Using the Notes App iOS 8
iFocus Program
Tips on Using the
Vision Accessibility Features in iOS:
Using the Notes App iOS 8
Presented by
Douglas Walker
The HadleySchool for the Blind presents iFocus: Tips on Using the Vision Accessibility Features in iOS. In today's installment, we'll look at using the Notes App.
Douglas Walker
Hello, my name is Douglas Walker and I am an instructor of Assistive Technology here at the HadleySchool for the Blind. Today, we are going to be looking at using the Notes App. We're using the iPhone 5S for today's demonstration, and we're running software version iOS 7.1. So today, we're going to be checking out the Notes App on the iPhone.
Now this is an app that's built right into all of our iDevices. However, it's going to appear just a little bit differently if you're using an iPad. But if you're not, because we're going to have all of the same functionality as we would on the iPhone. Now the Notes App is a very good, very simple to use word processing app. And it's a great go-to app for taking notes at a meeting or for making a grocery list or just jotting down a quick reminder. It really does have a simple interface and has some really great ways for sharing your notes with others.
So let's go ahead and take a look at it. So we begin by finding it here on our screen.
iPhone Audio
Notes. Double tap to open.
Douglas Walker
Now we'll single-finger double tap to launch it.
iPhone Audio
Notes new button.
Douglas Walker
Okay. So when our Notes App first opens, we're placed in one of two different places. If we happen to have been in a note the last time the Notes App was opened, we're placed right back in that previous note for editing. However, if we had completed that previous note, then we’d be placed on a new button in the top right-hand corner of our notes list screen. This is going to be a screen of all of our created notes that we have, and that's exactly where we are right now. Alright, what we're going to do now is just briefly explore this screen to see what our notes list looks like.
Again, we're on a new button at the very top right-hand corner of our screen. Now we'll use this button when we want to come back and begin a new note. And we will come back to this after we finish exploring this screen here. First, we're going to right-flick and land in our search field here. So I'll right-flick.
iPhone Audio
Notes list. Search. Search field. Double tap to edit.
Douglas Walker
Now it's very easy to quickly end up with a ton of notes in our notes list here. So it's great that we have a way to quickly be able to search for a note instead of having to flick to the right to go through this notes list here. Now if we were to single-finger doubletap in this edit field that we're on right now, we'd be given a keyboard at the bottom of our screen where we could type in and search through all of our created notes that we have in this list. However, I don't have any notes in this list right here, so we're just going to continue flicking to the right to sort of see what this list looks like. So let's go ahead and just flick to the right here.
iPhone Audio
Access ride schedule of trips. 9:17 AM. Button.
Douglas Walker
Now, this is the first note in our list here and what we just heard was a note description and the date that this note was created. And that's exactly what you're going to hear for each note as we continue to flick through this list here. So let's go ahead and right-flick again.
iPhone Audio
Vanderbilt email account information. 9:16 AM. Button.
Douglas Walker
And that's all my Vanderbilt account information for my email at Vanderbilt. Now it's also important to know that the notes description is actually the various first line that you type in your note. You'll want it to be something specific to that note so that it'll remind us of exactly what our note is about when we're in this notes list here. Now this will make a little more sense in just a second when we create a new note. So there you have it. Again, we could continue to flick through this list, and it's a very simple notes interface here. Alright, so let's go ahead and begin a new note. So we'll head back to the top right to our new button up here.
iPhone Audio
New button.
Douglas Walker
And we'll single-finger double tap to begin a new note. So I’ll just go ahead and single-finger double tap here.
iPhone Audio
Note.
Douglas Walker
Now, we're actually placed in an edit field where we could begin typing here with a keyboard at the bottom of our screen. However, we're going to just explore our screen before we start here. Now in the top left-hand corner of our screen, we find our notes list back button here.
iPhone Audio
Airplane mode on.
Douglas Walker
And I’ll go ahead and touch there.
iPhone Audio
Notes back button.
Douglas Walker
Now activating this will take us back to our notes list that we were just in. Now we’ll begin by just right-flicking through our screen here, so I'll just right-flick.
iPhone Audio
Done. Button.
Douglas Walker
And in the top right-hand corner of our screen we’re on a done button now. When we're finished with our note, we'll go ahead and come back here when we're finished typing here, and we'll come back to this done button. Now activating this done button is going to give us some really great tools down here at the bottom of our screen that will allow us to share our notes later on. So let's go ahead and flick to our right.
iPhone Audio
April 1, 2014. 10:02 AM.
Douglas Walker
Now this is the date and the time that we're creating our note. It's really nice to have our notes time and date stamped for later use. Now if we flick to the right again, we're going to be placed in an edit field where we can start typing our note. So let's go ahead and right-flick to our edit field.
iPhone Audio
Note. Text field is editing. Word mode.
Douglas Walker
Now if we continued to flick, we would be placed on our keyboard at the bottom of our screen here. Now if you're not yet comfortable using the onscreen keyboard for your iDevice, it's your lucky day because we have a new instructional video called Typing on Your iDevice that addresses just this. So when you've finished checking out this video, you might want to go check out that one. Okay, how about we go ahead and just begin typing a new note here. So let's go ahead and start a new grocery list. Now remember we mentioned earlier that the first line of our note is actually going to be that description in our notes list that we saw. How about we simply just type the word groceries in our notes list here since we're making a grocery list. Let's go ahead and do it.
iPhone Audio
Capital C. Capital F. Capital G. Capital G. R-R-O-O- 4X-C-C-E-E-R-R-O. Oscar. I-I-R-E-E-S-S.
Douglas Walker
Press the space bar here.
iPhone Audio
Space. Space. Groceries.
Douglas Walker
Now what we'll do is we'll type a return down here in the bottom right-hand corner so that the word groceries is all that there is in this first line. So I'll touch the return down herein this right….
iPhone Audio
Return.
Douglas Walker
Hand corner. I’ll single-finger double tap to…
iPhone Audio
New line
Douglas Walker
Get us a return and it said, new line, there. Okay, now we’re ready to type the rest of our grocery list here. Or I'll tell you what, for the sake of time, and we could start typing milk and press return or double tap on return and then eggs and stuff like that. But for the sake of time, we're just going to go ahead and stop our list right here. Now we're going to go ahead and check out the rest of our options that we can use for this list. Now we can always come back to this note, though, and choose it from our notes list by single-finger double tapping and add to it later on if we need to.
However, we're going to go ahead and locate our done button that's in the top right-hand corner of our notes page here.
iPhone Audio
Done button.
Douglas Walker
And there it is. And we'll single-finger double tap to activate this.
iPhone Audio
Notes back button.
Douglas Walker
Okay. Now we have some really useful options that have appeared. Our keyboard went away and we have some really useful options that I have up here down here at the bottom of our screen. Now we could just flick to the right until we were placed on these options down here. However, we can just touch in the bottom left-hand corner of our screen to locate the first of these options down here.
iPhone Audio
Share button.
Douglas Walker
And I just did that. Now instead of our keyboard, we have that share button down there. We can single-finger double tap on this and check out some ways that we’re able to share this note with other people. So I'll go ahead and single-finger double tap on this share button here.
iPhone Audio
Enable airdrop. Sharing button.
Douglas Walker
Okay. Now we have the option to share this note with others around us using an airdrop feature. Now this is a really great feature. This means that others around us using an iPhone 5 or newer or an iPad third generation or newer could share this note with others wirelessly with each other. I'm going to go ahead and flick to the right and give you a little more description of what airdrop is right here.
iPhone Audio
Airdrop tab to turn on Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to share with people via airdrop.
Douglas Walker
Alright. So we can again just share with others around us using an iPhone 5 or an iPad third generation or up would appear up here and we could you share this note with them around us. Okay, so we have a few more sharing options down here on this list. So we can continue flicking to the right to see these here. So I'm going to go ahead and flick to the right.
iPhone Audio
Message button.
Douglas Walker
Alright. So we're able to send this note as a text message here to others. And we'll right-flick again.
iPhone Audio
Mail button.
Douglas Walker
Alright, we have the ability to email this note to someone right here, and I'm going to right-flick again.
iPhone Audio
Copy button.
Douglas Walker
Now we can copy this note and paste it into another document or another app that we might have. And we can right-flick now for one more way to share here, so I'm going to flick to the right.
iPhone Audio
Print button.
Douglas Walker
Yes, we can even print from our iDevice. Now your printer has to have air print capabilities in order to be able to print. If we do have this capability, it really is nice to be able to print directly from our iDevice here. Okay, that's it for our sharing options here. So we'll right-flickone more time and be placed on a cancel button down here at the bottom. So I'll go ahead and right-flick.
iPhone Audio
Cancel button.
Douglas Walker
And we're not going to share this note right now so we can't simply just single-finger double tap on this button. So I'll go ahead and do that.
iPhone Audio
Notes back button.
Douglas Walker
And we're back in our groceries notes on that back button at the top of the page. So I'm going to go ahead and touch the share button that's down here in the bottom left-hand corner of our screen again.
iPhone Audio
Share button.
Douglas Walker
And we'll just flick through the last couple of buttons that we have on the bottom edge of our screen down here. And I'll go ahead and flick to the right.
iPhone Audio
Delete button.
Douglas Walker
Here we have a delete button and we can just single-finger double tap on this if we wanted to delete this note. Now if I did that, we're going to be presented with a confirmation delete button to let us know if we really want to delete this note or not. And we can also right-flick to a cancel button that pops up if we decide we don't want to delete our note here. Alright, so we have one more button just to the right of our delete button down here. So we need to justright-flick to find it. So I'll flick to the right.
iPhone Audio
Note. New line.
Douglas Walker
And I had accidentally touched the screen.
iPhone Audio
Delete button.
Douglas Walker
Let's find that delete button again. I'll just a flick to the right
iPhone Audio
Compose button.
Douglas Walker
And that is a compose button and that's in the bottom right-hand corner of our screen. I could have just easily just touched down there and we could activate this if we wanted to create a new note. So that is it for our notes interface here. So how about we go back to our notes list and see if our grocery note has been added to our notes list here. I can go back to the top left button here in the top of our screen...
iPhone Audio
Airplane mode on. Notes back button.
Douglas Walker
To our notes back button and I can just single-finger double tap that to go back to our notes list. So I'll do that.
iPhone Audio
New button.
Douglas Walker
And there's that new button that's in the top right-hand corner of our notes list screen. Here again, we'll just start flicking to the right until I get back down to my notes list down here. So I'll flick to the right.
iPhone Audio
Notes list. Search. Search field. Double tap to edit.
Douglas Walker
Right, and there's our search list again. We can search back through this. But if we right-flick again, we’ll find our new grocery note right here at the top of our notes list here. So I'll flick to the right...
iPhone Audio
Groceries. 10:08 AM button.
Douglas Walker
And there it is. Now if we wanted to open this note to add to it or to read it again, we just single-finger double tap on it to activate it. Alright, we need to look at one more item though before we finish because we’re given a really simple way of being able to delete notes from our list here. Let’s say that we don't really need to keep this grocery list that we just created. Now we're able to quickly get an option for deleting it simply by flicking down. So we can flick down the screen just to see how that works, and we just flick down.
iPhone Audio
Delete.
Douglas Walker
Now if we just single-finger double tap, that groceries list button, our note that we just created will be deleted. So I'll just single-finger double tap.
iPhone Audio
Access ride schedule of trips. 9:17 AM button.
Douglas Walker
Okay. Our grocery note has been deleted and we're placed on the next note that’s in our grocery list there. So that is a really fast and easy way to get rid of unwanted notes that we have in our list here.
Alright. I hope that you found this video to be useful. The Notes App is a really easy app to navigate and use and it has some really great features that allow us to share the note as well. Again, my name is Douglas Walker and I am an instructor of Assistive Technology here at the Hadley school for the Blind. Take care and I'll see you next time.
For more from the iFocus series, including many other topics of interest to individuals with vision loss, visit the Seminars at Hadley page on the HadleySchool for the Blind website at
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