Thanks to Apple Design, Partially Deaf Can Enjoy Music

Posted on December 14, 2013 by gstockton

Options for Hearing Impaired are Excellent

One of the things I find most frustrating about being deaf in one of my ears is the experience I have listening to music on headphones. For many years technology companies ignored this problem, thinking that everybody who had headphones could hear the music in both ears. On recordings made in the 60’s and 70’s it was quite common, due to track limitations, for essential parts of a song to be heard either on the left or the right. This is called panning. One of my favorite songs is “Substitute” by The Who. The song opens with a strident guitar riff playing in the left channel, but because I’m deaf in my left ear all I usually get is a tickling sensation, the indication that sound is being pumped into my ear but indistinguishable. If I turn speakers on sure I can enjoy the song, but at work it’s next to impossible.

I recently purchased a new iPhone 5s from Apple, it now contains my entire music collection. This morning I was amazed to see how far along accessibility settings had come for the deaf and hard of hearing. They now include a setting for mono audio which will blend the sound from a stereo track into a mono track that can be heard in both earphones evenly. This has been an absolute godsend for me because I can only year out of one ear. Since I discovered it this morning, I’ve been sitting here listening to all of my old 60’s and 70’s songs on the iPhone enjoying every riff, every chord as if I were listening on speakers. The engineers at Apple have clearly responded to their customers by building in these exciting features. I imagine many partially deaf people have written to Apple imploring them to do something and they responded brilliantly in this software release.

Thank you Apple for enabling me to enjoy my music.

Tis The Season of Discontent for Common Courtessy

Posted on December 13, 2013 by gstockton

I like to walk around the mall and listen to music during lunch. The other day when I was on my way back to work, I stepped off the curb where a large gray SUV was parked in front of the exit door. There was a BMW which had stopped in front of it by the curb. I glanced to my left and noticed the mall security car was approaching to get the cars out of the way when I felt a very hard thump on my right shoulder. It felt like someone had given me a hefty punch. I turned to my right and felt the back end of this large SUV pushing the entire right side of my body out of the way. I exclaimed Woah!! and took a look at the driver, it was a woman, nicely dressed with a sequined hat on. She didn’t even roll her window down or look at me, she was too busy maneuvering her SUV around the BMW.

At first it didn’t bother me, but the more I thought about it as I drove back to work, the angrier I got. I mean, this is supposed to be the holiday season when we walk the talk of good will toward our fellow man, and this woman didn’t give a hoot about almost knocking me to the ground. What if it had been a little kid, what if I was not almost past the back of her car? It could have ended much worse, but had it been me who had done this, I would have at least got out of my car to apologize.

Maybe its Orange County and the way the people around here act. Everyone is so busy and wrapped up in themselves, jumping from moment to moment missing the moment in the process.

Let’s be more careful out there. Let’s take better care of each other. When we hit people with our SUV’s, let’s take a second to apologize.