Goodbye Tools2Talk, but beware BACK UP YOUR APP!

Posted by Gillian McNeill on the 6th January, 2016

The Tools2Talk app from Scope in Australia has been one of our app favourites at CALL since September 2014 when we first purchased it. The app offered a quick and easy method for designing and printing symbol communication boards and resources using an iPad, whilst being inexpensive (£8.99) compared with PC software alternatives.

It even made it onto the May 2015 edition of our wheel of apps - iPad Apps for Complex Communication Support Needs. We chose to include it here as we are often asked for advice about using and producing visual supports for pupils and we wanted to share its usefulness with others.

But sadly, it’s no longer available and for anyone like us who have gone to the App Store to find that it’s not there, here’s the information we have recently  received from Scope, as to why………….

Unfortunately the Tools2Talk app is no longer available in the iTunes store for download. This won't affect anyone who already has the app, but unfortunately anyone looking to download the app will not have access.

We are currently in the process of developing a new app, which will be called Talk2Me. This has pretty much all of the functionality of the Tools2Talk app, plus some additional features and capabilities which we couldn't do in the first app.

This app has not yet got a release date or price yet, but we have partnered with a large international symbol company to include well-recognised symbols in the disability industry - which is very exciting! I think it will be released early next year (around March).

So some good news for those who have Tools2Talk on their iPad – it will still work, but there will be no updates, so no guarantee that it will work with future versions of iOS (it’s running fine on my iPad which has iOS 9.2).

However, also some not so good news for those who have purchased it - the app has been removed which means you can no longer download it from the App Store as a previously purchased app. You may be in this situation if you have deleted it from your iPad and wish to re-install it or if you wish to transfer it to another iPad via the App Store.

Once purchased app developers or suppliers have no responsibility for apps lost in this way, according to Scope:

However, once an app has been purchased, it is and will always remain the responsibility of the customer to maintain their own backups of apps to ensure ongoing use (even with accidental deletions) of the apps they purchase – not the app developers or suppliers.

So to ensure you don’t accidentally delete or lose your Tools2Talk app, make sure you have backed up all your apps and all your data, either by using iCloud or iTunes, although according to Apple, users with iOS 9 or later are unable to back up apps using iTunes so it’s probably best to make a back-up using the Storage on our iPad and iCloud. Remember you get up to 5 GB of free storage space with your iTunes account.

To back up Tools2Talk (and other apps of your choice) on your iPad:

1. select Settings
2. select General 
3. select Storage & iCloud Usage 
4. under ICloud select Manage Storage 
5. tap on the name of you device
6. under Backup Options look for the Tools2Talk app from the list and make sure the ‘green’ toggle button is ‘on’ to ensure the app is backed up

If you wish further help with this procedure visit the Tom’s Guide website. 

Now that you have created a backup, should you lose the app you ought to be able to retore it from your iCloud, so best to get into the habit of backing up apps regularly.

When the new Talk2Me app is available later in the year from Scope, we intend to try it out at CALL, so look out for a review here on the blog!