today. And I, what else, before I open the, we open the call, actually the purpose of Ask Bits, I’m sorry, the purpose of this call is that we will answer your tech questions. So if you have tech questions, which hopefully you do, you can ask them and we will do our best to answer them. We may be able to give you an answer on the call and, or we may ask you to email us or meet with us in one of our BITS Zoom chats that we have. And I will give information about all of that contact information later on, because I do want to open up the call and stop with the introductory material, because it’s not about me talking, it’s about everyone else talking and bringing us your questions. But before I hand it to my panelists, my fellow panelists, I want to start off with an icebreaker question, which is, with all the talk in the world about AI doing everything for everyone in all aspects of life, it seems, what is one thing that you really don’t want AI to do for you or help you with? Maybe as a task or an experience, either. The question is really open-ended. For me, I really do have two things and they hold value to me equally. I really could not pick just one answer. The first answer is that I do not want AI to make me a cup of coffee. I do not trust AI to get it right. And then the second answer to that question for me is that I really don’t want AI to take the place of genuine, authentic, honest human connection. So those are my answers. on the panel side with me. I have both Darcy and Lisa. Thank you both for being here. I will pass it first to Darcy and then Darcy, you can pass it to Lisa and then we will open it up to all of you. So Darcy, what is your answer to the icebreaker question if you have one? And if not, hello and
Speaker 2
thank you for being here. I have one. It’s sort of similar to your second answer. I am really into podcasting, both hosting them and listening to them. And I know there have been companies lately who have been tried to make AI generated podcasts. And they sound about exactly what you’d think they’d sound like, like very sort of, you know, you could tell there’s not a human connection there, even though sometimes they have like two hosts and they try the banter and all that. And it’s just, it just doesn’t come, it just doesn’t ring true, you know. And so I wouldn’t want to have stuff like that happen like really like creative things like that where there’s where there is like a like you say a human connection and i i would not want ai to do that because i don’t think at least for the foreseeable future i don’t think it would be good at it so um with that
Speaker 3
i will throw it over to lisa um i don’t know i like the idea of ai making my coffee because Because I’m usually in a stupor and I forget to do fun things like use the K-cup when I’m making coffee or putting the cup under the place where the coffee comes out. So that might be a thing. The thing I really don’t want to do with AI is just basic conversation. I think it’s a sad state when, you know, someone counts AI as one of their best friends. I think I’m kind of echoing what’s been said, but I really wouldn’t want it to take the place of human connection. And when I hear about people who spend, you know, hours just chatting with AI about their day and their feelings, it kind of makes me sad.
Speaker 1
It makes me sad, too. It really, really does. Thank you, both of you. And speaking of connecting with people and knowing what they want us to help them with, let’s open it up and hopefully answer some questions. So, Mika, who is our first person?
Speaker 4
All right. Pam is up and Penny is on deck.
Speaker 1
Fantastic. Hello, Pam. How are you?
Speaker 5
Yes. Well, as a chapter secretary of ACB, I do not want AI compiling minutes. No thanks. And also, when it comes to customer service, I don’t like having to deal with automated systems all the time, especially AI, because most of the time it does not understand what I really am asking about. It goes somewhere down a different rabbit hole than the one I was in. So that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. And I don’t think I want AI making coffee either. I’d rather do it myself.
Speaker 1
Fair enough. Thank you for sharing, Pam. Thanks. Penny, how are you?
Speaker 6
I would not want AI to use my voice to support things that I don’t agree with. I would not want it to be misused. Now, I have a question that’s different from this. When I go into Microsoft and I’m working in a document, I get a pop-up from Microsoft saying that it can see my location. And if I want to disable it, I have to disable it in the address bar. And it’s frustrating because I’ll be reading something and it pops up and says that. How do I disable that? Do you all know what I’m talking about?
Speaker 1
Yes, I absolutely do know what you’re talking about. I am blanking at the moment on the exact steps to disable it. But I do very much know what you’re talking about. Darcy or Lisa, do either of you
Speaker 3
recall that? I know what you’re referring to. Don’t you get to the I’m trying to remember because I don’t know but I think you get to the address bar by pressing F6.
Speaker 6
Okay. All right.
Speaker 3
You know what? Or the other thing you could do I love this. This is like the magic shortcut in Word. If you do Alt-Q, that’s like a search or query and try typing in disable location.
Speaker 6
Okay. I’ll do that.
Speaker 1
The other thing, two things that you could do, Pam, you could write us an email. Sorry, Penny. You could write us an email at ask at bits-acb.org, ask at bits-acb.org, and ask us that question in an email and we can get back to you. Alternatively, you could join us in a Zoom, one of our Zoom chats, which I think you’ve been on before. Yes, I am. And we could assist you in a breakout room. I just, at this time, cannot give you the help, the direct step-by-step directions that I would like to be able to give you on that. But there is a way to do it. If that is helpful. So, thank you. That’s it. Okay. Well, thank you. Angel.
Speaker 7
Now, my question is, is how do I record for community karaoke on a PC? Because Cindy encouraged me to do it after I record my music for community karaoke on my trusty cell phone landline. So how should I record music on community karaoke? What should I do? How should I be able to press, like, the buttons? And, yeah.
Speaker 1
That will depend on the setup and the tools that you have and want to use to record. Without knowing what setup you have.
Speaker 7
I do JAWS, basically. So how do I do it in JAWS to record my music? Because I might not do a karaoke track. I might do acapella or I might use my keyboard to play my music. So how should I record? How should I be able to stop recording when I’m done? And how should I play it back? And yeah, how should I do that?
Speaker 1
well there’s a little bit involved if you want to be able to have both your voice and your keyboard on the same song you would have to connect the keyboard to the computer you could join a zoom meeting and and do a screen share and record that way i know it’s a lot but that’s just that’s a high level answer or audacity but you know what record with audacity
Speaker 7
that too audacity but i like the way that i do it usually when i record it i usually do piano and vocals all all at once and then i do at the same time and like how they would do it back in the
Speaker 2
old days like analog style and then that’s it this is for liz and and lisa because my windows knowledge is way out of date does windows still include um sound recorder it absolutely does does it okay because that might be that’s a good place to start right like you could just you just start recording and just record with your piano or whatever and just i don’t know if if that would pick up the piano as easily that would depend more on the microphone really i mean i think yes um i mean prior to that he was doing it over the phone so it’s you know going to be a step up from
Speaker 1
that yes it may take some experimenting angel and it’s definitely something that i’m confident that
Speaker 7
you could with practice be able to do. Maybe Marcy D can help me because she told me about
Speaker 1
the computer sort of line. That would be something that you would have to ask directly of Marcy. I’m
Speaker 8
not going to speak for other people, but thank you, Angel. Hello, it’s Alison from Michigan here. And I first want to say in response to Penny, Penny, I have heard of that thing where I’ll be working in a document for an audio book list and it will say the site can access your location and you can change the setting in the address bar. I still need to get the steps to turn it off. And to answer the question about AI, I don’t want AI to make my coffee or tea. I want to do that myself. And I don’t want AI to auto fill any personal information on any forms that I fill out like my name, address, phone number, that sort of thing. And I do not want it to edit my resume. That’s something that I want to do myself, even though, yes, you can use AI to come up with a list of questions for certain things or get ideas to write a book review, but the editing process has to come from your voice. Because AI hallucinates, you’re right about that.
Speaker 1
Well, thank you, Allison. And you too could write to ask at bits-acb.org if you would like information on how to disable the location message within Microsoft Word or other Microsoft programs. Okay. Thank you. You’re welcome.
Speaker 4
So we have Cliff. Hello, Cliff.
Speaker 9
How’s it going, everybody?
Speaker 1
It’s going okay.
Speaker 9
How can we help? my mac bro i just got a neo yesterday and i usually can do stuff in my sleep where do i find the spoken content so voiceover will give me stuff like the background uh stuff for the you know uh like apps and stuff for the the the um what are they called um like pop-ups and stuff like that I know it’s in speech somewhere in accessibility, but I can’t find the exact category.
Speaker 2
Yeah, I’m not really sure what you’re referring to. So you want, what do you want it to speak?
Speaker 9
Like dialogues. Like if there’s a dialogue in the background and it pops up for you and I know there’s way to enable it but I can’t remember where it is because they move so much stuff around in
Speaker 2
accessibility so but I mean it would be in voiceover it’d be in voiceover it’d be in voiceover it’d probably in voiceover utility somewhere yeah I’ve dug through it and I it won’t it’s not jumping
Speaker 9
out at me but you know it’s usually I can set this up in my sleep but they move stuff around so much
Speaker 2
in the last two years so honestly I didn’t know even that was a thing so um like I just have to When it says something has new dialogue, and just hope I find it, you know? And then use the app chooser or window chooser.
Speaker 9
Yeah, so like, for instance, in Zoom, if there’s a raised hand or somebody leaves or comes in, that’s where the spoken content is because you can actually lower and raise that volume and speed it up, but I can’t find it. But I’ll keep on digging.
Speaker 2
Oh, I see what you’re talking about. The system voice. The system voice. Okay, that is… I gotta think about this, too. You’re right, though, Cliff, because it does seem like, especially the last few years, especially the last few updates, they have moved things around quite a bit, and then you have to go searching. Cliff, under accessibility, there’s a thing that says read and speak, and it looks like there’s a bunch of stuff about spoken content under there.
Speaker 9
Okay, I’ll check there, though. Thank you a lot, Darcy. Yep.
Speaker 4
All right. Then thank you, Cliff. All right, Doc. Hello, Doc. You can unmute.
Speaker 10
When I enter on the Zoom link, I’m getting a message about my companion time is about up and I should upgrade. Well, two things. I didn’t even know I was using companion. But how do I get out of that?
Speaker 1
there may be a just if you if your focus is in that pop-up window you may be able to tab several times and there might be a dismiss button alternatively you may be able to press escape having said that lately with zoom pop-ups i have not found that as pressing escape has been helpful in dismissing them, which is frustrating. But I usually will just alt-tab away from it and it goes away. Or it goes away from my knowing it’s there. But you do not have to, you know, this is not something you have to do. You don’t have to upgrade
Speaker 10
or anything. Well, like this morning, right after that announcement, I could hear you folks talking and, you know, getting organized and everything. So I don’t know whether it was a pop-up or just something that, you know, didn’t require a response or anything.
Speaker 1
Right.
Speaker 10
Zoom just went ahead and connected.
Speaker 1
And that may be too. I mean, and it will. It does. With those types of pop-ups, you will be connected. They should not interfere with your being connected to the meeting that you’re trying to join.
Speaker 10
Yeah. So I don’t need to upgrade. I can just ignore that?
Speaker 1
Yes. I mean, do you have a Zoom Pro account? Or do you just have the free Zoom account?
Speaker 10
Free.
Speaker 1
Okay. I’ve never seen that message that you’re talking about. Your companion time has expired. But you do not have to upgrade, no.
Speaker 10
Okay. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Speaker 1
You’re very welcome.
Speaker 4
All right. Next up is Petra.
Speaker 11
Hello, Petra. Good morning, everyone. I have a very quick question. Since my watch did an update, it totally messed up the watch face with the complications I’m using. Do I change watch faces on the phone in the watch app or do I change the watch face on the watch itself?
Speaker 1
In my experience, you can change it either place. It might be an easier experience to change it within the watch app on the phone because there’s more real estate that you can, you know, rather than a small screen of your watch. But I’ve changed it both places.
Speaker 11
And my answer to the AI question is I’m really concerned that people are using it to make airline reservations and so on and so forth. I think it may be trying to take over the world, and I think that’s a bad thing. Oh, I don’t use AI very much. I try to use it as little as possible. But I think it’s a good thing if it’s used correctly, but I think it could be very dangerous.
Speaker 1
Well, thank you, Petra.
Speaker 2
Just to go back to your original question, Petra, it’s basically you can kind of assume, you know, 95% of the time, I would say that anything you can do in the settings app on the watch, you can do on the watch app on the phone. And like Liz said, a lot of times that is easier because you’ve got a bigger screen to work with. But usually you can do things in both places. So whatever you’re more comfortable with.
Speaker 12
Carla, you can unmute. What exactly? I came a little late because I had a conference call. What was exactly the question about AI? I think I know what you’re asking. Your icebreaker question.
Speaker 1
Sure. The question is, what is one thing that you would not want AI to do? There’s so many things that people are talking about now these days that AI will do, and it’s helpful, and hooray, I guess. But what is one thing that you would not want AI to do for you or an experience that you would not want AI to take over?
Speaker 12
I don’t like it taking over calls, telephone calls. I want to talk to humans. And the other thing I’m just going to say, no, it’s not one thing. I don’t want AI to continue giving answers to my students so that they can cheat in my classes. I’m so fed up with AI and them using AI to do things they should do for themselves. That’s what I’m going to say. I first of all want to thank you folks, Kayla and everybody on the chat, for resolving my problem with my email client the other night. And I learned so much from you when you remoted into the computer. And I appreciate it so, so, so much. I appreciate everything Bits does for me. So my question is, I keep running into problems. When I go in to teach my German class, and I can’t use my Zoom room because the school insists that we use Google Meet and their account and everything. Yesterday, and this happens to me sometimes, either my camera or my microphone are turned on, but they will not initiate. They’ll say my microphone is off and it’s not. And I’ll check it to be on. And I spent a good five minutes and wasted five minutes of German class that I was supposed to be teaching, just getting it to initiate so that my students could hear me. And I’m wondering if anybody’s ever seen that or knows what would cause cameras and microphones to just stop in the middle of everything.
Speaker 1
Aside from tech gremlins, if it was working and then wasn’t, that’s definitely an interesting experience.
Speaker 3
If your computer or your phone, whichever you’re using to connect, has been on for a while, you might want to restart it. Sometimes that helps. The other thing is, you know, be aware of when Patch Tuesday is because I’m not. I always forget like, oh, it was, you know, last night. But then my computer will act weird and sluggish. And it’s like, it doesn’t really act right until the update has processed. So again, I just, it’s probably not as concrete an answer. And if that does not work, I’m not certain what would be next steps, but that would certainly be where I would start.
Speaker 1
The other thing is just when those things happen, as unfortunate as it may be, if it’s available to you as if it’s available to you as an option is to restart the computer and definitely make sure if you have the time to be able to resolve your tech issues or technology early in terms of setting it up and doing the restart but way before it’s time to connect that is my usual plan of action when I know I need to be somewhere at some point in time and have things working as well as I
Speaker 12
can have them working within my control of that oh well thank you so much and what’s patch Tuesday
Speaker 1
patch Tuesday refers to when windows will push out updates to its various uh the the computers that have windows on it on them the computers and devices thank you sure all right Jeff so my I have
Speaker 13
kind of a simple question. So Apple iPhone using voiceover iOS, it seems like over the last several months, and regardless of the updates, the ability to, and I’ve got an iPhone 17 Pro, it seems like when I ask Siri a question, so for example, Google search topic X, well, in the past, It would do the search and then like three or four options would come up like articles. And you could kind of take your time and use your finger to swipe over to listen to the title of the article. And yeah, nope, don’t want that one. Nope, don’t want, nope. Oh, but that one sounds good. And then double tap on maybe the third option out of the four. And then it would launch Safari and then all would be good. I’d read my article. Well, it seems like now with Siri, when you do that, well, it doesn’t seem it is, it doesn’t allow you to listen to the actual title of the article. You just get like button, button, button, button, or just blank, blank, blank, blank. And then it would just vanish. It would just go away. Like the options would go away. And then separately, using Siri to send a text message to, say, my wife or my daughter or my son or friend, whatever, you say your message. And normally it would be where it would recite the message back to you and it would ask you, do you want to send it? Yes or no? And then you would say, send message. Well, now it either doesn’t read the message back or it just reads a portion of the message back. and on many many occasions it wouldn’t even be the message that you left it would they would almost like siri would hallucinate and it would add not only just like correct spelling of words but like different words all together it just seems like is anybody else experiencing what seems to be a like 10 years of steps backwards just doing basic iphone stuff
Speaker 2
The only one thing I would try, just to make sure there’s nothing weird with your microphone, is try and go into voice memos and just record something, just to make sure your microphone is. Because sometimes if you’ve got something in your microphone or whatever, it doesn’t tend to, it can mess up what Siri is hearing. But I can’t speak to the search thing because I don’t use it that way. But as far as messages, I’m trying to think. Again, I don’t really use it. The only time I usually, I will respond to messages, but I don’t usually initiate messages that way. So I don’t know, Liz or Lisa, if either of you do. So I can’t really comment on those things.
Speaker 1
And I have not really experienced that. I don’t use Siri in those ways much myself. So I cannot comment on any of that. I do apologize.
Speaker 13
How would you search? Oops, sorry. Go ahead.
Speaker 3
No, you’re fine. I’ve used Siri some and I have been using it less lately. I’m trying to be diplomatic here. It seems to me like Siri has gotten less intelligent or something. So now when I want to search on my iPhone, I either open up Safari and I go to the website of my choosing, you know, a search engine. And I search for I use one of the apps that has AI and I will do it that way.
Speaker 13
So which one do you use, Lisa? Do you use Gemini?
Speaker 3
I use Perplexity. I use it because it does use several different models. I like the answers I’m getting from it. And an iPhone student of mine had questions about it, and I hadn’t yet installed an AI app. And so I kind of fell into it by default. But I mean, the accessibility, there are some unlabeled and weirdly labeled buttons. Overall, I find it pretty useful and usable.
Speaker 2
You know, another thing I was just thinking, Jeff, you could try, because I know, well, I know this used to be the case. I assume you can still do it. But I think if you go into, like, the Apple Intelligence and Siri section of settings, you can turn off, like, the Apple Intelligence version of Siri and get, like, the original version of Siri back, which might do it for you. Huh, yeah. Yeah, because sometimes the newer version, I think it’s, well, basically it’s almost like it’s half finished in some ways. Right, right. So you might try that. Like I said, I don’t know that that’s still an option. I know it was in the previous iOS, but it’s something to look at.
Speaker 13
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, everybody.
Speaker 1
You’re welcome.
Speaker 4
There are currently no other hands up right now.
Speaker 1
Thank you, Mika. While we have no hands, I will take this opportunity to kind of give a little bit more information about who Bits is and what we do. You can find out about all of that on our website, which is bits-acb.org. I mentioned earlier I gave the ask at bits-acb.org email address. That is a way that you can contact us through email and ask us tech questions and we can get back to you. There are several, well, more than several people who monitor that email box. Another way to get help is to join one of our Zoom Bits chats held usually every Friday and Saturday evening, starting at 8 p.m. Eastern and running for several hours at a time. you can find out how to get the Zoom information by going to bits-acb.org. And there’s information on that website about the announce list, which is a one-way list where Bits announcements are posted, including the information to join the chat. And another thing that is available on the Bits website is information about becoming a member. And there are several tiers, more than three, so more than several tiers of membership level. And you can find out about them by going to the main website. And there’s a link that is entitled Joining a Blind Information Technology Specialist that details all of the information about each of the membership levels. One of the things that we in BITS do a lot of is teaching, whether that is one-on-one. In some aspects, when we’re helping people with their tech things individually, or maybe we do that by way of various classes that we put on, or maybe we give presentations. And some of those presentations are open to members and non-members alike, and others are open only to members. So those are a few things that BITS does and is currently doing. We do have convention programming that will be available and classes that will actually be happening alongside convention. I am not the person who would be readily able to speak to those. And so I will not do that. For fear, I will incorrectly state something. But watch your communication channels, the BITS communication channels for information related to all of that.
Speaker 14
We do have a person in Clubhouse if you would like to take it now.
Speaker 1
I would. Thank you, Holly.
Speaker 14
Yeah, no problem. Kevin, go ahead.
Speaker 15
First of all, hello, you guys. Hope you guys are doing good. I do wanted to answer a question that yes, you can still turn off the Apple intelligence in the latest version of iOS. I just wanted to answer that. Yes, that is still available as an option that you can turn it off and get it back to all the street. So I just wanted to mention that.
Speaker 1
Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 15
Yeah, and that was me. I didn’t have any other questions. So, yep, thank you.
Speaker 1
That’s fine. We like questions, answers from our audience. And actually, in opening the call, I meant to say that that’s also a viable way of getting answers. Sometimes it takes audience participation for answers. And so we do not know everything. And I personally don’t want to know everything because then I can’t learn anymore. And that makes me sad. So does anyone on the panel have anything else that they may want to mention. I know there are several people within the affiliate who are in the audience. I am not at all putting you on the spot, but if you would like to add it to anything I have said, I would like to give you the space to do that.
Speaker 4
And we do have some raised hands as well when you’re ready.
Speaker 1
We will go to hands, Mika.
Speaker 4
Okay, we have William. Hello, William. Audie Lee.
Speaker 16
Good morning, everyone. Good morning, Liz and everyone. I hope everyone’s doing well. So I wanted to answer the AI question. I don’t really have an iPhone-related question at this time, but I would not want AI to have a conversation with me. I think it’s very sad that people rely on AI to have conversations with them. I think that it’s very important to have one-on-one communication with friends and family and, you know, neighbors and stuff like that. So that’s it for me. Thank you.
Speaker 4
Thank you, William. You’re welcome. Next up is Pamela. And after Pamela is Doc.
Speaker 17
Hi. I have a question related to Siri on my iPhone. I’ve been having trouble lately having Siri, like, make a phone call. I might have to ask five times before she does it. And one thing that I had done had turned on Apple Intelligence, and then I was having trouble with something, and I called Apple Accessibility, and they said, turn off Apple Intelligence. And since I turned off Apple Intelligence, Siri doesn’t seem to be responding very well at all. Hmm.
Speaker 2
I guess, I mean, this is the classic thing everyone tells you to try for everything, but you could always try rebooting your phone and see if that helps. And I guess try turning it back on. I guess try turning it back on and off and compare the two and see which one works best for you.
Speaker 17
What would be the reason to turn Apple Intelligence off?
Speaker 2
Well, Apple Intelligence is not really complete. Okay. It’s sort of in flux right now, right? Like I think they – it’s not quite there yet, so there may be reasons to turn it off. And I guess – because it also does other things too other than just Siri, right? Like it has the, um, where it can summarize stuff and it has a few other things, but, um, I would just try both, try it on, try it off and see which one works for you the best. Like I haven’t, I haven’t had as many problems with Siri, with Apple intelligence on, but then I don’t use it, um, for like, I don’t usually, usually use it to make calls. Um, often I’ll just go into the phone app and, and, and call someone. Right. So it just depends. Everyone’s usage patterns are different. So I would just try both and see which works better for you.
Speaker 17
It seems like it worked better when Apple Intelligence was on, but I turned it off because that was the recommendation. And I’m just going to turn it back on again and see. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2
See which works better because these things are both, you know. And I would try it after every update. Like if you’ve turned it off, you know, when there’s a software update, try turning it back on. And maybe, I mean, I know they’re trying to improve stuff all the time. So just see which works better for you. Okay.
Speaker 4
Thank you.
Speaker 1
Sure. Thank you.
Speaker 4
All right. Next up is Doc. Hello, Doc.
Speaker 10
I’d like to jump on a couple of those responses and questions. I’ve had problems with using Siri to message, and it will usually ask me, you know, do you want to send it? And I just say no, and she’ll say, what then? And I’ll re-record it, and it’ll come out okay. but sometimes I just can’t figure out where in the world she got the message that she’s repeating to me and I’ve had a little bit of problem on occasions in using Siri to make a phone call. I’ll say one thing and she’ll say, you want to call so-and-so, right? And it’s not even close. so this I think like Darcy said this is not complete and it’s still a program in works in working I should say that they’re still developing it and trying to refine it and make it work much better. So I just wanted to let other people know that they’re not alone with that particular problem. And I don’t have, I think I have a 16 Pro Max. So it must be in the I.O. rather than the model of the phone.
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think it’s an iOS thing rather than a specific phone model thing. I think you’re right about that.
Speaker 1
Well, thank you, Doc.
Speaker 10
Yep.
Speaker 1
Sometimes when I am using voice-to-text, I will manually go into a message conversation, put myself in the text field, and trigger a dictation at that point. That may work better. It also may not. but I don’t really use it that much but when I do that is my usual route of using it so
Speaker 4
there are no other hands at this time
Speaker 1
alright well that is fine we are almost at
Speaker 2
I was going to say that might be an interesting icebreaker question for one week is like how much do you use dictation and all that because you know I know some people it exclusively while other people, you know, we use Braille screen input or just a keyboard. And it’s fascinating to me how different people use their technology, right? Because there’s not one way to do it. You know, it’s whatever works for people.
Speaker 1
And it is amazing how many tools are out there. And we all have the same tools available to us, but just gravitate towards certain tools. And I feel like as humans, if something works with what we need it to work for for us in completing tasks, we stick with that one thing. Even if there’s something that might be better and we may not really know if we want to try a new thing. But sometimes that actually is a really helpful thing to do to try something new because it may increase productivity.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Muscle memory is a strong thing. You’re right. And if you get used to using something, you know, there’s a point when you want to try something new where you’re not going to be as efficient. But if you stick with it, you might ultimately, it might be better for you.
Speaker 3
Yeah, I also think it has to do with how long you’ve been using the technology. So, for example, when I started, this will date me, but when I started using an iPhone, there was no such thing as Siri. So I have kind of picked up, you know, I use dictation for some things, but I really don’t use actual Siri for very much. And it’s just because I already kind of had those patterns set. I found things that, you know, worked for me. And some people, people always think I have different things work for different people. I’m guessing maybe they are concerned that they’re not doing it right. But that really is the beauty with so much of technology is that there are many ways to do the same thing. A job done just effectively.
Speaker 1
Absolutely. I will join the I used an iPhone prior to Siri crowd as well. And it’s helpful to have tools because maybe on Monday you use tool A to do a task. And on Tuesday, you’re doing that same task, but you decide, you know what? I want to use tool B today. And it’s have it because maybe tool A just isn’t working. Or maybe it is, but you just want something different. That’s okay.
Speaker 3
Or if dictation is your tool, people don’t get it. They’re like, you know, it understands me fine when I’m at home. But it doesn’t understand me when I’m at happy hour, you know, and it’s like, well, there’s so much noise. you know, there’s much background. In that case, you might want to use a different dictation.
Speaker 1
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I want to thank Mika and Holly for helping us out here behind the scenes. Darcy and Lisa, thank you for helping me out on the panel. And just encourage anyone and everyone, if we can, and Ask Bits is available as a call currently the first and third Saturday of every month. So watch your community schedule for the next scheduled call. But in the meantime, should you want or need to get a hold of us, which we encourage, feel free to email us at ask at bits-acb.org. visit the website bits-acb.org and or join us in an upcoming Bits chat. We do have, for those who may not be able to or may prefer a phone number to get in touch with us, we do have a phone number that you can call and leave a voicemail. However, I could not find out what that phone number was or where it is listed anywhere. Easily findable on the website, admittedly. But we that is something that if you would email and ask and want to be able to talk and leave a voicemail, we could provide that number to you. So thank you, everyone, for being here. I hope that each and every one of you have an amazing rest of your weekend and an equally amazing rest of your upcoming week.