Devon Dundee, on Threads last week:

Alt text for images is now available in Threads! A great step in making the app more accessible.

Just press the Alt button after selecting an image to upload. The prompt says, “Add a short description for screen readers. If you leave this blank, we’ll automatically add a description for you.”

Interested to see what that automatic descriptions look like.

I’m likewise intensely curious about how this will work. It’s precisely the use case I’ve thought would be perfectly suited for LLMs to tackle. Better yet would be if the automatic descriptions were easy to manually edit. Sometimes it’s just hard to get started!

It’s the sort of feature that I’d love to test and use, but I haven’t yet found that ‘Alt’ button, nor any other way to adding descriptions natively. Once I do, though, I’m going to have to figure out a way to see or hear the descriptions that the app adds on its own. Some are going to be wild, I’m sure.

Linked

It’s no secret that I’ve become enamored with listening to web articles being read aloud to me. I’ve been testing the narration features of Reader, Instapaper, and Omnivore. (Spoiler: Reader’s is good, Instapaper’s is okay, and Omnivore’s is next-level) But what about elsewhere outside of those apps?

If you’ve been following along with my Beta Impressions thread, you’ll know that we’ll soon be able to enjoy good quality narrations by Siri in Safari Reader. That will make it way easier to get text read out from any webpage without having to send it to one of those apps first. But there are two major downsides I’ve noted. First, the text is not highlighted as it’s read aloud. It’s surprising how much better my focus and retention are when I’m reading and listening to something. Second, it’s still just for web articles; not for arbitrary text. For example, you can’t listen to text you’ve written as a proofreading method.

But I have good news! Already in iOS 16 (Et al.) you can turn on ‘Spoken Content’ in accessibility settings. It adds a ‘Speak’ button to the popup context menu for any selected text. Plus, you can turn on ‘Highlight Content’ to focus your attention on the current sentence and (optionally) word being spoken. I have no idea how long these features have been hiding in the accessibility settings, but I’m so glad to have found them!

You can tweak other settings as well. For instance, I prefer the Siri Voice 4, and changed the voice to that one. It’s got great intonation and keeps the voice consistent with Siri’s spoken feedback on my devices. I sped up the voice a little, too.

For a capability that hasn’t had much marketing behind it — at least from what I’ve seen — Spoken Content is quite full-featured! Don’t miss that you can add specific pronunciations for tricky words and names. It’s worth taking some time to explore all the submenus.

Future Feature Requests

I can’t try something without having some thoughts on how it could be improved.

• I’d love to see this added as an API for developers to implement in their apps. Then they wouldn’t have to spend their time building their own voices or text-to-speech engines. Likewise, when Apple’s voices improved, so would any app that uses them for spoken content.
• I was surprised when trying Omnivore’s reading voices at how much of an improved experience it is to have a secondary voice pop in to read block quotes. It really helps clarify the intended meaning of an article to know which text is being quoted. It’s probably tricky to implement for arbitrary selected text — as opposed to specifically audiobooks or articles where the format is more constrained — but would be great if Apple figured it out.

Tips

Derek Sivers:

Seems we had both been told the accident was our fault, and had spent eighteen years feeling bad about it. This time she started crying, sniffled, grabbed a tissue to wipe her eyes and said, “It’s so stupid - these stories.”

And

Aim a laser pointer at the moon, then move your hand the tiniest bit, and it’ll move a thousand miles at the other end. The tiniest misunderstanding long ago, amplified through time, leads to piles of misunderstandings in the present

Every time I shine a flashlight in the air, I always think about how those photons are being cast out for how many millions of unknown miles and, yes, that the most minuscule movement on my end will drastically change their trajectory down the line.

Derek’s story and deft comparison to our memories of past actions having longstanding impact — even if they’re not “true” — left me almost shellshocked.

Linked

A weekly list of interesting things I found on the internet, posted on Sundays. Sometimes themed, often not.

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1️⃣ People are amazing. This guy made an AirPods Pro charging case from off-the-shelf parts and 3D prints. [🔗 Exploring the Simulation // youtube.com] (Via Nick Heer)

2️⃣ I’m no Ezra Klein stan, but I thought this interview of him was quite good. I like the four questions he uses to evaluate his day. They seem like a solid foundation. [🔗 Clay Skipper // gq.com]

3️⃣ The Strange Planet series looks as good as I hoped! [🔗 Apple TV // youtube.com]

4️⃣ There are some bad internet bills introduced in Congress that would weaken encryption and privacy, give unprecedented access to law enforcement, and restrict access to necessary resources from kids. This site makes it easy to tell your representatives that you oppose them all. [🔗 badinternetbills.com] (Via Nick Heer)

5️⃣ Whether you like his music or not (I do), it’s hard to deny that Ed Sheeran is one of a kind. This is one of the most impressive musical performances I think I’ve ever seen. (See also, “I Don’t Care (Live at Abbey Road)”) [🔗 Songkick // youtube.com] (Via Chance Miller)

6️⃣ This Neeva search engine sounded pretty great. Too bad, as explained in the article, it couldn’t make it in a room filled by one big elephant. [🔗 David Pierce // theverge.com]

7️⃣ I’m not a “baby person” but I did like this retrospective on one year of parenting authored by an adventure writer. [🔗 brendan // semi-rad.com]

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Take a Chance

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Thanks for reading 7 Things. If you enjoyed these links or have something neat to share, please let me know.

7 Things

I’m terribly excited about the possibilities that Personal Voice will unlock. I imagine a future internet where recordings of articles being read by the author are posted alongside the story. There are plenty of outlets that already incorporate audio versions of their stories — The Wall Street Journal and Stratechery come to mind — which open up alternative ways to access the great stuff people are putting out into the world. However, those types of hosted content are complicated and expensive to produce. At Stratechery, Ben records a podcast (with a secondary speaker for quoted material!) for each and every article. WSJ, as best as I can tell, uses a proprietary service to provide those narrations, and I think The Verge used to have something similar. Very few people have the time or resources to provide similar offerings for the text they post.

But now anyone with with Apple’s latest operating systems can create a passable, if not perfect, recreation of their voice. It can be used to say any sort of text, and the possibility of automating the creation of an audio file for any blog post (or social media post?) seems tantalizingly close.

Why does Personal Voice set my spidery-sense for important technical advances a’tingling? In short, personal connection. I’m a loudly proclaimed fan of text-to-speech features in reading apps. Sometimes it’s just better, easier, and more convenient to listen to a story rather than to read its text. Not to mention the obvious accessibility benefits for folks with vision impairments. But articles in those apps are all read in the same, somewhat robotic, voice. I often need to double-check the author and publication it came from because my brain assumes that every article read in that same voice was written by that one non-person. So at the heart of my excitement is the opportunity to feel more connected with the true originator. To recognize their voice as an author, not just through their writing style, but also through the sound of their actual voice.

While Personal Voice is billed as a feature intended to give people an audible approximation of their voice for a given moment rather than for an everlasting record, it’s not hard to imagine that next leap. I’m already engineering the shortcuts in my mind to produce those recordings, provided Apple gives us the necessary building blocks to make it happen.

Once the tools are in place, the next thing I’ll be advocating for is a standard for attaching such audio files alongside their text counterparts so that they can live and travel together from their home website, across shares to social media, RSS, and more. The future using such tools is bright, and you can bet that you’ll be able to hear HeyDingus articles read to you in my voice just as soon as I can string it all together.

I’ve got a twofer tip today, and it’s all in the title.

Help Siri Out a Little Bit

Sometimes it’s nice to have multiple ways to run a shortcut. Apple clearly understands this as they provide many ways to launch one. We can run shortcuts from the app, the share sheet, widgets, Siri, and URL schemes. But let’s focus on just one of those for a moment: Siri. Just say the name of a shortcut to Siri and it’s off to the races, but very specifically the name that you set. Back in the iOS 12 days, we could record a different launch phrase to run shortcuts. For example, you might want to tell Siri to “Make a new task” that actually runs your ‘New To-do’ shortcut to add something to your Reminders list. iOS 13 improved that feature by allowing typing out a unique phrase in addition to recording one. But fast-forward to iOS 16 (and in the iOS 17 beta) and we’ve lost that functionality along the way. But I’m here to tell you that you can gain some of it back by, you guessed it, creating another shortcut. Isn’t this fun?

The key is that ‘Run Shortcut’ action. Just plop one of those bad boys into a blank shortcut, select the shortcut that you want to create an alternative launch phrase for, and then name this new shortcut whatever you want the launch phrase to be! My preferred style is to put two forward slashes before the name/launch phrase I want to use. For example, “// Save Show Notes” is what I named the one that runs my ‘Save Podcast Show Notes’ shortcut. Including “podcast” in the title was clearer for sharing the shortcut, but I don’t want to say that word every time I run it using Siri.

Keep in mind that you can create many of these shortcuts to cover all the launch phrases you want.

Download a blank template shortcut ↓

Avoid Widget Fidgets

Tell me if this has ever happened to you: You create a Shortcuts widget that has all the shortcuts you want. You’re a little annoyed already because (1) they all have to be in the same folder, and (2) must be the first four shortcuts in that folder. Then, some time and many new shortcuts later, you realize that the buttons you wanted on your home screen aren’t there anymore. Now you’re really annoyed because your specifically configured quick launcher is no longer quick. All because you put some new shortcuts into that folder and had the audacity to forget to go in and rearrange them again so that the ones you want in your widget remain the first shortcuts in the folder.

I’ll never understand why new shortcuts get added to the top of a folder instead of the bottom. But by creating separate one-action ‘Run Shortcut’ shortcuts, you can add just those to a ‘Today View’ folder, or a ‘Social Media’ or ‘Blogging’ folder. Select that folder in the Shortcuts widget and Bob’s your uncle. No more annoyance. Everything stays where it should be.

Plus, now you can keep the “source of truth” shortcuts — the ones that do all the work — neatly organized into coherent folders while mixing and matching widget shortcuts to your heart’s content.

With this solution worked out, I’m eagerly anticipating that XL Shortcuts widget coming in iPadOS 17.

Download a blank template shortcut ↓

Shortcuts Tips

I suppose since this is the place where I showcase my opinions, I should register one for the Twitter → X rebrand.

Speaking objectively, of course. I’m subjectively sickened by what Twitter has turned into under Musk’s management, if you can call it that.

If Musk wants to make an everything app, I guess “X” is as generic as you can get. “If you don’t stand for anything, what will you fall for?” and all that. But, not being a fan of everything apps, I think a better course of action would have been to make X the overarching parent company and user account system that ties together the new banking and shopping services that he seems to want to reenter, alongside Twitter for social networking. Much like Meta has done with Facebook, Instagram, and now Threads.

But, as an erratic and impulsive person seemingly intent on emptying Twitter of all its brand value and cachet for the fun of it, Musk has turned what was an approachable and understandable product into one that is harsh and intentionally vague. I mean, come on, posts will be called “x’s”? What even is this? They’re just posts!

Twitter has long been dead to me, but this feels like Musk dancing on its grave. I now get the same feeling from news about The Social Network Formally Known as Twitter as I did about Truth Social and Parler: sad-and-incredulity-tinged indifference.

Just when I think I’m out, they pull me back in. From the Instapaper blog:

We just launched updates to improve Instapaper’s organizing and sorting tools for iOS, macOS, and web. Features include drag & drop to reorder, sorting improvements, modern swipe actions, better integrations with Shortcuts on iOS, and more!

My status with read-later services being one of perpetual dissatisfaction, I’m always on the lookout for the one that checks all my boxes. At the moment those boxes include a pretty reading interface, a text-to-speech engine worth a damn, a web app, speedy share sheet saving or shortcuts support, modern gestures and context menus, and the ability to read saved items from buckets organized by site. Bonus points are awarded for one-tap sharing articles out using the share sheet, an ‘Archive and next’ button, highlight syncing via Readwise, the ability to read articles on my Kobo, a good video-watching experience, lots of sorting options, and integration with Reeder.

I was as surprised as any to learn today that Instapaper ($2.99/month), the O.G., checks off more boxes than any these days. Let’s take a look:

• Pretty reading interface ✅
• Text-to-speech engine worth a damn ✅ (okay)
• Web app ✅ (better)
• Speedy share sheet saving ✅ (better)
• Shortcuts support ✅ (good)
• Modern gestures ✅
• Context menus ✅
• Ability to read saved items from buckets organized by site ✅ (via Reeder)
• One-tap sharing articles out using the share sheet ❌ (2 taps)
• ‘Archive and next’ button ❌
• Highlight syncing via Readwise ✅
• Ability to read articles on my Kobo ❌
• Good video-watching experience ✅ (better)
• Lots of sorting options ✅
• Integration with Reeder ✅

Score: 12/15

The Competitive Landscape

Here’s how my previous favorite, Readwise Reader ($8.99/month), fares:

• Pretty reading interface ✅
• Text-to-speech engine worth a damn ✅ (better)
• Web app ✅ (best)
• Speedy share sheet saving ✅ (best)
• Shortcuts support ❌
• Modern gestures ❌ (there are gestures, but they’re janky and get in the way more than they help)
• Modern context menus (including for in-article links) ❌
• Ability to read saved items from buckets organized by site ❌
• One-tap sharing articles out using the share sheet ❌ (3 taps)
• ‘Archive and next’ button ✅
• Highlight syncing via Readwise ✅
• Ability to read articles on my Kobo ❌
• Good video-watching experience ✅ (good)
• Lots of sorting options ✅
• Integration with Reeder ❌

Score: 8/15

(I should also mention that Reader has a ton of features that I don’t and won’t use. Article notes, Ghostreader, the feed, configurable views, and the home screen — none have stuck and now feel like extra cruft crowding the library, which is what I live in.)

And the-one-I-should-probably-be-using-but-has-quirks-that-get-under-my-skin-and-is-actively-getting-worse-in-the-name-of-getting-better, Pocket (I can get away with the free features, but $4.99/month for unlimited highlights, search and more):

• Pretty reading interface ✅
• Text-to-speech engine worth a damn ✅ (good)
• Web app ✅ (good)
• Speedy share sheet saving ✅ (best)
• Shortcuts support ⚠️ (okay)
• Modern gestures ❌ (Also janky)
• Modern context menus (including for in-article links) ⚠️ (Not for article list)
• Ability to read saved items from buckets organized by site ❌
• One-tap sharing articles out using the share sheet ❌ (2 taps)
• ‘Archive and next’ button ❌
• Highlight syncing via Readwise ✅
• Ability to read articles on my Kobo ✅
• Good video-watching experience ✅ (good)
• Lots of sorting options ❌
• Integration with Reeder ✅

Score: 9/15

While I probably should just use Pocket as my syncing service and read the majority of the articles directly in Reeder or on my Kobo, I’ve become too reliant on easy access to listening to articles with text-to-speech. Reeder doesn’t offer that, so my primary reading has to be in my chosen service’s dedicated app.

Either an Apple-provided API for enhanced article text-to-speech, or Instapaper (or Reader) integration with Kobo can’t come soon enough! But for now, I think I’ll be satiated with Instapaper’s feature set, and very happy with the decrease in my monthly subscription payments.

A Couple of Last Notes

There are two more features from Instapaper that I really like so far from my brief tests today: (1) You can set up a playlist of articles to listen to, one after the other, and (2) the ‘Report a problem’ quick actions let you identify parsing issues with just two taps.

Also, it was only due to Instapaper’s email notification test that I even heard about, or considered using, their expanded feature set:

We are trying something new by sending product updates via email in addition to posting on our blog.

I’m okay with this for most services, as long as I’ve opted into emails from them already.

Apps

Chris Lawley on Threads:

If you don’t see the Following tab, try double tapping the Home button. Then you can swipe over to the Following feed. You can then double tap the Home button to hide the tabs at the top. From my testing it stays on the Following tab when you close the app and reopen it.

This instantly revives Threads for me. I was growing tired of missing posts from people I specifically followed, and of being inundated by random posts.

I hope they bring (brought?) over the “You’re all caught up” feature from Instagram so I know when I’ve seen everything new from my following list. Then I might swipe over to the ‘For you’ tab for more fresh posts.

The other next obvious-but-not-guaranteed feature Threads needs is to allow the ‘Following’ tab to be set as the default view upon opening the app. Right now, it’s hidden whenever the app relaunches.¹

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1. Relaunching is different than the reopening that Chris describes above. If the app stays in memory on your device, the ‘Following’ tab stays put. But if it is Force Quit (which you should rarely do), or simply isn’t opened for a while, the tab appears to hide behind the double-tap gesture again.↩︎

Linked

Joshua Benton, in perfect post for Nieman Lab:

In the spirit of Tronc, Elon Musk has decided to throw away more than a decade of brand equity by changing the name of Twitter to…the letter X. Imagine if more media executives followed his lead.

It just gets better and better. The second to last example made me snort aloud.

Linked