Spoken Interface preview

Apple today began notifying select customers of a preview program for its forthcoming new and expected to ship as part of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, Apple says the Mac OS X spoken interface provides "an additional way to use your Macintosh computer that does not require using a mouse or seeing the screen."

Apple's email to customers says that "in addition to speaking the contents of documents, the spoken interface speaks a description of all the activities taking place on the computer, such as which applications are running, how many windows are open, and much more. You can also control your computer using only the keyboard."



Apple says the preview release offers "an opportunity to explore this technology before it is built into the Mac OS X operating system. After installing the software, you'll be able to learn about and explore the features of the spoken interface before its general release. Please note that the software contained in this preview is not feature complete and some features may not work as expected. While Apple has worked hard to make this preview release reliable you should only install the spoken interface software on a Mac that is not critical to your work and regularly back up your important files and information."



The preview software requires Mac OS X 10.3.4 and cannot be removed after installation, according to Apple.

by MacNN Staff