AppleVis

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Apple today announced an iPhone event for next Wednesday, September 12, 2012. 9 to 5 Mac reported this morning that Apple sent out press invitations (which read “It’s almost here,”) to the event, confirming weeks of speculation that the next-generation iPhone would be launched sometime in September. While Apple has obviously not released any details about the phone, an image with the number 5 on the press invitation seems to suggest that the new iPhone will be called the iPhone 5. The iPhone 5
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Dear AppleVis community,

We have always embraced a "light touch" approach to moderating our site, placing our trust in the incredible individuals who make up our community to maintain a positive and welcoming atmosphere.

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Update: all the promo codes offered in this post have now been claimed.

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We are pleased and excited to announce the six people who have been invited to join our newly created AppleVis Blog Team. Each brings with them a unique mix of interests and experience, and we are sure that they will help us to make our blog an even more powerful and respected voice in the space that we occupy.

Rather than attempt to summarize each team member's unique backgrounds and qualifications, we felt it would be better to let each person introduce themselves:

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Over the last couple years, I’ve come to a conclusion about life as a blind person: it isn’t the physical lack of sight that’s the biggest difficulty I face; but rather, it is attempting to overcome peoples’ negative stereotypes and misconceptions about what I can—and cannot—do that is the real problem.

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Apple have just updated the Accessibility section of its website, and we are thrilled to announce that AppleVis is now listed there!
 
This area of Apple's website is used to provide information on the range of assistive technologies that come standard in Apple products.
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At the end of each month, we at the AppleVis Editorial Team take a look at all the apps that have been posted to the site during that month—either for the first time, or where there has been a significant update—and decide which of these we think is the most noteworthy.

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Over the past few weeks there has been much media speculation that Facebook will shortly be releasing a major update to its iOS app.

By all accounts, this will be a complete redesign, so it would seem timely to remind Facebook that it has a publicly stated commitment to providing a great experience for everyone, and that this is currently not the case for blind users of their iOS app.

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I regret to inform you that our site recently experienced a database issue that required me to restore from a 12-hour old backup. This resulted in the temporary loss of new posts and comments made within the last 12 hours.

I was able to manually recover all of the lost posts. Additionally, I restored most of the missing comments. However, despite my best efforts, a small number of recent comments remain unrecoverable due to the database problem.

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We are extremely pleased to announce that we are now able to significantly relax our rules covering what can and cannot be said about beta versions of Apple software on the AppleVis website.

Previously, our rules covering new features or changes in a forthcoming software release have only permitted sharing of information which has already been made public by Apple itself. This typically included information made available at events such as new product launch announcements, Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, and on the preview pages of Apple’s website.

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We are pleased to announce the launch of community accessibility ratings, giving members of the AppleVis community an opportunity to submit their own accessibility ratings for all apps listed in one of our App Directories.

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The Editorial Team and I am thrilled to share some exciting news with you! After a decade of serving our incredible AppleVis community, we are embarking on a significant journey of improvement and transformation for our website.

A decade ago, I created AppleVis with little more than a vision and a dream. Never did I imagine that it would evolve into the vibrant and valuable resource it has become, all thanks to the incredible support and engagement of our community.

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We periodically review the guidelines that we ask members of our community to respect in their use of the AppleVis website. This involves evaluating whether existing guidelines remain necessary and appropriate; are in the best interests of our community; and that they also reflect the current wishes of the majority of our community.

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It's that time again, when the AppleVis Editorial Team look back at all the apps that were submitted to the site during the last month and decide which of these should be our Editorial Pick.

Although September was an extremely busy month for AppleVis, few of the new apps struck us as particularly noteworthy.

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We are pleased and excited to announce that two members of the AppleVis community have very kindly offered to donate a $20 iTunes Gift Card each month for us to giveaway to one lucky user of the site.

This wonderful gesture is in recognition of what we are trying to achieve here at AppleVis, and to help us make this an even more valuable resource to the community.

To be in with a chance of winning the Gift Card, you simply need to post any of the following to the site during the month:

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Each month the AppleVis Editorial Team sit down at our virtual conference table and decide which of the apps submitted to the site during that month should be our monthly pick ... and boy, was it a tough decision this month!

Lots of great apps were featured on AppleVis in July, and a number of those stimulated a lot of discussion, some of which was quite heated.

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ESPN is one of the leading sources for sports-related news, scores and statistics, with sports fans from around the world using the ESPN ScoreCenter app for iOS to keep up-to-date with news about their favorite sports and teams.

Unfortunately, the app currently contains a number of significant issues which make it mostly unusable with VoiceOver.

The most significant problem is that the live scores and results displayed in the app are completely inaccessible with VoiceOver.

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Slacker Radio claims that its iOS app gives listeners "anytime, anywhere access to the world’s best music and entertainment". Unfortunately, this does not currently include blind and low vision users, who can only access a very small fraction of the available music stations, as these are presented in a way that makes them impossible to browse and select with VoiceOver.

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Spotify is one of the leading music streaming services currently available, offering a range of subscription options (both free and paid) on desktop and mobile platforms. The good news is that their iOS app is mostly accessible. The bad news is that Spotify's Mac app is inaccessible and their web player has a number of significant issues when used with a screen reader.

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The CNN App for iPhone has traditionally been very accessible. However, a recent update has introduced significant issues for both VoiceOver and Braille users.

Considering CNN's position as one of the leading global news sources, and the fact that people from around the world will be looking to them for coverage of the forthcoming US Presidential election, we're hoping that you will all support our campaign and lobby CNN to address these issues as a matter of some urgency.