AppleVis Unlimited: What's New and Noteworthy for September 2021

Welcome to the September 2021 edition of AppleVis Unlimited, our monthly newsletter which highlights what’s new and noteworthy on the AppleVis website. Below, you’ll find a selection of content posted to AppleVis by members of the community - from new app entries, to app updates, to the latest news and podcasts. For easier navigation, the major sections of this post are at heading level 3, and each individual item is at heading level 4.

New and Noteworthy App Entries

A Western Drama (iOS/iPadOS, US$13.99)

A Western Drama is an arcade audio game, without any graphics, in which you only use your ears and a pair of headphones to interact with the environment of the game.

A Western Drama is an arcade audiogame with a deep story set in the American frontier of the nineteenth century, starring two bounty hunters, the young Wade and his master Drake.

As Wade, the player will have to face caravan thieves, robbers, cutthroats, mercenaries in violent shootouts and fast duels, trying to capture the four most dangerous criminals in the West and get to the heart of Wade’s recurring nightmares.

Binaural audio allows players to live in a realistic world, without using any visual feedback. Through binaural audio, the player is immersed in a three dimensional audio world, that we have designed following the typical atmospheres of spaghetti western stories, full of characters, small outposts, dirt roads and cities.

Current Version: 1.0.3 (September 9, 2021)

Read A Western Drama’s AppleVis App Directory entry for more information 

Visit A Western Drama’s App Store page 

Dungeons & Such (iOS/iPadOS, US$2.99)

Editor’s Note: This game currently has a few accessibility issues, but has been included here as it’s extremely popular in our community and the developer is actively addressing the outstanding issues. We recommend that you read the AppleVis App Directory entry and any replies before downloading the game, so that you are aware of any current issues and workarounds.

Lurk through the dungeon, raise your level, find treasures, recruit monsters, forge your equipment, build your house, hire other players, and defeat the boss…

Simple and nostalgic dungeon RPG for iOS.

Features:

  • Super indie, 99.9% made by one guy since the first iPhone was launched ;)
  • No in-app purchase
  • Good old simple choose-your-adventure style dungeon RPG
  • Create your own unique character by customizing your strength, stamina, intelligence, and agility
  • Multiplayer feature: Hire other players asynchronously to form a party to enter the dungeon
  • Collect monsters to fight with you
  • Build your own house
  • Forge your weapons and armors to make it stronger
  • Supports Game Center leaderboards and achievements
  • Auto-save on each floor you go down, making it easy to play on the go
  • Save on free iCloud for backup data so you never lose your progress
  • Optimized user experience for one-handed use touch interface
  • Awesome reviews on replay-value
  • 100% support from the actual creator
  • Supports VoiceOver

Current Version: 7.2.2 (September 30, 2021)

Read Dungeons & Such’s AppleVis App Directory entry for more information 

Visit Dungeons & Such’s App Store page 

Lost in Blindness (iOS/iPadOS, US$4.99)

Have you ever wondered if you could play a video game, without even looking at the screen? What if you played without even seeing anything!

Lost in Blindness is more than just a game, it is a whole new gaming experience!

Play as Alex, a young blind archeologist and follow the tracks left behind by the disappearance of the Mayan civilization!

In this blind adventure game, discover an incredible 3D environment only by listening to the sounds around you, without using your eyes to see.

Explore a temple in the middle of the Amazonia and solve the puzzles that it hides. Thanks to a choice-based dialogue system, make your own decisions that will change the course of your story, to make it even more shocking!

And since adventure game should have it’s share of action and infiltration, watch your back… Because it seems that creatures and people don’t want you discovering the secrets protected by this temple!

Current Version: 1.1 (September 1, 2021)

Read Lost in Blindness’ AppleVis App Directory entry for more information 

Visit Lost in Blindness’ App Store page 

Streamlets (watchOS, US$0.99)

A standalone radio streaming watch App that plays through the watch speaker.

Leave your phone at home and browse over 26,000 radio stations from around the world to stream directly on your Apple Watch.

  • Search for Radio Stations directly on your Apple Watch
  • Stream live broadcasts over wi-fi or cellular*
  • Play live streams when you have AirPods or compatible Bluetooth headphones/speaker connected or through the Watch speaker.
  • Save your favourite stations for easier access.
  • Browse live radio streams by country or genre/tag or search by the stations name.
  • Runs in the background and integrates with the built in Workouts App.

Current Version: 1.7.1 (September 25, 2021)

Read Streamlets’ AppleVis App Directory entry for more information 

Visit Streamlets’ App Store page 

All recent app entries posted to AppleVis can be found at:

iOS/iPadOS
Mac
Apple Watch
Apple TV

Notable App Updates

battle fruit (iOS/iPadOS, US$1.99)

Based on the classic sea battle game but now with kitchen utensils and fruits, instead of bombs and ships. Original new rules, many more ways to locate your opponents’ fruits, but remember not to hit the ice cubes, or you’ll be frozen one turn.

  • Ultra-fast games thanks to the variety of utensils. Locate the fruits with the spoons, cut them with the knives, crush them with the blenders or catch whole fruits with the tongs, just plan your moves to locate all the fruits before your opponent does.
  • Play against the machine and try to get three stars on the 1000+ recipes, no internet required. Or connect with Game Center and play with your family and friends, or with random opponents.
  • NO ADS, NO REGISTER, NO DATA GATHERING. Because modern life has already enough distractions.
  • Totally accessible with VoiceOver for people with low vision or blindness.

Current Version: 1.210928 (September 26, 2021)

Changes in September

New releases with many of your great suggestions and fewer bugs, including:

  • Best scores are saved in iCloud and can be restored from settings from any device with your account.
  • Improved usability for VoiceOver users (thanks for the suggestions).
  • Settings is now inside the app.
  • Equalized effects sound volume.
  • Less crashes for VoiceOver users.

Read battle fruit’s AppleVis App Directory entry for more information 

Visit battle fruit’s App Store page 

GoodMaps Explore (iOS/iPadOS, Free)

Discover the world with GoodMaps Explore.

Accurate indoor* and outdoor† information and navigation for people who are blind or visually impaired.

  • On-demand and automatic updates about your immediate surroundings. With your device locked or unlocked, hear customizable location notifications. These notifications are a snapshot of your current location, and include: current direction, nearest room, street, points of interest (POIs), or keep track of one specific POI.
  • Customize how often you hear location information on the Configuration page. Set the frequency of notifications for direction, nearest address, nearby POIs, and more. Options include 10 seconds, 30 seconds, 60 seconds, 120 seconds, and never.
  • Save any POI and, outdoors, create your own favorited POIs. Select a favorite POI or address to quickly set it as a destination. Don’t worry about losing your favorites; favorited POIs and preferences are automatically saved.
  • Accurate indoor routing for independent travel. Follow a route to a destination in mapped indoor venues.
  • Direction-based discovery at your fingertips. Discover the POIs in the direction you point the phone. You will hear the POIs in order of proximity.
  • Before you go. Set your position outdoors to a POI and explore its surroundings. Search indoor POIs and follow routes to them virtually.

Current Version: 1.5.0 (September 30, 2021)

Changes in Version 1.5.0

  • You can now create an account in Explore. For those with proper access, this will reveal restricted buildings, rooms, and POIs which you can explore in person or virtually. New features are coming soon that require an Explore account - sign up today under the More Tab.

  • POIs and rooms can now include extra information like relevant websites, links to audio files, information about the POI, and more!

  • Some restrooms, lobbies, and atriums include an overview of the layout of the room or major landmarks in the room you may need to navigate, or to plan your journey ahead of time.

  • When interacting with an outdoor POI or indoor entity, all options buttons updated to go to the logical next page, eliminating the needs to tap “back” several times.

  • Enhancements to indoor Directions including more turning detail (next steps, sounds, haptics) and information about upcoming doors.

  • Improvements to incremental update system.

  • Improvements to map data in multiple languages.

  • Fixed crash caused by multiple indoor routes run after one another.

  • Fixed a bug where Explore would not recognize entering an Indoor Venue.

  • Security enhancements.

  • Minor bug fixes and improvements.

Read GoodMaps Explore’s AppleVis App Directory entry for more information 

Visit GoodMaps Explore’s App Store page 

Recent News and Views

The Accessibility Bugs Introduced and Resolved in iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 for Blind and Low Vision Users

By AppleVis | September 16, 2021

iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 have been released to the public. This post contains details of the VoiceOver, low vision, and braille bugs which we believe have been introduced in these releases; as well as details of the pre-existing bugs which we believe to be resolved.

As is our routine practice, each new bug has been given a severity rating; these ratings are based upon what we believe to be the implications for accessing and using features and functionality and the level of impact on the overall user experience, as well as whether or not there is an effective workaround for the issue. However, as these ratings are subjective, it is very possible that they may not reflect your own opinion or use case.

…

Serious Bugs

  • Apple Wallet will crash if you attempt to use any card, ticket, or pass other than the first one listed. As a workaround, our experience suggests that whilst on this screen you should be able to use “Move up” from the VoiceOver rotor on the desired card, ticket or pass to temporarily move it to the top of the list. Unfortunately, in our own testing, this process hasn’t always behaved as expected or been reliable.
  • The Wallet app crashes if you use the swipe gesture to navigate through cards, tickets, and passes listed on the main window of the app. As a workaround, our experience suggests that you can still explore the screen by touch and then activate the desired card.
  • The time picker used when creating or editing a scheduled Screen time downtime or app limit is not accessible with VoiceOver. Specifically, if you navigate to Settings > Screen Time > Downtime and enable “Scheduled”, the picker used to set the start and end times is not accessible, as is the picker used with setting app limits.
  • The Apple One subscription screen is not accessible with VoiceOver. Specifically, if you do not currently subscribe to Apple One and go to your Subscriptions screen through the App Store or Settings app, and then select the button to view the Apple One bundle options, the text on the page is not read by VoiceOver and most of the UI elements are either unlabelled or have meaningless labels.

Read more: “The Accessibility Bugs Introduced and Resolved in iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 for Blind and Low Vision Users”

Recap of Apple’s “California Streaming” September Event

By mehgcap | September 14, 2021

Today, as you likely know if you’re reading this, was Apple’s big September event, entitled California Streaming. For years now, Apple has used this time to announce the latest iPhones, often adding other launches to the agenda. This year was no exception. We have iPhone 13, Apple Watch Series 7, and new iPads, plus some new stuff for Apple Fitness Plus subscribers.

Yes, it’s called iPhone 13. There was speculation about what Apple would call this generation, given that some cultures consider the number 13 unlucky, but 13 is the name. Physically, this generation looks similar to iPhone 12; that is, it has straight sides instead of the curved sides that iPhone 11 used. It has an array of cameras on the back that stick out a bit, it has the usual edge-to-edge display, the back is glass, you get the idea. What changed, you ask?

Let’s get past this part first, since most of the AppleVis audience doesn’t care that much about it. The display has the same resolution as that of iPhone 12, though it is up to 28% brighter. The big change is in the refresh rate, which is how many times per second the picture on the screen can change. This number is given in Hertz, so a screen at 60 Hertz (written 60Hz) updates itself 60 times per second.

Android flagship phones have made 120Hz screens more and more commonplace in the last few years, and Apple has now caught up. Using the same Pro Motion technology found in modern iPads, iPhone 13 Pro’s display will automatically adapt its refresh rate to fit the situation. If a video you’re watching is 30 frames per second, the screen will throttle down to 30Hz; if you’re scrolling around the screen, the refresh rate will match the speed of your finger, making the display look smooth and sharp. Not to be left out, iPhone 13 (not Pro) still gets a new, brighter screen that’s easier on the battery, though it lacks Pro Motion.

Read more: “Recap of Apple’s “California Streaming” September Event”

Other Apple News

This Month in Podcasts

AppleVis Unleashed September 2021: Just Talk to It

In this month’s edition of AppleVis Unleashed, Thomas Domville, Randy Rusnak, and Mike Malarsie discuss recent Apple news and other topics of interest. Topics featured in this podcast include:

  • Recap of Apple’s “California Streaming” September Event
  • Kuo: iPhone 13 pre-orders stronger than iPhone 12, shortages of iPhone 13 Pro to persist until November
  • AppleVis Extra 83: Recapping Apple’s ‘California Streaming’ September 14, 2021 Keynote
  • Apple Releases iOS 15 and iPadOS 15; Bringing Focus Modes, Live Text, and Enhancements to Multitasking, Notifications, FaceTime, Safari, Privacy, and More
  • What’s New in iOS 15 Accessibility for Blind and DeafBlind Users
  • Exploring 50 Notable New Features and Changes in iOS 15
  • The Accessibility Bugs Introduced and Resolved in iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 for Blind and Low Vision Users
  • More

Listen to “AppleVis Unleashed September 2021: Just Talk to It”

AppleVis Extra 83: Recapping Apple’s ‘California Streaming’ September 14, 2021 Keynote

In this edition of the AppleVis Extra, Dave Nason, Alex Hall, Tyler Stephen, and Scott Davert get together to discuss Apple’s ‘California Streaming’ September 14, 2021 Keynote.

Listen to “AppleVis Extra 83: Recapping Apple’s ‘California Streaming’ September 14, 2021 Keynote”

Podcasts from Thomas Domville

Hot AppleVis Content

Here are some of our forum topics which have got people talking in the past month:

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