Thursday, January 20, 2011

Eyes-Free Shell Refreshed

We just refreshed Eyes-Free Shell on Android Market with a long-overdue set of improvements that have been waiting to launch. Here is a brief summary of user-visible changes:

User Customizable Home Screen

You can now add additional pages of short-cuts to the home screen. You can flip through these pages of short-cuts by tapping the left or right edge of the screen. Pressing the menu key within a page of shortcuts allows you to customize the short-cuts on that page; it also provides controls for inserting new short-cut pages.

One-Click Uninstall

The default way of managing applications in Android requires many clicks through nested menus --- this is especially true when uninstalling applications. The Eyes-Free Shell now lets you uninstall applications by pressing menu while in the applications list .

I18N

Spanish and Chinese strings for Eyes-Free Shell.

And many more underlying changes too numerous to fit in this margin. Speak, Listen, And Enjoy!

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Intersection Explorer --- Now Intersections Sound Even Better

We just updated Intersection Explorer on Android Market. This version improves on the initial launch by providing more intuitive descriptions for intersections, I'll include some examples below:

T-Intersection

Minor Street ends in Main Street to form a T-Intersection Depending on where you explore from, you hear:

  • Currently at Minor Street ends in Main Street
  • Currently at right on to Minor Street from Main Street.
  • Currently at left on to Minor Street from Main Street.
Plus-Intersection

Given the 4-way intersection of Castro Street and El Camino, you hear one of the following depending on the direction you're exploring:

  • Currently at Castro Street crosses El Camino
  • Currently at El Camino crosses Castro Street.

And a lot more than will fit this margin --- explore, share and enjoy!