WEBINAR: Texting & Typing on iOS – Exploring Clicks, Braille, Bluetooth, & Beyond

Introduction and Housekeeping

Tim: We’re going to get started. I wanted to give a warm welcome to everybody once again. We’re really glad you’re here today for this month’s webinar titled Texting and Typing on iOS: Exploring Clicks, Braille, Bluetooth, and Beyond.

Today’s webinar is going to last about an hour, and there are several points where we’re going to give you opportunities to ask questions or comment. Just some housekeeping so that all of this can be as smooth as possible: we’re expecting a good turnout today, so everybody is going to be muted until the question-and-answer sections.

If you have a question or a comment, please raise your virtual hand at any time by pressing Alt + Y if you’re using Zoom on a PC. This will make it easy for our moderator, the fabulous Elena, to see you at the top of the list and call on you when the time comes. To lower your hand, just press Alt + Y once again.

Don’t forget, if you’re called on, you must be sure to unmute yourself before speaking. We unmute you, but you also have to unmute yourself on your end too. If you’ve dialed in by phone, press Star 9 to raise your hand and Star 9 to lower your hand.

Again, this webinar is brought to you by the Lighthouse for the Blind, Incorporated. Our organization is headquartered in Seattle and has manufacturing facilities in Seattle, Washington; Spokane, Washington; and Summerville, South Carolina, where we make aerospace parts and products for the U.S. government. We also operate AbilityOne Base Supply Centers located on military bases up and down the West Coast, and we provide contract closeout services for the military at several other locations around the country.

Our mission is to empower people who are blind, DeafBlind, and blind with other disabilities through sustainable employment and transformative services for independence and career advancement. That’s really what we’re doing with these assistive technology webinars: hopefully transforming some people’s lives through some of these services and the information that we provide.

We’re currently hiring, so if you or somebody you know is blind and is interested in working, please scope out our open positions at LHBlind.org/jobs. Elena will drop that link in the chat, and you’ll be able to see if there’s a job for you or somebody you know.

Today’s webinar is one of several new community-based programs that we’re excited to offer at the Lighthouse. We’re just past the two-year mark with these webinars, and we’re thrilled about the progress that we’ve made, the people that we’ve reached, and so grateful for your ongoing support and for helping us spread the word.

Stay tuned for more updates, and feel free to reach out any time to questions@lhblind.org.

One final note: tomorrow you’re going to receive a detailed email with notes and relevant links on just about everything that we covered in today’s webinar. We’ve made some updates to the content of this email in hopes that it will be an even more valuable resource for you. There will also be an exclusive discount code in that email that is going to save you 40 bucks on Clicks, one of the products that we’re first going to be talking about today with Jeff Gadway. It also includes a link to a survey that we would really appreciate you completing. What you tell us matters, and we’ve already implemented several of the suggestions that you’ve made.

I’m going to introduce myself, then we’ll introduce Jeff and move right into talking about Clicks.

My name is Tim Pauling, and I manage our computer training programs for our hearing and DeafBlind employees and our Braille literacy programs at all of our locations. I’m located at our Spokane location, and I also teach orientation and mobility there too, so I do a little of a lot of things, and I like it. I’ve been in the blindness rehabilitation field for over 15 years, and 12 of those have been at the Lighthouse. I’ve taught both assistive technology and orientation and mobility for most of that time. Just so everybody knows, I also happen to be blind.

Let’s hear from you, Jeff. Jeff Gadway is here from Clicks Technology to talk about this awesome device.

Clicks Keyboard Case

Jeff: Thanks, Tim. I really appreciate the opportunity to come and share with the Lighthouse, get some feedback, and hear people’s thoughts on what we’re doing at Clicks.

My name is Jeff Gadway. I am one of the co-founders of Clicks, and I’m also the chief marketing officer here at Clicks Technology. My background is in technology, specifically technology marketing. I cut my teeth for the better part of a decade at a company called BlackBerry, or Research In Motion, makers of the beloved BlackBerry keyboard for a lot of years. Then I went on to other tech marketing roles, built an agency for a while, and then a couple of years ago I got a call from a friend of mine who goes affectionately by the nickname CrackBerry Kevin because he was one of the biggest tech journalists covering BlackBerry back in its heyday.

He said, “Jeff, I’m working on a project to make a keyboard case for the iPhone, and I want to get you involved.” Immediately I said, “Sign me up. This is amazing.” When BlackBerry went away, we sort of threw the buttons out with the bathwater, so to speak. I got involved, and that was the better part of a year and a half ago. I’m excited to share what we’ve been working on.

Tim: Thanks, Jeff. I was super excited to hear about this Clicks keyboard. There have been a few different iterations of this. Years and years ago, I had several of these that were cases that would attach to my iPhone and connect via Bluetooth. Some of them I really searched far and wide for, and pretty much, I don’t know, maybe eight years ago, they went away altogether. I can’t even find old ones on Amazon shipped from China anymore. I used to have some of those.

I found out about this and really think that it could be a great tool for people who are blind or visually impaired because all the keys are tactile. You’re no longer having to touch that onscreen keyboard. Jeff, how did some of this come about? Why would a sighted person want a physical keyboard?

Jeff: It’s a great question. I think those of us who have a lot of experience with tactile keyboards recognize the benefit of buttons for typing with confidence, for more precision, the ability to use muscle memory, and not having to be glued to the onscreen keyboard to be accurate.

As you pointed out, there were some products in the past over the last decade that attempted to do this, and some were more successful than others. We ultimately felt like the existing mobile technology had reached a point of maturity where we could build a product that added the benefit of buttons for tactility, for giving you more screen real estate, and for running keyboard shortcuts without compromising any of the other things that you know and love about your existing mobile device.

I think part of that is, not to get too nerdy about it, but iOS and the iPhone have all of the plumbing, if you will, built into the phone already to accept an external keyboard accessory. We found a way to tap into that plumbing and do it quite elegantly and simplistically.

The beautiful thing about Clicks, Tim, is that as soon as you slide your phone into it, it just works. There’s nothing else to do. There’s no Bluetooth connection to make. There’s no battery to charge. It really is like plugging a keyboard into your computer. It makes it so easy to add the benefits of buttons without changing anything else around how you use your phone.

Tim: You guys sent an email out earlier today that had a really good informational video. I checked that out and thought the description that you gave in that video about what the case feels like and what it’s made out of was good. Maybe we could talk a little bit about that.

Everybody, I’m holding the keyboard case and my phone out right now. Jeff, maybe you could talk about the key layout and that kind of thing.

Jeff: If you want to make sure this is okay with you, Tim, I did prepare a couple of charts that have some visuals that zoom in on some of those finer details.

Tim: Yeah, let’s do it.

Jeff: Okay, let me know if this is rendering okay here.

Tim: Yes, this looks good.

Jeff: Great. Here’s a full-screen version of what you were just holding up there, Tim. What we have on screen here are three images of Clicks. On the left-hand side, there’s an image of the front and the back, and on the right-hand side, there’s an angled image of Clicks that’s leaned back with a focus on the keys themselves.

Highlighting some of the materials, as you pointed out, the enclosure is made out of a very hard plastic material that feels a lot like a smartphone would. Inside the case, there is a soft microfiber back that sits over top of the MagSafe ring so you can get your MagSafe charging functionality.

On the back of Clicks, down toward the bottom, there’s a vegan leather grip plate, which provides some tactility at the bottom of the phone and is almost a tactile landmark to know that you’re holding it in the right place with your fingers in the right spots.

Around the front, that’s where all the magic happens. There are 37 buttons oriented in a traditional QWERTY keyboard layout. You’ve got three rows of keys that follow the same layout as your laptop or desktop computer. The bottom row has some modifier keys. We’ll talk about those more in a minute, but those are things like your Globe key, your Command key, your Tab key, as well as a button for microphone functionality, whether that’s to use speech-to-text or to pull up Siri.

Those buttons are hard plastic buttons with a great amount of travel to them and a very satisfying physical click that you can feel and hear once you engage those keys.

Tim: I love the dots on the F and the J.

Jeff: I’m glad you brought that up. Yes, sir. We have those landmarking keys, little raised notches above the F and J keys. One of the things we’ve heard from a lot of customers is that it allows them to very quickly find that home row and know exactly where their thumbs are sitting for that touch-typing experience. That’s something that we knew was important to include because it’s what people would expect from a physical keyboard. As we’ve connected more with the blind and low-sighted community, we’ve heard about how important that is for delivering a touch-typing experience. We’re really glad those design decisions are being well received.

Tim: Maybe we could talk a little bit about those function keys at the bottom, because there’s a lot you can do with those keyboard shortcuts. The email was really easy to use.

Jeff: Happy to elaborate on those. I’ve just pulled up a different slide that has a top-down close-up view of the keyboard and little leader lines that point to some of the different keys, including the function keys.

On the left-hand side of the keyboard, there’s a Shift key and an Alt key for moving between uppercase and lowercase, as well as getting those alternate characters like your numbers and symbols. As Tim points out, there are some keys that iOS considers to be modifier keys, which allow you to customize what those are mapped to within the hardware keyboard settings. A few of those include the Globe key and the Command key. Those are both to the left of the space bar.

Out of the box, the Globe key is a really quick and easy way to toggle between languages if you’re somebody who types in multiple languages. It also is a really simple way to pull up the emoji keyboard.

The Command key, out of the box, functions just like the Command key on your laptop or your tablet, where you can use it to do things like Command + C for copy, Command + V for paste, or to control certain aspects of your smartphone, like a shortcut back to your home screen or a shortcut to go into your control panel settings.

On the right-hand side of the space bar, there are another couple of function keys or modifier keys. There’s a key that can function as a Tab button, and that can be used to run shortcuts. We’ll talk about that in a second. Then there’s a Symbol button, which is a great way to pull up the touchscreen keyboard if and when you need it.

Then there’s that microphone key, which is in the bottom-right-hand corner of the keyboard. That one’s a really powerful one, and I don’t think a lot of people recognize just how valuable it can be. Any time that you’re in any field where you might need to input data, you can tap on that microphone key once and use speech-to-text. Then you tap on it again to end speech-to-text. If you press and hold on the microphone button, it functions as a Siri button, so it’ll call up Siri and allow you to use Siri.

The final thing I’ll say is that one of the very deliberate design decisions that we made in designing the keyboard the way that we have is that the top three rows of keys are slightly longer than the bottom row. The bottom row has seven buttons on it, and the upper three rows have 11 keys on each. What that means is that we actually have more corner keys. Corner keys are like prime real estate on a physical keyboard because your thumbs can easily find those corners.

Whether you’re reaching for the Shift or Alt key, which are the bottom-left two corner keys, or the Return key and the Microphone key, which are the bottom-right two corner keys, your thumbs can find those keys so much more easily because of the way the rows of keys are offset. That was something that was really important to us to make it easier to touch type those most commonly used buttons.

Tim: Jeff is absolutely right on that. When I used this keyboard, you mentioned this to me when we first talked. Then when I got the keyboard, it’s absolutely easy to find those corner keys because tactically you can differentiate it, which really helps.

Everybody, using the talk-to-text feature or the button to talk to Siri or to dictate is the same as holding your side button down and talking to Siri. When you’re in a text field using VoiceOver, you can do a two-finger double tap. It initiates the same kind of command on the phone.

I also wanted to mention Command + Space together. Before this keyboard, I never really used Spotlight search very much, but now I do. From anywhere, you can do Command + Space and type in the first few letters of anything you’re looking for: an app, a contact, anything. It does this smart search of your phone. What I find myself doing is Command + Space, then maybe “UT,” then Enter, and it launches my Outlook app right away. Super handy time-saver. Lots faster.

Jeff: Absolutely. I’m glad you mentioned that one, because I’m the same way. I didn’t use Spotlight search very much, but we all have so many applications on our phones, and swiping through multiple pages of apps can be time-consuming. I don’t know where I put things. I’m not the most organized person. That’s now my behavior even for opening apps that are on my home screen. Opening Safari, I just Command + Space and start typing Safari, and I hit Enter, and it opens the application that I want.

You sort of bring us to this idea of shortcuts, which I think is an incredibly powerful function of having a physical keyboard on your phone. A few years ago, Apple built the Action button on the upper-left-hand side of the iPhone. It took the place of that mute switch. The thing about the Action button that some people recognize but many people don’t is that you can customize what that button does. Out of the box, it still functions as a mute switch to go in and out of silent mode. However, what you can do is set it up to open an application or trigger a workflow.

By adding a physical keyboard to your iPhone, you’re effectively giving yourself 37 or more customizable action buttons to complete the tasks that you do numerous times throughout the day.

The slide that I’ve just pulled up here highlights three of the buttons that I use to invoke shortcuts: the Globe key, the Command key, and the Clicks key.

The way that I have mapped those keys is that I use the Globe key to contact my contacts. My wife’s name is Liz, so if I press the Globe key, or hold the Globe key and tap the L button, it calls Liz. If I hold the Globe key and tap the A button, it calls my CEO Adrian through WhatsApp. For those people that you contact regularly, this is a really great and easy way to skip a whole bunch of steps going into the contact list or going into your phone dialer and just make those calls.

The second button we’ve already talked about, which is the Command key. That’s what I use to control my phone. Those are things like going to Spotlight or going home.

The really powerful one is the Clicks button. The Clicks button is the Tab key to the right of the space bar. This is where I’ve programmed a whole series of workflows using the Apple Shortcuts application. Any shortcut that you can build in the Apple Shortcuts app, and there are hundreds, you can then map to a button on your keyboard.

A few of the ones that I use regularly: I have a shortcut set up to open a Zoom room and put in the Zoom details. Instead of going into my Notes app, going to my little note with the Zoom link, and then copying and pasting the meeting ID and all of that kind of stuff, I just hit Clicks and then double tap the Z button for Zoom, and it opens my Zoom room.

Another one that I use is a shortcut that I’ve set up with a smart plug connected to my coffee maker. I set my coffee maker up the night before with the filter and the grinds, and then when I wake up in the morning, I press the Clicks button and double tap the C key for coffee. It turns that smart plug on and my coffee starts. Sweet.

There are a ton of these shortcuts, from simple things like opening applications at the push of a button to more complex things like pulling up my calendar and telling me the details of my next meeting. This is something that I think a lot of people are starting to recognize can help save them a lot of time and alleviate a lot of steps, swiping, and tapping around their phone to complete common actions.

Tim: Awesome. Super great information. Everybody, once again, there’s no setup necessary. There’s additional stuff you can do in the app, but it is absolutely not required. I haven’t changed anything on the Clicks since I plugged it into my phone a few weeks ago. It’s plug-and-play.

Jeff, I think we probably have people with lots of questions. Number one, I heard somebody ask in the chat, “Can you set this up to do Braille Screen Input?” I haven’t tried that yet, but I think that if you set it up, it is recognized by the iPhone as a keyboard. It would be pretty hard to push down multiple keys at once accurately to do Braille symbols because the keys are so small. You wouldn’t be able to use three separate fingers to use Braille Screen Input. That’s a good one. I’d love to look into that more.

Jeff: I am not familiar with Braille Screen Input, but I will try to go and research it. My understanding is, aside from the key size, as you point out, Tim, I think the way that iOS listens for a keyboard like this is that it’s listening for one key signal at a time, and it wouldn’t recognize multiple keys being depressed or engaged simultaneously. But that’s something that we’ll definitely take a look at and try to explore.

Clicks Keyboard Questions

Tim: All right. Anybody have questions for me or Jeff? Definitely Jeff would be the expert on this keyboard, but any questions?

Elena: We have a question from Melody. Mel, you are unmuted. If you could also unmute yourself.

Melody: Hello. I actually have two questions. Are the Clicks keyboards one-size-fits-all, or would they fit an SE 2022? Also, is there a tutorial or manual or some way to identify what each key is generally for once we receive it?

Jeff: Thanks for the question. Really great questions. I anticipated somebody asking about model support, so I did map this out. Presently, we support the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max, all of the iPhone 15s, and all of the iPhone 16s. Unfortunately, at this time, those are the only phones that we support. The reason for that is that each case is custom molded to the exact dimensions of the phone that it attaches to. We don’t have a one-size-fits-all solution at this time, but we are working on expanding support to additional models, as well as support for a number of Android phones that we will be announcing in the first part of this year.

Right now, iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max, all of the 15s, and all of the 16s. We are working to expand support as fast as we can.

For the second question, we do have some tutorials on our website that go into detail about what each of the buttons does. We also have a whole bunch of content on YouTube where we have narrated videos that discuss how to take advantage of a lot of the features.

Tim: Just to follow up with that, something that I do when I’m trying to learn a new keyboard or device is to put VoiceOver into help mode. That’s a four-finger double tap. It says “Starting help,” and it will tell you gestures or anything that you type on the keyboard. That’s how I got a little more familiar with Clicks too.

Elena: It looks like we have a question from Juan. You are allowed to talk. If you could also unmute yourself.

Juan: Good evening. This is Juan. My question is, do these go on your phone, like over your phone, or is it like a Bluetooth keyboard where you have to charge it and stuff like that?

Jeff: Happy to take that one, Juan. Thank you for the question. Think of it as a case with a keyboard attached and integrated to the bottom. The phone goes inside it like a case, and at the bottom of the case cutout, there is a USB-C or Lightning connector that plugs right into your phone. Because it’s plugged directly into your phone, there is no Bluetooth connection to set up or manage. It also means that it’s just one solid piece. It feels like an extension of your phone as opposed to an accessory that gets added on.

Juan: Okay. You don’t have to charge it or anything?

Jeff: Correct. It uses just a little bit of power from your iPhone itself. I think we say if you were typing on it constantly, it would be about two and a half percent per hour, but most people aren’t typing straight for 60 minutes flat.

Juan: Can they still fit in your pocket too? I put my phone in my pocket. That’s why I’m asking.

Tim: Yep, it fits in the pocket just fine. Also, there’s a charge port in the exact same spot it usually is, at the bottom of the case and the keyboard extension there.

Jeff: You can do pass-through charging. You can plug your cable right into the bottom just as you normally would with your iPhone and charge your iPhone right through Clicks.

Tim: Thanks, Tim. That’s good. Thank you.

Somebody also asked how you deal with the speaker system. Jeff, I record all kinds of stuff with my iPhone’s built-in microphone. I was like, “Man, I sure hope this case doesn’t mess that up,” and I cannot tell the difference. I don’t know what you did with the microphone system or something, but I can’t tell the difference that there is actually a case on here with the recording quality or the speakers.

Jeff: Let me tell you a funny story, Tim. In the initial prototypes, we had this design where there were almost like little pinhole cutouts for the speaker, similar to the texture of a home theater speaker, like little holes. What we found is that those holes ended up obscuring the sound and were prone to being dust collectors.

What we changed is that we now have these little depressions underneath each of the speaker ports on either side of the USB-C plug at the bottom. They’re almost like little cutouts. Not only do those permit the sound to escape the phone and allow audio to go in, we’ve had some customers say that because of the way it redirects the sound waves, in some cases it feels like it almost amplifies the sound coming out of the phone and projects it forward toward the user as opposed to just shooting it down out the bottom.

Tim: Awesome. More questions?

Elena: Yes, we have a question from Jane. You are unmuted. If you could also unmute yourself.

Jane: I think my question is in the chat, or I tried to put it in chat. How much is the price? I assume then, is it like a BlackBerry keyboard, where I remember BlackBerry keyboards with an outfacing sort of smaller keys? I remember the days where the keyboard slid out.

Tim: It doesn’t slide out. It’s underneath your screen. Right underneath your screen, it extends out a tiny bit out of the bottom of your phone, so it makes the phone slightly longer. It’s all right there, no sliding out or anything like that.

Jeff: I think it adds about an inch and a quarter to the overall footprint or size of the phone, as Tim says, because the keyboard sits beneath it and is always there at your fingertips.

Jane: Okay.

Jeff: On price, because we support two different sizes of iPhone, the standard size and then the Plus or Max size, there are two different price points. The standard size is $139, and the larger size is $159. As Tim pointed out, for Lighthouse participants and members, we do have an offer to save $40 on any Clicks keyboard that you would choose. There’s a code, LIGHTHOUSE40, that you can use at Clicks.tech, and that will be included in the follow-up materials after today’s session.

Tim: Awesome. We can take a couple more questions for Jeff, and then we’ve got to move on to our next couple of things. This is so cool. You guys are super interested in this.

Elena: We have a question from Sharon. You are allowed to speak. If you could also unmute yourself.

Tim: You’ve got to unmute yourself. All right, we can move on to the next question. We’ll come back to Sharon later.

Elena: Greta, could you unmute yourself? You are unmuted.

Greta: Hi. I was wondering if there are future plans for an Android model. Then a second question: in working with you all as a vendor, I also work at a lighthouse. We have a federal AT program library, so we have a library of devices we loan out to people. I was curious if you would be willing to be a vendor or provide a demo model for us to have, or I could reach out to you afterwards if that could be something that we chat about.

Jeff: A thousand percent. We would love to support you in any way we can, and yeah, happy to connect with you on that.

Funny enough, the government of Canada saw this and got really excited about it and is in the process of incorporating this into their suite of products as an accessibility device, which is awesome. Employees could request it just as they might request some specialized lighting or an ergonomic chair or something of that nature.

We certainly didn’t intend that when we were initially developing Clicks. This is something I should have mentioned when I was sharing a little bit before. I think one of the most satisfying, rewarding, and fulfilling parts of this last year has been to hear about how people are finding value and utility in Clicks in their everyday lives. We’ve heard from people who have said, “I have mobility problems,” or “hyperextension of my thumbs,” or “This allows me to type more confidently.” That absolutely makes this whole thing extra special.

Super willing to work with you on that. On Android, we are absolutely working on Android. We should have more news on that within the next three months. Our intention is to support a number of the most popular Android phones right out of the gate. We’re working as hard as we can and as fast as we can to expand the Clicks universe to support our Android friends as well.

Greta: Awesome. Thank you so much. I’m glad you mentioned all that about it being an AT device. A lot of our clients and students use Braille note takers and things like that as alternative access for their devices, but they also have some of that limited hand mobility challenge, especially being out doing O&M and trying to use their white canes with their iPhone VoiceOver. Two hands just doesn’t work. We’ve got a number of other mobile keyboard devices that work really well, so it would be awesome to incorporate this as an option too.

Tim: Awesome. Thank you for your question and comment. One more question.

Elena: We have a question from Jalisia. You are unmuted. If you could also unmute yourself.

Jalisia: Did you hear me?

Tim: Yes.

Jalisia: Okay. My question is, what strategies or tools do you recommend for balancing speed and accuracy when typing on iOS with this keyboard, especially for users with accessibility needs? The next one is, with an iPhone 14 Pro Max, would the keyboard and phone fit in your pocket?

Jeff: Why don’t I let you take those, Tim, if you don’t mind. I feel like the first one might be a little bit outside my subject-matter area, but I’m happy to weigh in if I can.

Tim: As far as it fitting in your pocket, yes, it’ll fit in your pocket.

Your question about people with accessibility needs: as a totally blind person, I use my fingers. You’re going to be using your thumbs to type on the keyboard. There are a couple of dots, just like on a regular QWERTY keyboard that you’d use on a computer, that are on the F and J. Jeff had a great way of describing the learning curve, and I’ve definitely found that there is a learning curve. What did you say, Jeff? After the first two days, you kind of start getting that muscle memory?

Jeff: What we’ve heard from folks is that it takes about two hours to conceptually understand the layout, then the first two days, as you say, Tim, to build that muscle memory and wake up that brain-thumb connection. Within five to seven days, most customers say they’ve really mastered it, and they’re able to type with speed and confidence.

I found my speed has increased over time as I’ve continued to use it. One thing I would say is that I really had to pay attention. I would drag my fingers more around the keyboard than lifting them up because I can feel as I’m passing different keys. That would be one tidbit I would have.

Tim: All right. Thanks again, Jeff. Super informative. As you could tell, everybody was really interested, and we’re super happy to have you on.

Jeff: Tim, I really appreciate it. This was a lot of fun. Thank you for allowing me to come tonight and share with your community. I hope that this was informative. If there are any other questions, please feel free to get in touch or share them back with Tim and team. Thanks again, and I really hope you have a wonderful evening.

Tim: Thanks, Jeff.

Using an iPhone with a Bluetooth Keyboard

Tim: Clicks is a really great example of a piece of technology that is universally accessible. Their market is everyone, yet it’s accessible for people who are blind and visually impaired too. Apple has done much of the same, and it’s truly a pleasure to have devices like that.

The next thing we’re going to talk about is using an iPhone with a Bluetooth keyboard. Again, Clicks is a keyboard case with very small keys. Now we’re going to be talking about using an iPhone with a standard Bluetooth keyboard.

I have a Logitech Bluetooth keyboard that I’ve used for a couple of these demonstration videos you’re going to see. Many people might not know that you can completely control an iPhone with a Bluetooth keyboard. Rarely, if at all, do you have to touch the touchscreen when you’re using a Bluetooth keyboard. You can do everything from launch apps to edit text, search for apps, and surf the web as if you were using a screen reader like NVDA or JAWS on a standard computer.

The first video I’m going to show, I put together using the iPhone to edit text and do a couple of other things. If we could roll that video.

Demonstration: Typing and Editing Text with a Bluetooth Keyboard

Tim: All right, everybody. We are using the iOS Notes app on my iPhone 15. I’m using a Bluetooth Logitech K380 keyboard, and I’m just going to show you how easy it is to type and edit text using a Bluetooth keyboard.

I’m just going to type a sentence here: I really hope all of you are enjoying this webinar! All right, so I just typed a sentence. Not sure if you guys picked up on what I wrote, but we’re going to read it back. I’m going to make sure I’m not in quick-nav mode. All right, I’m not. I’m going to press the Up Arrow.

VoiceOver reads: “I really hope all of you are enjoying this webinar!”

I might have made a little typo there at the beginning, so we’re going to figure that out. I’m going to move left and right with the arrow keys to navigate the text by character. I’m going backwards. I’m hitting Left Arrow. Looks like I found the word “webinar.” Cool.

We can also navigate by word, which is a little faster when we want to edit some words. I’m going to keep going backwards, but this time I’m going to use the arrow keys while I’m holding down Option. I think I might have missed a space here. All right, I’m going to put a space between “I” and “really.”

Let’s listen back to that: “I really hope all of you are enjoying this webinar!” Awesome.

I’ve got to go to the end of the line there. I held down Option and pressed the Right Arrow several times until I got to the end of the line.

There’s so much more you can do with typing and editing text, but I’m going to show you another feature here. It’s called Keyboard Learn Mode, and that will give us some good information about what all these keys do.

I’m going to hold down the VoiceOver modifier keys, Control and Option, and press the letter K. VoiceOver says “Start help.” They call that Help. It’s also Keyboard Learn Mode.

Now the phone is in a totally different mode, and whenever I do a key combination, it will tell me what that key combination does. I’m going to hold down those VO modifier keys, Control and Option, and press the letter J. VoiceOver says “Move to linked item.” How about N? Still holding down those modifier keys. VoiceOver says “Toggle announcement history.” How about Semicolon? VoiceOver says “Toggle lock modifier keys.” Okay, you can lock the modifier keys.

I know what VO + H does, but VO + H is Home. Let’s try VO + B. It opens Quick Settings. VO + C reads the character. Here’s one of my favorites: VO + A, read all from current item. That is the same as doing a two-finger down swipe.

Now we know some more of those keys and stuff like that. Let’s get out of this mode and back into our notes. Escape. Escape. VoiceOver says “Stopping help.”

Also in Notes, you can use standard keyboard commands, not just the VoiceOver modifiers to do VoiceOver stuff. I can do Command + A. It selects everything. I just selected everything, and I’m actually going to copy it with Command + C. I’m at the end, and I’m just going to paste that again with Command + V. Now I have two sentences of the same thing because I copied and pasted one.

Now I’m going to do Command + A, and delete the selection. So this can really speed you up in editing and typing text. If you’re doing a lot of emails on your phone or on your iPad, this could really move you forward.

Let’s queue up that next video real quick, Elena. There are so many commands that you can do with these Bluetooth keyboards connected to your iPhone. Like I said, you can totally control the screen and everything. Let’s look at how you can move through an email with some keyboard shortcuts that might speed up the workflow too.

Demonstration: Keyboard Shortcuts in Email

Tim: All right, everybody. Here we are once again. I’m going to show you a few more tips and tricks on keyboard shortcuts and keyboard commands using a Bluetooth keyboard on your iOS device.

The first one I’m going to show you is the Spotlight Search command, which you can use absolutely anywhere. Right now we’re in Safari, and I want to go to my Outlook app where I’m going to show you a few things. By holding Command and pressing Space, it brings up that Spotlight Search page. I’m going to type in “out.” Outlook is the top search result. I’m going to press Enter. Great, we’re in my Gmail account.

Another shortcut that’s really handy is Command + N. This works in any mail app, well, Outlook and Mail for sure. Command + N will open up a new message.

I can type in the email address. I’m just going to type in an email address that I want all of you to use if you need to: questions@lhblind.org.

The contact popped up for me. I’m going to use the VO keys and the arrows to get there, then VO + Space to select this item. Now we’re in the subject field. I’m doing that with VO + Right Arrow. I’m going to get into that text box by pressing VO + Spacebar. I’m going to say “webinar” as the subject.

I’m going to press Tab again to get to the body. You can do Tab and Shift + Tab just as if you were on a computer using a screen reader. I pressed Tab to get from subject to the body. I’m going to type a little message here: “Hello!”

There’s another one of my favorite commands. Holding down Command and pressing Enter will automatically send the email. No longer swiping around trying to find the Send button. As you could tell, I was very excited about that Command + Enter. It automatically sent the email.

I can’t go into so many commands right now. In the follow-up email, where you’re going to receive the Clicks discount code, I’m going to have links to a web page that outlines all the commands you can use on a Bluetooth keyboard with VoiceOver. You can go to the home screen, bring up the app switcher, jump to the top or bottom, change rotor settings, and do everything without having to touch the screen.

I think we’re going to take a few questions on this. We might go to about 10 minutes after 5 tonight. We have one more thing to cover, which is Braille Screen Input, but do we have a couple questions about this section?

Bluetooth Keyboard Questions

Elena: We have a question from Bonnie. You are unmuted. If you could also unmute yourself.

Tim: Hey, Bonnie. All right, I guess we will come back to Bonnie. I don’t see any other hands raised, but we do have a few questions in the chat.

Elena: What is the difference in the chiclet keys on the Apple keyboard and the flat low-profile keys found on other Bluetooth keyboards?

Tim: Chiclet versus flat low-profile. It would probably be up to your preference and what kind of play you like in the keys. Some people like really mechanical-feeling keys. I do. I don’t know if you could tell how hard I hit the keys. Some people like keys that don’t make too much noise at all. I think it all depends on preference.

Elena: Another question: Can the VO keys be locked and unlocked by using the Caps Lock plus Semicolon command?

Tim: I’d have to look that one up. One thing that you can use on an external Bluetooth keyboard is called Quick Nav. You can press the Left and Right Arrow keys together to get into Quick Nav mode, where you can just use the arrow keys to move around, then use the Up and Down Arrow together to double tap. I’d have to look up that specific command. When you get the follow-up email with that big page of commands that I’ll be sending out, you can check there.

Elena: We have a hand raised from Dawn. You are unmuted. If you could also unmute yourself.

Dawn: Can you guys hear me?

Tim: Yes.

Dawn: I’ve got a couple questions. This is regarding the Brailliant BI 40X. For those who don’t know, it’s a Perkins-style keyboard, and I’d like to try to use it. I’ve seen you can do it with Bluetooth, like you can emulate a Bluetooth keyboard, but how the heck would I get anything to work? I’ve heard people say you can do single-letter navigation. I like that because that’s what I had on the BrailleNote for years. I got my first BrailleNote when I was seven, and I’m 27 now, so I’ve been around the Braille display neighborhood for quite a few years now.

I’m trying to figure out how I could use some of this stuff as a Bluetooth keyboard. Well, not a Bluetooth keyboard, but how can I use my Braille display more as a Bluetooth keyboard? I have a command list, but I’m just thinking single-letter navigation, Quick Nav, all these cool, fun gizmos and gadgets.

Tim: If you email me at questions@lhblind.org, or even my email address, which I think you have, I will send you a list of commands that can be used with any Perkins-style input device for your phone. That should help you with a few things.

Dawn: How do I use it? Let’s say I want to navigate to my business folder, and I don’t want to go swiping around the screen. I want to use single-letter navigation. How would I do that with the Braille display?

Tim: I’m going to have to think about that one. It’s a Brailliant BI 40, so not sure of that command right off the top of my head. But we are going to be talking about Braille Screen Input in this next section.

Thanks, Dawn. We’ll get to that next section and talk about that. Anything else in the chat? I think we covered it.

Braille Screen Input

Tim: All right, everybody. The next section we’re going to talk about is called Braille Screen Input.

I’m going to hold my phone up, and I’m not going to turn it on yet. Braille Screen Input basically allows you to use your phone’s screen as a touchscreen Perkins-style Braille keyboard. If you can wrap your head around that: a touchscreen Perkins-style Braille keyboard.

The amazing software that they’ve figured out on the iPhone kind of maps automatically if you hold your fingers in a specific place. There are two different ways to do it. You can lay the phone flat and use your fingers on it as if you would a small Braille keyboard. Or, and this is what I prefer, I point the phone screen away from me, holding the phone with my palms while my six Braille fingers, pointer, middle, and ring, reach around the front of the phone to enter information on the phone and do Braille characters.

Braille Screen Input has been around a long time on iOS, but they very recently created a mode called Braille Command Mode, which allows you to control your phone as if you were using a device like Don mentioned, as if you were using a Perkins-style Bluetooth Braille keyboard. You can click on stuff, move around, adjust the rotor, jump to the first item on the screen, the last item on the screen, and all kinds of things.

I’m going to change my audio to my webcam, and I’m demonstrating for you guys. I’m holding the phone. All right, I think you guys will be able to hear that a little bit.

There’s a new way of getting into Braille Screen Input. You used to have to go into VoiceOver settings and put Braille Screen Input in the rotor. That’s Settings, Accessibility, VoiceOver, and then Rotor settings. Now it has its own command. If you tap two fingers on the outer edges of the phone, so the top and the bottom, not the outer edges but very close to the edges in the top and the bottom, it takes you into Braille Screen Input.

I wanted to first talk about the way you can control the phone using Braille Screen Input. You have to put it into Braille Command Mode. To get into the command mode, swipe to the right with three fingers. It made a dinging sound and said “Command Mode.”

If any of you have ever used a Perkins-style Braille keyboard, you can use chord commands to move around on those Perkins-style Braille keyboards. You hold down Spacebar and press Dot 4. That moves you to the right, the same as swiping to the right. Spacebar and Dot 1 moves you one item to the left, the same as swiping to the left. Spacebar and a low C, so Dots 3 and 6, double taps on an item. There are tons of chorded commands like that. Spacebar and H brings you home.

Imagine you’re using a Perkins-style Bluetooth Braille keyboard, but this time with Braille Screen Input, you don’t have to hold down the Spacebar. That would be really hard to do. When you put it in Command Mode, you can use all of those same commands but just using the letters.

If I press the letter H, it goes home. If I press Dot 4, it moves me to the right one item. Pressing Dot 1 moves me back. It’s moving forward and backward through the apps that I have on the screen.

If I want to open Clock, remember the Perkins-style Braille keyboard command is a low C with Spacebar. I’m just going to do a low C with Dots 3 and 6, and open that up. I’m moving to the right. I’m going to go back home.

Another thing you can do with this is adjust the rotor. Again, I’m going to be sending you guys a list of all these different commands. I can go into edit mode, characters, words, speaking rate, headings. I’m moving the rotor. Instead of doing that dial adjustment on the screen, you can adjust the rotor.

Another really cool thing out of Command Mode, which I really liked: I’m going to get it out of Command Mode with the three-finger swipe to the right. Now I’m back in Braille entry. If you’re on the home screen, you can type the first few letters of an app, and it will bring it up, which I thought was so cool. I’m going to type in “face,” and that should either bring up FaceTime or Facebook. It brought up FaceTime. After I typed in F-A-C-E, I did a two-finger swipe to the right.

There’s tons of stuff you can do with Braille Screen Input. We don’t have a ton of time to cover everything. What I really like to do on these webinars is give you just enough information so that you know what’s available, then send you resources so you can find additional information about what you’re looking for or seek out more help if you need it.

Braille Screen Input: I use it all the time. I’m actually really crazy fast at it now, even faster than I am on the Clicks keyboard. If you didn’t learn Braille, it’s pretty tough to use Braille Screen Input on the iPhone, but there’s a ton to it. Apple has improved it and made it better. You can control the whole phone using Braille Screen Input if you just learn the commands. You can move backward and forward through items, jump to the top and bottom of the page, turn volume up and down, mute, turn the screen curtain on and off, and there’s just tons of stuff you can do with all the different combinations that are available to you in Braille.

I was actually strongly considering what it would be like if I totally used my phone in Braille Screen Input mode with this new Command Mode feature. Would that speed me up a little bit? I’m all about efficiency, at least most of the time, except when I procrastinate. I’m not efficient then, but I’m sure some of you can relate.

Final Questions

Tim: We’ll take a few more questions here. I don’t want to keep people too long. Anybody else have any questions about anything tonight?

Elena: We had one in the chat: Where can I get a Braille keyboard?

Tim: You can get lots of different ones out there. HIMS renamed themselves, but it’s some other company name now. I have heard of the Hable One. Somebody just dropped in the chat the Hable One. She says it’s like a tactile version of Braille Screen Input, and that’s really cool. She left a price in there. Was that $299 or $200? Super cool. $200, super cool, charge lasts, great customer service is awesome. That’s the Hable One, and that’s really cheap.

Any sort of Bluetooth Perkins-style keyboard that you’re going to buy is from one of these blindness tech companies, like Freedom Scientific. They made the Focus 14, and those are quite a bit more expensive. There’s another one by Orbit Research called the Orbit Writer. I was considering showing that today, but I just didn’t have enough time. That is somewhere under $500, at least the last time I checked. That is tiny, and that’s a little mini Braille keyboard, but it doesn’t have a Braille display.

Elena: We have a question from Terry. Terry, you are unmuted. If you could also unmute yourself.

Terry: Hi. I’m wondering if lighthouses from different states connect with each other, or if they’re all separate.

Tim: Some of us are part of an affiliation called the National Industries for the Blind, and some are not. There are so many different lighthouses all over the place. There’s the Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired in San Francisco, the Austin Lighthouse, Chicago Lighthouse, Tyler Lighthouse, there’s all kinds. We are the Lighthouse for the Blind, Incorporated, and our main headquarters is out of Seattle.

The NIB agencies do communicate some, but it would be cool if we were more networked, for sure. There’s your answer.

Elena: Any other questions? None that I can see, but there was one more comment in the chat that said the NLS e-reader from HumanWare will also do some things on the iPhone.

Tim: It sure will. The e-reader from the National Library Service, if everybody remembers the digital talking book players they used to send out, this is a similar program, but it is a Braille display that you can read books on. It sounds like this person is saying you may be able to connect to an iPhone with the NLS e-reader and use it as a Braille display for your phone. I don’t know that they would allow that, but maybe you can. Maybe somebody knows who’s still watching, because that’d be like checking out a book at the library. That would be free.

Angel, there she is. You have a question. You’re unmuted if you’d like to unmute yourself.

Angel: Did it get unmuted now?

Tim: Yes.

Angel: I do use it. I was actually trying to pair it just now. NLS has two e-readers. One of them is Zoomax, and the other one is HumanWare. The one I have is Zoomax, and you can use it as a Bluetooth device. You can do the texting, you can do anything that you were talking about, Tim, about Braille commands. They would all work on this thing. It is free, and you can actually even use it as a computer reading device as well, like Terminal, although there are glitches there as well. I thought I’d let you know.

Tim: That’s great information. Thank you, Angel.

Contact your regional library or your state library and see if you can get one of those. That’d be a great way of getting a Perkins-style Bluetooth keyboard and using it on your phone, and using it to read books and all that.

All right, we can do one more question, then we’ve got to be out. I think that was it for the night, everybody. It was such a pleasure.

Don’t forget to be looking for that email. It will come to you in about 24 hours with all those links that I talked about and that Clicks discount code.

One thing I will say about Clicks, I kind of forgot to mention this: I wish there were more tactile bumps. I’m trying to figure out a way to do that, like maybe a little tiny piece of super glue on a couple of the other keys to help me move a little bit faster.

Overall, great product, and it was great having you guys with us. We’ll see you next time.