I am walking through apricot orchards, on my way to another dreadfully long day at Cupertino Junior High. I am shorter and younger than most of the other boys. I am night blind and I wear sunglasses indoors. I do magic as a hobby and everyone knows it. I also don't know when to shut up. And, to guarantee my total social estrangement, I am carrying my violin case. The year is 1966 and I am on my way to another serious butt-kicking at school.
iOS and iPadOS Apps
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To encourage us to stay at home and get creating, several developers are giving away their music creation apps for free Since so many visually impaired people are musicians, it would make sense for these companies to incorporate accessibility into the design of their apps.
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When I originally set out to write my blog entry on the accessibility of the top free news apps, I had started to review the top 5. And although I did test all 5, since I was writing a blog post and not a novel, I decided to simply use the top 3 for my review. One of the 2 apps that was not included in my review was the USA Today app. The accessibility issues in the previous version consisted mainly of the fact that you could not read the titles of articles in the app, much like the Fox News Channel app.
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Today has seen a round of product announcements from Apple, including the launch of a new iPad; a special PRODUCT(RED) iPhone; changes to storage sizes; some new accessories; and a new iOS app.
iPad
The iPad Air 2 has been discontinued and replaced with a new 9.7-inch iPad equipped with an A9 chip and a brighter Retina display. This new model is simply called "iPad," and is Apple's new entry-level model at the 9.7-inch size.
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Anybody calling Amtrak's Customer Service in recent months is likely to have encountered a recorded message in which they were encouraged to use the company's iOS app.
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In our latest campaign we turn our attention to three apps from Nuance; Dragon Go!, Dragon Dictation and Dragon Search.
Earlier versions of these apps were usable with VoiceOver, but recent updates have rendered all three inaccessible.
When you launch the latest versions of these apps VoiceOver effectively 'freezes' and will not respond to gestures. Nuance have also added a number of non-standard controls to the Settings pages, and these are not recognized by VoiceOver as buttons and do not indicate their current selection status.
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In the time that it took for an update to download and install, NAVIGON went from being the first GPS app that VoiceOver users were likely to recommend, to being unusable.
Running NAVIGON 2.0 with VoiceOver seems to need more resources than older iDevices can muster, resulting in erratic and unresponsive behavior from the app. If you have anything other than an iPhone 4S, the chances are that simply trying to get NAVIGON to respond to a double-tap will have you throwing your iDevice at the nearest wall.
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This month we are encouraging you all to support our campaign to make the SiriusXM Internet Radio app accessible to VoiceOver users.
For those of you who aren't familiar with SiriusXM, it is a subscription-based service that offers more than 140 commercial-free radio channels to listeners in the United States. There are several ways to access the service, which has dedicated channels for a wide range of interests, including music, sport, talk, entertainment, news, comedy, traffic and weather.
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If you’re looking for an iOS app to keep up-to-date with soccer scores from most of the world's professional leagues, Soccer Scores Pro - FotMob is one of the best available. It is also already very accessible with VoiceOver!
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I've just read about a new GPS app that sounds very interesting.
Called MyWay, it's been developed by the Swiss Federation for the Blind, and supposedly works like Loadstone on Nokia phones.
It is described as a GPS orientation aid which provides distance and directional information to a selected point of interest. These might include an address from your address book or a point on a self-defined route.
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Fleksy is getting better on an almost daily basis as its betas reach testers. It's pushed my bluetooth keyboard to the sidelines and while it would be better if we could bring it up in each and every application instantly instead of typing in a separate application (if Apple had allowed it), that might not be quite far-off. Syntellia has made Fleksy's SDK available to developers, meaning they can integrate it into their products. Also, the first few developers that apply for the SDK will get it free of charge.
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TapTapSee, an app which has been free since its release over a year ago, has now begun to role out a paid service. According to it’s Twitter feed and website, Users can choose from either a monthly subscription of $9.99 with no limit to the amount of images one can submit,, or they can pay $7.99 for 100 pictures. The 100 picture count does not have a time limit.
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Introduction
This post was partially inspired by This article and others like it which give general advice about seemingly less known features of an iDevice. You will also find blog entries on other tech topics scattered throughout the internet which have similar tips for pretty much any mainstream type of technology. TO add to this body of literature, I have compiled 10 useful tips for braille users of the iPod, iPhone, and iPad below.Post Date:
For quite some time, deaf-blind users of iDevices have been able to use face to face communication with the public through the notes app. This consists typically of an iDevice (iPod, iPad, or iPhone) paired with a braille display and bluetooth keyboard. The deaf-blind person can then type using the braille input keys on their display, while the sighted and hearing person types on the bluetooth keyboard. All text shows up on both the braille display and the screen of the iDevice.
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We are pleased to announce that members of the AppleVis Community have chosen Aira and Envision AI to be the next two inductees into the AppleVis iOS App Hall of Fame.
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We are pleased to announce that our Community has chosen Blind Drive and Dolphin EasyReader to be this year's inductees into the AppleVis iOS App Hall of Fame.
First opened in 2011, the AppleVis iOS App Hall of Fame showcases and acknowledges the passion and hard work that app developers put into creating great iOS apps that are fully accessible to VoiceOver users. These apps place powerful tools and inclusive experiences into the palms of our hands, and give access to services, information, media or entertainment that the sighted world typically takes for granted.
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We are pleased to announce that our Community has chosen Cash Reader: Bill Identifier and Overcast to be this year's inductees into the AppleVis iOS App Hall of Fame.
First opened in 2011, the AppleVis iOS App Hall of Fame showcases and acknowledges the passion and hard work that app developers put into creating great iOS apps that are fully accessible to VoiceOver users. These apps place powerful tools into the palms of our hands, and give access to services, information, media or entertainment that the sighted world typically takes for granted.
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We are pleased to announce that the 2018 inductees into the AppleVis iOS App Hall of Fame, as chosen by the AppleVis community, are Seeing AI and Weather Gods.
First opened in 2011, the AppleVis iOS App Hall of Fame is one of the ways in which the AppleVis community seeks to recognize developers of accessible iOS applications. Apps in the Hall of Fame can be liberating; empowering; life-changing; provide access to information that sighted users take for granted; or, in some cases, they can just be good fun!
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We are pleased to announce that the 2017 inductees into the AppleVis iOS App Hall of Fame, as chosen by the AppleVis community, are Timecrest: The Door and Nearby Explorer.
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We are pleased to announce that the 2019 inductees into the AppleVis iOS App Hall of Fame, as chosen by the AppleVis community, are Voice Dream Scanner and Microsoft Soundscape.