• 4 days ago
Rise and Shine, and don't forget your booties cause its COOOLD out there today! The big question on everybody's chapped lips is: "Did you watch the new Tech Connect video yet?" That's right Tech Connectors, its Groundhog Day!

On this channel have covered a number of very useful apps for Blind and Low Vision iPhone users. But with so many great apps, how can we stay organized and keep track of all these wonderful tools?

Our Assistive Technology Experts are excited to teach you everything you need in order to take command of your iPhone's apps! This includes rearranging where apps live, prioritizing the corner spaces and consolidating groups into folders so that you never feel lost again! We will also explain the steps of fine tuning both the size and color of your apps relative to your chosen background image in order to maximize legibility for Low Vision iPhone users.

0:00 Start
1:30 Introducing Topics: Rearrange Apps using VoiceOver, Lock Screen and Home Screen Background, Resizing Apps and altering their color for Low Vision,
2:30 Custom Home Screens, Organizing the Grid, Four apps stay on the Dock
4:00 Using VoiceOver's Rotor gesture to open the Action menu and edit the location of apps,
7:00 New features of iOS 18 include the ability to organize priority apps into the four corners
9:00 Double Tap and Hold an App to drag it to a specific area of the App Grid, then Home Gesture
10:05 Optimizing for Low Vision, Changing App Size, Customizing the Tint and Color of Apps,
14:00 Custom Lock and Home Screen options using pictures, colors and simplified backgrounds
18:30 Wrap Up Review of the useful features of iOS 18 for Blind and Low Vision users of the iPhone
19:30 Previous Apps, Live Show every other Thursday at 11am Central on our YouTube channel
20:15 Learning Management System with on-demand ACVREP Credits,
21:35 Happy Groundhog Day!

If you have any additional questions about iOS 18, or the iPhone generally, please add those down in the comment section and we will endeavor to help!

Vision Forward's Tech Connect continues to bring you the information you need to make the most out of your devices. Our experts know there are many factors to consider, so if you have any follow up questions please post them in the comments and we will help you find the assistive tech that's best for you.

Join us, find the schedule by visiting out website:
https://vision-forward.org/techconnect

Contact Vision Forward Association:
Call us: (414-615-0103)
Email us: infocus@vision-forward.org
Visit us online: https://www.vision-forward.org
Online Store: https://www.vision-forward.org/store

Want more Tech Connect in your life? Try us Live! Be sure to join us for the upcoming YouTube Live! show on February 13th at 11am CST.

Looking for the full playlist?
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdZ61dAGaL_k3I-_LcTPozan9upCqY8Yc

Most Recent Episode?
"Accessible Online Shopping with Innosearch.AI"
https://www.youtube.com/live/WkpAlMwE3PU
Transcript
00:00Hey, Corey. Yes, sir. Almost Groundhog Day. That is true.
00:09Hey, Corey. Yes, sir. Almost Groundhog Day. That is true.
00:18Hey, Corey. Yes, sir. Almost Groundhog Day. That is true.
00:21It's been great seeing you, Needlehead. Take care.
00:24Take care.
00:29Watch out for that first step. It's a doozy.
00:36Okay, campers. Rise and shine. And don't forget your booties because it's cold.
00:43Hello, everybody, and welcome back to another exciting episode of TechConnect.
00:46I'm Luke. I'm Corey the Magnificent.
00:50And this is our second video of 2025.
00:52The first one did gangbusters views, and this one is going to do even better, Corey.
00:56Yeah, I actually got an email from the one and only Mr. Beast.
01:00Jimmy. And he's Jimmy Donaldson.
01:03And he said, Dear TechConnect, please stop making videos as you are making me look bad.
01:09Indeed. Sincerely, Mr. Beast.
01:12He didn't sign it with his real name? No.
01:14So it may have been.
01:16And then there was a bar at the bottom that said,
01:18If you would like to have your YouTube videos perform better, please pay us.
01:24So it might have been a scam.
01:26Yeah, the email address was it Luke at gmail.com?
01:29This is not MrBeast at gmail.com.
01:33Anyway, we are covering some very exciting things in this video, Corey.
01:37We are going to be looking at how to rearrange your iPhone home screen.
01:41You're going to be looking from a voiceover perspective, how to move apps around.
01:45And that is important because there are a lot of exciting apps out there, Corey.
01:48We've covered a lot of them.
01:50And of course, that can make your home screen quite cluttered.
01:53So it's good to be able to organize them.
01:54So you are going to be handling that with voiceover.
01:56From a low vision perspective, I will be taking a look at how to change your lock screen and your home screen background.
02:02And also how to resize apps and how to change the color of them as well.
02:06Very exciting things, Corey.
02:08As usual, we are right on the money with this because these features were only introduced almost a year ago.
02:13Cutting edge in iOS 18.
02:15You may not have heard of this iOS 18.
02:17It's brand new.
02:19But we think it's important for people to know how to keep their apps organized.
02:24So that is why we're producing this video.
02:26All right. Let's do it, Corey.
02:30As we mentioned, it is important to keep your app library and your home screen nice and organized.
02:37And it can be a little difficult from a voiceover standpoint.
02:41So we're going to show today two different ways for you to move around apps.
02:45And then we're going to show how you can kind of create your own custom home screen.
02:50That's something new in iOS 18.
02:53And from a beginner standpoint, it's kind of nice.
02:56So we'll show a little trick here.
02:57So I've got my home screen here.
03:00It's actually home screen 15 for me.
03:02So I have a little too many apps I do need to clean up.
03:05But down in the comment box, I'm curious how many home screens do you have?
03:09Because I think 15 is a lot, but I bet you there's tons of people with way more than that.
03:13I'm sure. Also, put it down in the comments, please, what you think.
03:16If you're able to see Corey's image on his home screen, let us know what you think of it.
03:21Bulgars are like onions.
03:23Yeah, that's what happens when you let your daughter get her hands on your phone.
03:27So I've got a home screen here.
03:29And for those that don't know really quick, your home screen, you've got a grid of apps.
03:33You've got four across and I believe six rows going down.
03:36So how many total is that?
03:3864.
03:39Oh, wow. Very fast. Congratulations.
03:41And then the very bottom row is called your dock.
03:43And that never really changes.
03:45No matter what home screen you're on, you're going to have those same four apps.
03:48Although you can change those.
03:49You can choose which ones you want.
03:50Yeah, absolutely.
03:51So I've got a home screen here.
03:53It is blank, except I've got the four apps going across the top row and then my four apps down at the dock.
03:59But we'll ignore that.
04:00So we're going to show a couple of things here.
04:03First, we're going to use the rotor to go ahead and drag an app and move it around.
04:09So, for example, in my top left corner, I have an app called Gala Pro.
04:15Let's say I want to move this over to the top right corner.
04:18What I'm going to do is my rotor has automatically moved to the correct setting, the actions menu.
04:25So I'm going to swipe down for edit mode, double tap.
04:30Now I'm in edit mode and I'm still sitting on Gala Pro.
04:33Now, when I swipe down, I'm going to get different options.
04:36And we'll quickly take a peek at what those are.
04:39Delete.
04:40First of all, I can go ahead and delete that app.
04:42Drag Gala Pro.
04:43This is what we're going to do in just a moment.
04:45But let's go through all of them and then we'll come back to drag.
04:48Activate default.
04:49Activate is default.
04:50So that's just going to actually open it basically.
04:53Stop editing apps.
04:54We've got to stop the edit mode.
04:57Delete.
04:58And then we're back to delete again.
04:59So I am going to put ours and we're going to choose drag instead.
05:04Activate.
05:05Edit mode.
05:06Started editing.
05:07Delete.
05:08Drag Gala Pro.
05:09And we'll double tap.
05:10Smart Life is editing.
05:11So now that Gala Pro app has been selected and ready to be dragged.
05:16Now, here's one cool thing.
05:18We could continue to repeat those steps on multiple apps and drag as many as we want to.
05:25So if you've got three, four, five apps on one home screen and you want to move them to another or move them lower down,
05:31you can go ahead and just repeat those steps and do as many as you'd like to.
05:37Now I'm going to go and find where I want to move it.
05:40Pixie Bot is editing.
05:42And I want to put it after Pixie Bot.
05:45So now when I swipe down, we're going to have some new rotor options.
05:49Stop editing apps.
05:50Add to drag session.
05:51There is my ability to do multiple.
05:54Drop Gala Pro before Pixie Bot.
05:56Here I can drop it before or if I swipe down again.
06:00Drop Gala Pro after Pixie Bot.
06:01I can do after and I'll double tap.
06:04Drop complete.
06:05And now it has moved Gala Pro from the left corner.
06:09Smart Life.
06:10Which is not there anymore.
06:11Over to the right corner.
06:13Chloe as well, a quick plug here.
06:15If you want to see a video on the Pixie Bot, check out one of our live sessions.
06:19I'm sure Jonathan will put a link to it in the old treasure chest there.
06:23Or maybe a card.
06:25He's going to put it somewhere.
06:26He'll put it somewhere.
06:27You just have to find it.
06:28So that allows us to quickly and easily move apps around.
06:32And again, I've just been doing it from this single home screen here.
06:36But we could easily have moved.
06:38You would follow the same steps in order to move apps from one home screen to another.
06:44The other thing we could have done, and I didn't swipe through,
06:47is there would have been an option to create a folder too.
06:51If you want to combine multiple apps, you could do that as well.
06:54I always find that confusing because I forget which folder things are in.
06:57I know.
06:58I remember when I first got my phone, I was so diligent and put everything in folders.
07:01And then I just could never remember where anything was.
07:04Now the last thing I want to show here using VoiceOver is
07:08one of the things that I think is kind of cool that Apple added recently
07:12was the ability to now put apps wherever you want them.
07:16Prior to, I believe it was iOS 18 if I remember correctly.
07:19Put it down in the comments if I'm mistaken.
07:21But you were only able to put apps next to another app.
07:25So for instance, I just have the top row.
07:28If I wanted to put something down on the sixth row down,
07:32I couldn't do it because there was all this blank space.
07:34Yes.
07:35Now we can do that, which is kind of cool,
07:38especially for those who maybe are just beginning with the iPhone.
07:41There may be some, let's say you just use four apps.
07:45Maybe it's phone, messages, email, and Facebook or something like that.
07:50You could create a home screen where you have those four apps in the four corners,
07:55making it a little easier for you to find where those apps are and more quickly.
08:01Even if you've got a home screen with multiple apps,
08:04I always like to set up my home screen where the four corners are the apps I use most often.
08:09Even though the rest are all filled in, it just makes life easier.
08:13But the rotor gesture method that we just did will not work for that
08:18because there's nothing around for it to drop before or after we can't do it.
08:22So what we have to do instead is the old way that we used to move apps,
08:27and that is to double tap and hold on an app,
08:30and that's going to make them start to jiggle.
08:32And from there, we don't want to lift our finger.
08:35We just start to slide our finger to the placement where we'd like it.
08:40And as we move, you're going to hear voiceover,
08:42let me know which row and column I'm in.
08:45So I want to try to get down to row six and column four, and we'll do our very best.
08:50That would be the bottom right corner?
08:52That would be the bottom right corner, yeah.
08:54So we're going to try it. So I'm just going to pick an app here.
08:56Pixibot.
08:57Yep, there we go. Let's do Pixibot here, or Pixibot as the phone says.
09:00I kind of like Pixibot, I've got to say.
09:02Okay, so we are going to double tap and hold on Pixibot.
09:07There we go.
09:09And now we're going to move it down.
09:11Row one, column four. Row five, column three.
09:15We're getting close.
09:16Yeah.
09:17Row six, column three.
09:19Very close.
09:20Row six, column four.
09:21There we go, I'll lift my finger.
09:23And it has now placed the app down there.
09:26Now, what I want to do is stop editing, though, because it is still kind of jiggling.
09:31So what you can do there is just do your home gesture,
09:34and that will stop the editing.
09:36And so now, if I touch down in the bottom right corner,
09:39Pixibot,
09:40I do have that Pixibot app down there in kind of its own empty space.
09:45And so I could just repeat those steps again and put the other two apps in the other corners if I wanted to.
09:51And then you end up with a home screen with just your four corners kind of filled with apps.
09:56Again, point is just trying to make it easier for you to find the apps that you use most often.
10:04Ooh.
10:06All right.
10:07So we saw the stuff that Corby had to offer.
10:09It was okay.
10:10Not too bad.
10:11It was the best stuff that has ever been placed on YouTube.
10:14Yes.
10:15Another email from Mr. G's team.
10:18Now it's time to look at the real stuff.
10:20So we're going to look, first of all, on our home screen,
10:23how can we change the size of the apps and how can we tint the apps and change the color of the apps?
10:28Corby, any ideas?
10:29Corby, any ideas?
10:30Yeah.
10:31We're going to do the tint gesture and the bigger app gesture.
10:35Sure.
10:36You don't know those?
10:37This is not voiceover now.
10:38We are going to be using this without voiceover.
10:40First step, we're on the home screen.
10:42We're going to hold a finger in a blank space on the home screen,
10:45and that's just going to make all of our jiggling jiggles as we did before.
10:49But we will also, at the top left, have an edit option,
10:52and we're going to go ahead and hit the edit option.
10:54That will open up a small menu here where we have add widget, customize, and edit pages.
11:00And I'm going to go ahead and hit customize here.
11:02And this has opened up a little menu at the bottom of the screen.
11:05A few things we can do here, Corby.
11:06We can choose between small and large, and that will affect the size of our apps.
11:12So I'll go ahead and just flip to small here.
11:15And my apps now have got the app plus the name of the app underneath.
11:19Which is the default mode typically, right?
11:21The default, precisely.
11:22If we go to large, the icons get bigger,
11:25and in order to accommodate that, the name of the app actually disappears.
11:29So you would have to know what the app is by sight,
11:31but it's usually pretty easy to tell once you've got used to using an app,
11:34you know, which app it is.
11:35So pretty cool.
11:37Underneath there, we have a couple of additional options.
11:40So we have some squares here that say light, dark, automatic, and tinted.
11:46Let's flip between these.
11:48If I go to light, that's kind of like your normal colors.
11:52If I go to dark, it's the normal colors, but any white bits become black,
11:57if you see what I'm saying.
11:58It's like a color invert mode.
12:00So it's not a straight black on white, but it's just replacing some white.
12:06Yes, so you still have other colors, but it's replacing whites with black.
12:09So like a color invert.
12:10I actually kind of like that, I've got to be honest with you.
12:12Automatic here.
12:14So that's going to look at the background of the phone
12:16and then change the apps depending on the background that you've got.
12:19I wonder if it uses ambient light detection as well.
12:22I wonder if it changes depending on the lighting in your room.
12:25Yeah, try it out at home and put it in the comments.
12:28And then we finally have tinted, and this one's kind of interesting.
12:31We can tint all of the apps to be a certain color.
12:35So instead of having their normal colors or even their inverted colors,
12:38they will all be a consistent color.
12:41And you can choose basically any color that you want.
12:43So we have two sliders.
12:44One of them will move us between the colors of the rainbow.
12:47So that would be the slider at the top.
12:49And then just underneath that, we have an intensity.
12:51So once we've chosen the color on the top slider, how intense is that color?
12:55You can choose that using the bottom slider.
12:57It takes a second to actually take effect.
13:00So as you're using the bottom slider there,
13:02give it a second to actually change the apps
13:04so that you can see what they look like.
13:07But pretty cool stuff.
13:08And I assume, you know, I think that was done more from a perspective
13:14of like making it look uniform and nice.
13:17But from a low vision standpoint, it could, choosing a different tint,
13:22a color tint that makes sense for you, you see better,
13:25could add some accessibility.
13:27Well, potentially.
13:28I'm not sure, to be honest with you.
13:30On the basis that, yeah, you could choose a good background
13:33and a good tint for the apps to provide a maximum contrast.
13:36But when you tint the apps,
13:38all of the apps are exactly the same color at that point.
13:41Oh, so you're going to lose some of those color cues.
13:44Exactly.
13:45So, yeah, visually, it might get more confusing
13:47because you're losing those color cues.
13:49That's a good point.
13:50But, you know, everybody's different.
13:52So why not play around with it and see how it works for you?
13:55With that being said, Corey, let's go ahead and switch over.
13:58We'll take a look at how to create custom home screens,
14:02custom lock screens using various colors and pictures.
14:08OK, so now let's take a look at how to modify our home screen
14:11and lock screen and make them a little bit more personal for us.
14:14First of all, I'm going to go ahead and wake up my phone.
14:17Now, in order to customize the screen,
14:19I do need to use my face ID.
14:21And so I'm going to go ahead and lean over the phone,
14:24hold a finger down on the lock screen,
14:26and it will take me through to this area
14:28where I can go ahead and start to customize the home screen and the lock screen.
14:31So I've got some that I already created here.
14:33But if I swipe to the left, I will find an Add New option
14:36with a plus in the middle.
14:38I'm going to go ahead and hit the plus.
14:40Now, this is going to allow us to add some new wallpaper.
14:42And there are presets that we can use.
14:44And there's various different ones.
14:46And we can also use photos from our phone as well.
14:48So we might want to use just a personal photo.
14:50We might want to use some of their designs,
14:53like Kaleidoscope or Emoji or Unity.
14:56There's lots of different options that we can choose from.
14:58I'm going to go ahead and use one of my own photos, though.
15:01I've got a nice picture of a tree here.
15:03And I'll go ahead and tap on that.
15:05Now, this is showing me what that's going to look like on the lock screen.
15:08And so I have the tree there.
15:10I've got the time and the date.
15:12And I can add further widgets as well,
15:14so different things that will display on my lock screen.
15:16I'm going to go ahead and hit the add widgets option near the top.
15:19And it will show me what types of widgets I can add.
15:22So let's say that I want to add my calendar.
15:24I can press on calendar in the list.
15:26And then I can go ahead and just tap on the calendar.
15:30And now it's going to be displaying it on the lock screen.
15:33You can add a bunch of different widgets.
15:35I'll just add that one for now.
15:37And now my lock screen is complete.
15:39I've got the time. I've got the calendar.
15:41And I've got the tree option as well.
15:43So looking pretty good so far.
15:45So let's add at the top right.
15:48And now we can choose whether we want to set this as a pair or if we don't.
15:52So if we set it as a pair, this will be the same on the lock screen and on the home screen.
15:56But we can have different things on the lock screen and the home screen.
15:59That's what I'm going to do for now.
16:01So I'm going to hit the customize home screen option toward the bottom.
16:04And that will take me through to an image of my home screen, kind of a stylized image.
16:08And it gives me various different ways that I can kind of change the appearance of the home screen here.
16:14So we have color. So we can give just a solid color to the home screen.
16:18Now this could be pretty helpful because you could, for example, set a black background.
16:23And that could be good for contrast. So something to bear in mind.
16:26We could set a gradient.
16:28So this would be just a graduated kind of color, which would, again, look pretty nice.
16:33But I'm going to go ahead and choose from photo here.
16:36And it was going to open up my photo library.
16:38I've got various pictures now. I've got some pictures of my wife here.
16:40We'll go ahead and choose one of those.
16:42So I'll tap on the first one.
16:43And it's showing me now the picture of my wife.
16:46And I can go ahead and just use this.
16:49But one of the cool things that we can do is actually swipe to the left and see different versions of this picture that we might want to use.
16:55So the first one is just the regular picture.
16:57But check out what happens here when I swipe to the left.
17:00At the moment, behind my wife, there is a picture of a stone wall.
17:03As I swipe to the left now, it's actually gotten rid of the stone wall and replaced it with a solid color.
17:09There's some really clever processing going on here to figure out what is my wife and what is the background.
17:14So really cool stuff.
17:15I can go ahead and swipe to the left, and it's going to give me different options for the background.
17:19This one's kind of cool. It's like an orange, and my wife is black and white in front of it.
17:22But you can choose whichever one you like.
17:24And then you can actually further customize.
17:26So toward the bottom right, there is a circle.
17:29And if I tap that, it will go ahead and bring up some different colors that I could choose for the background.
17:34So let's say I wanted a green color for the background.
17:36Now my wife is in black and white still, but behind her is green.
17:39And there's a slider underneath that lets me change how bright or dark the green is.
17:44Once we're finished, we can just tap in the middle of the screen and then tap the done at the top right.
17:49And it will save it.
17:51And now it's going to kind of show us what that will look like with the apps in front of it as well.
17:56If we're happy with that, we can hit the done at the top right again.
17:59It's going to take us back to our different screens that we've created.
18:03The one that I just created is the one that's in front of me now.
18:05And I will tap for that to say that I've finished customizing.
18:08And now we should see on the lock screen, we've got the picture of the tree that I chose looking good.
18:12And if I go ahead and unlock my phone, we should see that image of my wife with her in black and white and the green behind her.
18:19Really nice stuff.
18:20Helps make me feel like the phone is really my own and customize it for my needs.
18:28Mr. B said it's time to wrap this video up.
18:31He loves the features of iOS.
18:33He doesn't love our video, though, because he knows it's going to destroy him.
18:36Actually, what he secretly told me that he has placed shortcuts to our videos in the four corners of his phone so that he can quickly get to him.
18:46He will be putting it down in the comment what his four favorite videos are.
18:50We ask you to do the same.
18:51But I know that this is older technology or older features.
18:56And some of you may already know about this.
18:58But we thought it would be important to let people know how they could customize their home screens to make using their phone a little bit easier.
19:04Chloe, knowledge is power.
19:05And that's what we provide on this channel.
19:07It's all about making you more powerful.
19:09So hopefully we did that today.
19:11Please, if you enjoy the video, please make sure to smash the like button.
19:15Why not give us a subscribe as well and ring a ding ding on the notification bell.
19:20All three things must be done in order to restore power and knowledge to TechConnect and to you.
19:27So if you don't want power and you don't want knowledge, don't do those three things.
19:31If you do want those, then do those three things.
19:33We have covered a lot of apps before on this channel.
19:36If you like phones, then you're going to like our app videos.
19:39So go ahead and check those out.
19:41Hopefully, Jonathan will put some links in the old tackle box down below.
19:44So check those out.
19:45And, of course, Corley, we don't just do these wonderful MrBeast killing videos.
19:49We also have some other stuff going on.
19:50What else do we have going on?
19:51Yes, well, we also do things.
19:54We have a live show every other Thursday, 11 a.m. Central.
19:58It is streamed live to this YouTube channel.
20:00So if you're watching this, just stay on.
20:02Eventually, Thursday will hit at 11 a.m.
20:05And then you'll be able to watch our video.
20:07MrBeast, I know you got nothing better to do.
20:09So just stick around.
20:11So, yeah, TechConnect Live.
20:12Check us out every other Thursday, 11 a.m. Central.
20:14And don't forget, Corley, we have a learning management system.
20:17On this learning management system, you can find professional webinars
20:21and get on-demand ACVREP credits.
20:24So if you're a professional in the field and you need those credits,
20:27and, Corley, I know it's coming up for you to do your renewal,
20:30so you're going to have to get some credits.
20:32We've got three new webinars that will be hitting the LMS, an AI one,
20:37an OrCam one, and an electronic magnification one.
20:42That's a lot.
20:43Three of them, bam, three credits right there in your hand.
20:46Corley, when you say an AI one, was it made by AI?
20:49Completely done by AI.
20:51I haven't even looked at it. I assume it's perfect.
20:54Don't forget we also have a podcast version of this show.
20:58Well, it's actually our live show, but it's close enough.
21:00So if you want to hear me and Corley talking for 45 minutes to an hour
21:03about assistive technology things, but you don't want to see us,
21:07and who could blame you, quite frankly, why not check out the podcast?
21:09You can find it on your favorite podcasting service.
21:12Just look for TechConnect Live, and hopefully you'll find it.
21:16You can also turn the monitor off for these videos and still be able to listen to it.
21:21Stick around. We will be back in one or two weeks.
21:26See you later.
21:34Well, we mustn't keep our public waiting, huh?
21:39It's showtime, Phil.
21:42It's showtime.
21:52He might be okay.
21:55No, probably not now.

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