Comment by AnonC | Hacker News Reader

Comment by AnonC | Hacker News Reader

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> Apart from being free, the app is open source and available here, so we would like to continue being the best with community input and support.

This is great. As a non-deaf person (as of today), I will be checking this out because such apps and features could be helpful for ordinary people too. How do you plan to keep this free though? Is it going to become freemium in the future?

Apple has done a lot for accessibility in its operating systems, but improvements are always welcome. Some of the features in this app may be Sherlocked [1] by Apple in the near future.

Edit: I found a typo in the info screen that’s shown when the app is launched (or when the info page is visited from the menu). I don’t have a GitHub account, hence mentioning it here. There’s a “you” (“into you your live phone calls”) that shouldn’t be there in this section:

> “Text - BeAware is the only app that can read text loud into you your live phone calls, assisted by customizable preset phrases”

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_(software)#Sherlock...

It’s been pre-sherlocked. The feature exists, only with different sounds (doorbell, barking, fire alarm etc.) I don’t know why this fact isn’t acknowledged (as far as I can see). For those users unaware of the native features, it’s a disservice. And for those that know, it leaves them wondering how the two interact, and if it isn’t maybe a little petty not to mention it.

For the interested:

Settings > Accessibility > Sound Recognition

It appears this app does have alerting based on decibel thresholds, which iOS lacks.

Exactly, the app is a compliment to the native "Sound Recognition", they don't step on each other's toes. We don't 100% endorse that functionality because we don't want to be liable for inaccuracies or weaknesses in that functionality

> As a non-deaf person (as of today), I will be checking this out because such apps and features could be helpful for ordinary people too.

While the intention behind the post is clearly good, and I like your emphasis—in the spirit of "accessibility helps everyone", a message that always bears repeating—I would encourage you to stick with "non-deaf" (as you did at first) instead of "ordinary" as the opposite of deaf.

Jade! Yo thank you so much for helping everyone here be more educated about using the right terminology. We all have a lot of learning to do, the other day I learnt to use "wheelchair user" instead of the commonly mistaken "wheelchair bound" terminology

GP here. This is a late reply, but I wanted to thank you for pointing that out. It was an inappropriate choice of word and I should’ve spent a little more time thinking before writing.

Thank you for your comment! Great question that I should have mentioned in my comment, if the app is open-source and free, we don't have ads, we collect no information, how do we make money?

We are hoping to hit >10k active monthly users and an organically growing user base to justify putting in more time and personal money to create an AR module and an "Experience" module that uses Machine Learning. We hope to provide those as freemium features because those will require significantly more time to add, but will be an absolute game changer to Deaf Tech! So please share it with your friends so we can make the dream a reality! :)

Ah Sherlocking! That's a great question. There's no guarantee obviously, you got to take risks. The biggest one is if you put in so much work but no uses the app at all. If I got sherlocked, I would take it as a compliment, that I made something worth being sherlocked! :D

Dude thank you for catching that bug, I will push out an update today! :)

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