Hello Chris, This is excellent.
Well done and thank you for taking the time to write their development team. I and others, will add our voices to these requests and , hopefully, Microsoft will listen. Again, thank you so much. Mark From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Cris Ali Sent: Monday, March 12, 2018 6:37 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Here is what I wrote to Microsoft Soundscape team: Hello folks, I sent this message to the Microsoft Soundscape development team. I hope that my suggestions will be taken into consideration by the development team and also hope that they will be helpful to other blind users, not only to me personally. Here is the text of my email: Hello, I tried Soundscape released by Microsoft for the iOS platform in Rockville MD today. I find the idea of 3D audio to be interesting. However, the way the first release of this app stands lacks flexibility and functionality. Here what I suggest to make the app of more use to me as an independent blind user: Three features need to be added in the future releases. The first is the ability to add my own beacons based on GPS map Addresses. If I am in an unfamiliar area and wish to choose a specific address as my destination, I should be able to type in the address and use as a beacon, and discover my surrounding while I am in my way to this destination. I am not suggesting a turn by turn GPS navigation; there are a lot of apps available for turn by turn navigation. The second suggestion which will enhance the usability and flexibility of Soundscape will be to add a feature that enables the user to make their own beacons based on the GPS coordinates of a specific location. This feature will be extremely useful for blind students and employees in large college campuses where the buildings do not show on GPS navigation maps, visually impaired people living in large housing complexes, and people who wish to go for a walk in public parks. For example, the user can make a beacon marking the entrance to the university library, another marking the entrance to the cafeteria, and a third beacon to mark the bus stop. I Work at the university of Maryland and find navigating the large campus to be challenging. If I can make my own marked beacons inside the campus, my life would be much easier. If I want to go for a walk in a large park, I can make a beacon marking the entrance so that I can find my way out of the park once I finish, I can also mark another point inside the park to visit again in the future, and so on. The third and final suggestion will be to add more flexibility by allowing me to choose the radius of the area I want to explore, or how far ahead the points of interest I need to know. While I walked in Rockville MD today, I tried to find what points of interest were ahead of me, and what points are around me. It gave me points which were over 800 yards away from me, some of them were across a major highway. I find this kind of information to be unhelpful. While I appreciate the idea of knowing points of interest preselected for me, I should at least choose the distance of the points I want to know about. I should be able to choose not to know about any points more than 200 or 300 feet away from me should I choose to do so. These are my first and immediate reactions to the Soundscape app. I hope they will be taken into consideration when planning the future updates to this application. Regards, -- The following information is important for all members of the V iPhone list. If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or if you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the owners or moderators directly rather than posting on the list itself. Your V iPhone list moderator is Mark Taylor. Mark can be reached at: [email protected]. Your list owner is Cara Quinn - you can reach Cara at [email protected] The archives for this list can be searched at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "VIPhone" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/viphone. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- The following information is important for all members of the V iPhone list. If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or if you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the owners or moderators directly rather than posting on the list itself. Your V iPhone list moderator is Mark Taylor. Mark can be reached at: [email protected]. Your list owner is Cara Quinn - you can reach Cara at [email protected] The archives for this list can be searched at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "VIPhone" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/viphone. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
