Navigating your iPhone

[Kritou]

I wrote this for another forum so please make allowance for it’s apparent motorcycling bias and – but it is a powerful tool that can be used in many other scenarios such as cycling and even hiking
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I have never had a bike with a WonderWheel controller and so I have had to stab at the handlebar mounted phone’s screen with a stylus or suitable gloved finger to control it. This is a bit hit and miss, distracting and will probably be illegal soon

Recently I stumbled across an iOS feature called Voice Control, accessed via Settings>Accessibility>Voice Control (this is nothing to do with Siri, although Siri can be used to initially turn on the feature) This brings up a small blue microphone icon top right and from then on there are many plain voice commands you can speak to move around your phone. Examples are “zoom in/out” “swipe left/right/up/down” “take screenshot” “go Home”, “Open Phone”etc

Now, moving to the bottom of the Voice Control page is the sub menu Overlay and this in turn has four sub menus – choose Item Numbers and this will then display small semi translucent numbers adjacent to each tappable icon on your screen, including all those in your preferred third party apps. Simply speak one of these displayed numbers and that icon will be “clicked”

So basically you can sit in font of your iPad/iPhone with your hands in your pockets and operate your device!

All this works very well both in the car and on the bike with my Pocket Earth and Gaia apps and I suppose Scenic, Waze and other Satnav apps will be the same. Of course talking to your phone on the motorway and from within a helmet is another matter. Initially I used one of the cheap Bluetooth headsets and it worked OK, but I now wear a single AirPod as it pairs seamlessly, the microphone is protected from wind noise and when the power fades it is simply swapped out for the other one. However I guess any Bluetooth intercom or integrated helmet system will work just as well

So far I have only used it tooling around town and have yet to test it in anger at speed. There are several other options to explore and use (including the interesting sounding Customise Commands) This serendipitous discovery is giving me hours of fun and may be of use to you too

[NSquirrel]

Thanks for the above Kritou; a facility I had not discovered. When not out walking, I do a lot of reading and I have often wondered out of curiosity, but never found the solution, to turning the page by voice. Solved in one simple explanation plus a lot more!

[Jochen Vorfelder]

Hi Kritou,

I followed your description how to use the voice control feature. Thanks for that great idea!

I have one question though: Do you get numbers next to the plus / munis buttons or do you have to use the zoom in / zoom out commands? The zoom in voice command hardly works in mycase – would be good to have numbers for +/- too.

Cheers Jochen

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[Kritou]

Yes, you have to use the zoom control commands. It works for me but the increments are annoyingly small. It is a shame that we can no longer display zoom levels rather than map scales as I think the API might have allowed us to just call for a particular zoom number

One of the less obvious advantages of growing old is that the hearing aids I am about to purchase have BT enabled microphones baked in that will allow me direct access to Voice Control! Sad isn’t it …

[Jochen Vorfelder]

Hi Kritou,

Try to combine commands. Zoom in or out followed by >> repeat x times <<.

That should work 😀

Cheers Jochen

[Kritou]

Interesting – the command text appears but is not actioned. What is the actual phrase you use to, say, zoom out three times?

[Jochen Vorfelder]

Well, this is probably the shortest option to zoom in 3 times:

I use the phrase >> Double tap <<.

After this command is executed I add the phrase

Repeat 2 times <<.

Same with zoom out, use the phrase >> Two finger tap <<.

cheers, Jochen

[Kritou]

Excellent, many thanks

[Kritou]

Jochen, that was a classic example of thinking outside the box …

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