Send us Fan Mail Hello, and welcome to Celebrate Creativity. I’m George Bartley. In the last few episodes, I have been talking about Voice Control in a broader way — my own background, some of the reasons I care about it, and some of the larger philosophical questions behind it. What does it mean to use your voice to deal with a machine? What does it mean in terms of independence, creativity, and accessibility? But now it is time to move a little closer to the ground. Today, I want to talk about something very practical: how Voice Control comes with every recent Macintosh, how you turn it on, and what you are actually looking at when you face those settings for the first time. Because that first encounter can be a little unnerving. I remember the 1st time I saw voice control on the MacIntosh. I saw it as something just for disabled people and felt that voice control could not possibly do much that was useful. And I must admit, that I gave up after about 30 seconds, and said this is not for me. I had some erroneous idea that it was impossible. But all that needed a little time on my part. It's not that it was badly designed. But simply because it was new. And new things often look more complicated than they really are. You go into the settings and suddenly you are looking at terms like language, microphone, show hints, play sound when command is recognized, overlay, fade overlay after inactivity, fade after, fade by, and Voice Control tutorial. And if you are a first-time user, you may think: what in the world am I looking at? And to be honest, even if you don't fully understand some of the settings by the end of this episode, you're doing about right. It takes a while to get your bearings, but it certainly is worth it. So that is what I want to do today. I want to slow it all down. I want to describe what the user is seeing, what those items mean, and how to think about them without getting flustered. Support the show Thank you for experiencing Celebrate Creativity.
