Introducing Roger, an accessible walkie-talkie style messaging app for iOS

By Roger, 21 March, 2016

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hi everyone!

This is Yushu from the Roger team. Thanks so much for all the support you have been giving us, and for helping us make Roger so VoiceOver accessible over the past few months. We maintain a simple three button interface- with one tap, you are able to speak for an unlimited amount of time and we place really high emphasis and importance on our audio quality.

We would love to hear what you guys have to say about Roger, so please feel free to leave a comment or suggestion right here. We are working towards being even more VoiceOver accessible, with the help of the great community over here :) If you do not know about us yet, then do check us out at https://rogertalk.com/ or drop us an email at hello@rogertalk.com. Looking forward to hearing from everyone!

Download link: https://rogertalk.com/get

P.S Thanks @djmacradio for all your help! :)

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Comments

@KE7ZUM, that's a new feature that we're working on right now, still in progress! :) Please ignore that for now :)

By KE7ZUM on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

Ah, Ok. Might I suggest that feature mysteriously go away in the public release? Lol!

By Chris on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

Well, I decided to wipe my phone and reinstall iOS using iTunes. WHen I install Roger, I can't sign back into the app with my e-mail address. It wants access to my phone number which I really don't want to provide. I remember successfully entering just my e-mail address when I first installed the app. How do I get my old account info back with my e-mail?

By Lisa on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

Hello all,
I would like to make a suggestion for consideration in the next Roger update. This pertains to groups. Could we have a skip message button? While in a group one could double tap a skip message button, and the next message within that group would begin to play. Hopeing you will consider this. Thank you for a great app!

By KE7ZUM on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

I actually suggested to them not a separate button but the holding of the fast forward button as that could make more sense. Same with the fast rewind button as well.

Hi @Chris_Wright! We have removed the option to sign in with your email. You could email us at hello@rogertalk.com with the email you used to create your Roger account along with your phone number, so that you can access that same account with your phone number now instead :)

By Roger on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

Hi @Lisa and @KE7ZUM! Yup, we definitely understand that it can get frustrating when there are too many Rogers to listen to in a Group- we face it too! We are looking into improving the experience on Groups :)

By Jesus R on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

Hi all.
For those who have been wanting to try the Amazon Alexa with roger, and can't get passed the Captcha, I may have a possible workaround. I was trying this yesterday, and it seems to wkr on all my devices, not just for linking roger to Alexa, but to sign in to Amazon as well. Enter your password wrong the first time. Yes, I know this sounds a little crazy, but it really does seem to work for me. It seems to work better if you enter your password wrong with an extra letter, or number added in, or change one or two of them, just change your password up a little. For example if your password is, "HelloAmazon123" try something like, helloamazon123," or, "HelloAmazon122." I hoep this works for everyone else like it has for me.
Now, I'm off to buy stuff from Amazon!

By Hilary Reed on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

A few things. First, if I have voicemail set up through Roger, does this prevent me from receiving my normal voicemail on my iPhone? Next, when I dial the code *286468876437 I am told that the feature code is invalid. I tried to disable the voicemail service by dialing *38, but this doesn't seem to work either. I tried to disable the service because I was afraid I didn't do it correctly. I have emailed Yushu about this, but any help I might receive in the meantime would be appreciated. My Roger handle is https://roger talk.com/hilaryreed :-)

By jcdjmac (not verified) on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

hi @hilaryreed first of all, welcome to AppleVis! anyways, to answer your question, the way voicemail works is, once you double tap on the "copy number" button, voicemail is automatically activated. and yes, all voicemail messages you receive will be automatically replaced from your original voicemail. if you need any additional assistance, you may talk to me on roger, or hit up the @roger team. I hope you enjoy your stay on the AppleVis community! :)

By Unregistered User (not verified) on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

Hello, I have a problem with Roger, well maybe it is not a big one, however maybe someone will be able to help. I can't connect Twitter and Dropbox to Roger. I have connected Alexa with any problems, but I can't do this with the other services. I wish it worked for me. Maybe someone hs or had the same problem. It would be awesome to be able to use Twitter with Roger. Greetings. :)

By KE7ZUM on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

You need an IFTTT account. This is a service called if this then that. Moe info can be found at this link I'm not sure though if you can do all of that once you have the account, set up the recipes on the computer or if you have to set up and turn on the recipees through roger itself.

hope that helps a bit.

By Brooke on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

I'd posted asking how to remove a conversation from the main screen. A double-tap and hold revealed the answer to my question, Lol. So I've edited this in order to avoid anyone wasting time answering the question. Thanks for an awesome app!

By Toonhead on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

Hi folks Wow, I am way way behind on this thread, but I have a suggestion to the Roger team about groups. Yesterday, someone added me to a Roger group, and I started receiving all these messages and I had no earthly idea what in hell was going on until I went to investigate. Can we please, please have some control wether or not someone just adds us to a group? For example, have Roger send someone an invitation to join instead of just being added automaticly? Facebook does this and I can not stand it. I like to determine wether or not I'm added to a group. That's just my thing. So if you can do something about that, that would be great! Also, how on earth would you use dropbox and twitter and all these other services with Roger? I thought Roger was only a voice chat app. Maybe I need to get up to speed on things, it has been a while since I looked at this thread like I was saying. Thanks.

By KE7ZUM on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

I use dropbox to send myself reminders or to upload recordings to let's say, audio boom for later. It's way neat and I love it. Plus I think the integration of all of these services make the app better then all the other ptt apps I've used in the past. The app really is the swiss army knife of ptt apps. I'll have to try the voicemail thing when I'm out of the country. I'll have to modify my greeting a bit but yeah. Lol!

By Toonhead on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

I clearly have a lot to learn when it comes to using Roger. The one thing at the top of my request list though, is invitations to groups. I dunno, maybe I'm old-fashioned but I like receiving an invitation to join instead of receiving a whole bunch of messages.

By Roger on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

Hi @Toonhead! Great to have you with us :)

With regards to our public Roger group links, we send you a notification that tells you that you have been added to a group on Roger, which says "Yushu has added you to *group name*" :) Did that not happen for you? :) Do you know if you could have clicked on any public Roger group link or was Roger already open when you realised you were added to a group?

By Toonhead on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

Hi. I was just added to a group, no invitation or anything of the sort. I looked through my messages and saw something new, it looked like a group name and the person that added me sent a message to the group. I was successfully able to leave the group by double-tapping and holding on the group name, and then a list of options became available, one of them being leave group, so I double-tapped on that one. Hope that helps.

By KE7ZUM on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

Yeah, I was actually going to suggest an invite alert should be in that group's place so the user can say yes or no. This way they are not added with out their permission. Can this be looked into?

Thanks.

By Joseph on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

Hey there,

It's Joseph. I have a couple of suggestions for other survices. I know e already hae one from from starwarr, that's chubaka. but I wonder, what would it be like to have one from, say, scarface, lord of the rings or something similar? Could be interesting and quite ausing.

By Toonhead on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

Star Wars and Lord of the rings are not services you can add, they are movies and in some cases, books.

By Brooke on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

I would also like a way to receive an invite to a group, and have the option to accept or decline it. One thing that bothers me the most about Facebook is that people have the ability to add you to groups without your permission. I'd prefer a setup where the system sends me a notification saying that a member has invited me to a group, and then gives me the options to accept the invitation or decline it.

By KE7ZUM on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

I agree. I can leave the group, but yeah the invite system would be nice. We don't want a bunch of pissed off people. Lol!

By Joseph on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

Perhaps I should've been clearer. You know how you can add chubaka to your roger contact list from the list of survices? I'm trying to think of other things of this type that would be amusing and useful at the same time.

By KE7ZUM on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

In reply to by Toonhead

Yeah that chewy one was cool! Oh, a Darth Vader one might be awesome as a joke one day. Especially on the forth of every month. Lol!

By Joseph on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

Don't give them any ideas. They might just do it. I know i would. I'd also like to see one that spouts quotes from random movies after you send a message to it. That'd be cool.

By KE7ZUM on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

Lol! I think we're having a bit too much fun here, but you never know eh? I'm just impressed by the app over all. Now let's see what else they have in store for us shall we?

Blessings all.

By Joseph on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

Inded. I use both this one and whatsapp, and used to use haytell for a bit, that and voxer, but this beats them all. Even talko. wish that wouldn't have shut down though.

By jcdjmac (not verified) on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

hey. haven't been on here but roger rocks. I still use Zello, but I love roger since the quality of the audio is so amazing to that of iMessage. this beats them all.

By KE7ZUM on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

Agreed. And now that I have some of my sighted friends using roger it works well, very very well. It appears though that the invite to a group is broken right now. You click for example twitter and it kicks you back to the app. Hope this gets fixed, or at least, looked into.

By Brooke on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

I really wish I had more luck convincing my sighted friends and family to try Roger. Most of them don't seem interested.

By KE7ZUM on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

Just show them how good it sounds. My family and I used it to communicate when it's time for me to cook dinner, or when dinner is ready. Lol! It's grate.

By jcdjmac (not verified) on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

the quality is simple amazing. best app for recording conversations back and forth.

By Joseph on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

If there's one thing I wish you could do, it would be to listen to not only the mesages you receive from others, but your own messages as well. Would certainly help if you need to restart a convo, but can't remember where you left off.

By KE7ZUM on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

Not everyone, myself included, loves hearing thir voice, so for me I'd still say make it a toggle. I'd personally leave it off. However that's just me.

Blessings and happy Sunday

By Toonhead on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

Being able to hear your own messages was one of my very first requests to the Roger team. As far as the idea of sighted friends enjoying this app, unfortunately that's not likely. Thanks to Facebook and other social networks, faces have become more important than voices, at least in my experience. Since a vast majority of us who use the app are blind, it just makes more sense to use an app such as this. The sound quality is unreal, but that doesn't seem to matter. Also, think about FaceTime calls. When you can see the person you're talking to, why go back to the old way of just hearing someone? Sure, people still make phone calls, but they don't want to have to wait for a message to come back to them, whereas for us this isn't an issue since we've made use of these walky-talky style apps for a while now. Remember, these are only my ideas about how sighted folks may feel about apps like this, these aren't my opinions at all. I absolutely love Roger and will continue to use it.

By rdfreak on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

I finally got it yesterday. I deleted Whatsapp, Zello and Heytell because this app is so easy to use.
And as others have said, the audio quality is just amazing!

By rdfreak on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

Hi again,
What does chubaka do?
Echo isn't available in Australia hence, I didn't know if it would work, but I was able to successfully create an account from the Roger screen, and then add alexia; It works for me. :)
But voicemail doesn't; my provider isn't supported.

By rdfreak on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

Yes, so I'm one of those rare people that don't like push notifications on any apps except for Messages.
Can I therefore, please please please request of the developpers that you stop the message coming through prompting us to turn our push notifications on for this app every time we open the app and send someone a message?

Thank you. :)

By Brooke on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

I'm not a fan of push notifications either, and I tend to disable them on most apps. So I agree with Rdfreak. When I did have notifications on, I noticed it would send 1 when I got a new message, and then another one a few minutes later reminding me I had that message. As someone who isn't a fan of lots of notifications, that got old quickly.

By KE7ZUM on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

I also cannot get voicemail to work. I hit the copy button but it never forwarded my voicemail over to roger. Did I brake it?

By Roger on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

@Brooke Interesting! Thanks for the great feedback. Could you elaborate more on why your sighted friends and family are not interested in Roger? :)

@Toonhead You've made a great point. From our perspective, we believe that with Roger helps to create the feeling of being teleported to being beside the group of people you're talking to. When you use Roger, the focus on voice makes it easy for everyone to really listen to not only what your friends or family are saying, but also hear what is happening around that person at that moment - whether they're crossing the road on a busy day or panting as they walk up the stairs, which are things we tend to miss when we place the focus on visual elements :) Also, the ability to reply at your convenience or converse across time zones is also what separates Roger from the other ways to communicate that often make you feel rushed to reply asap.

By Roger on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

With regards to push notifications, all rogers expire after 48h and we definitely do not want our users to forget to listen to their rogers :) With that said, we are still looking for a better way to go about doing them, so thanks a lot for all the feedback! :)

By Roger on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

@KE7ZUM, did you copy and paste, and then dial the number provided in your phone's keypad? :)

By KE7ZUM on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

I copied the number, but where do I paste it at? The instructions are ot that clear actually

Update: I dialed the number by hand after pasting it into command c, sharing it with my computer then I got this.

http://pasted.co/4969b0bb

So what did I just do? That message looks very long. Lol! Also what greeding will they get when they call my nuber? I want to be as professional as I can as I will often get business calls as well.

Yes, but that doesn't have anything to do with the message prompting us every time we open the app or send messages.
And with regards to the messages disappearing after 48 hours, in my opinion, that's the users problem if they don't listen to it if it's clearly outlined in the description and the 'help" in this app.
It could be a deal breaker for a few of us if this is not addressed, that's all. :)

Again, great app though; The simplicity is amazing! :)

By Brooke on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

My sighted friends and family only seem to be interested in typing out a quick message. The consensus seems to be that they don't have the time to spend recording audio messages to people because they're either working, driving, or just around people in general where they're not in a position to record. I understand that to a point, because I only tend to use Roger when I'm on my own and have some time on my hands. I don't do voice messages when I'm out and around other people.

By KE7ZUM on Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 15:16

I do voice messages even when I'm out and about. My mom sent me some when she was driving to work today to let me know of some stuff. She loves it.

@KE7ZUM Oh that's great! That long message that you got shows that you have successfully integrated your voicemail to your Roger :)

Do you have an existing voicemail greeting already? Basically the changes you will now see is that when someone leaves you a voicemail, you will get to listen to it within Roger and you can then reply them by sending them a roger :)

By Roger on Sunday, June 26, 2016 - 15:16

Thanks for letting us know @brooke! :) Really interesting feedback.

We understand where they are coming from, especially since past experiences of talking on the go has not been very user friendly or optimal. In fact, since Roger started, we have heard a lot of feedback from other users that what they really love about Roger is actually how easy it is to be sending quick rogers while on the go! :) Hopefully your friends and family will one day be able to experience how its like to use Roger. In the meantime, thanks so much for all your support, means a lot to us :)