A new feature for VoiceOver users called "Accessibility Events" was introduced in iOS 12.2 and macOS 10.14.4 without any announcement or documentation. I cannot find any info about this feature on Apple's website. Even the installed Help files say nothing about it, so far. The only information given is a short description label in the Mac Preferences and IOS settings, shown below. To the best of my knowledge, which is quite limited at this time, leaving it turned on allows webmasters and anyone else who cares to know to discover if you have VoiceOver running.
News
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Interpreting peoples’ body language—particularly facial expressions—is one of those challenges that almost all blind people face. But soon, there will be an app for that.
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Intro
Apple has just concluded its annual September media event. This year's, which it titled "By Innovation Only", gave us new iPhones, the Series 5 Apple Watch, and more details on the company's new Apple Arcade and Apple TV Plus subscription services. Innovation, though, wasn't exactly the word I first thought of when I considered how to sum up the announcements. Don't get me wrong: the new iPhones have some great new features, and it will be interesting to see where the new subscription services go.
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With the public release of iOS 8 now just two days away, we wanted to let you all know that we have lots of information and resources ready to share with you as soon as Apple makes its new version of iOS available for download.
This will include a number of Blog posts and Guides with information on what you will find in iOS 8, along with podcast demonstrations of some new and changed features.
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With the public release of iOS 7 now just a few days away, we wanted to let you all know that we have lots of information and resources ready to share on the AppleVis website as soon as Apple makes its new version of iOS available for download.
This includes a number of Blog posts and Guides which will provide information on what you will find in iOS 7, along with many podcast demonstrations of new and changed features.
Some of our Editorial Team have been involved in beta testing of iOS 7, so have been able to compile a list of existi
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The national Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) has submitted their app, called BARD Mobile, for approval to the Apple App Store. Neil Bernstein, who works for NLS, estimated that it could take 1 or 2 more weeks for the app to be approved which would get it in to the hands of NLS patrons. The app, as indicated previously, will support the reading of braille files through the Web Braille service when using braille displays. it will also support the playback of the encrypted audio files on iDevices.
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Update 19 May, 2016: Facebook has today announced that automatic alt text is now available globally in English.
*** Facebook has today officially launched it’s much anticipated tool for automatically generating descriptions of photos posted to its site.
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10.10.2 Update
The latest update to Yosemite, 10.10.2, is now live. It claims to fix wifi bugs and other assorted problems, including VoiceOver. With the exception of the two bugs encountered when typing in edit fields on webpages and the inability to play audio iMessages, I have to say that I've found nothing new or fixed in terms of VoiceOver, as much as I hate to write that. See the list of bugs at the bottom of this post. There is a note next to some of them, indicating if it is fixed or could not be tested/reproduced.
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An incredible bit of news just hit the wire today--so huge that we wanted to let you know about it ASAP.
The incredible folks that created the biggest innovation to come to touch-typing for the visually impaired community--Fleksy - Happy Typing--released a statement today announcing that the app is now FREE.
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An interesting and surprising piece of news today is that Fleksy has been acquired by Pinterest. What’s perhaps most interesting for the vision impaired, is that this may have positive consequences for those of us who remember just how revolutionary Fleksy once promised to be.
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A few months ago, the community of blind and visually impaired iOS users was thrown into an uproar when Fleksy split their apps into a new, updated version that was not Voiceover friendly, and an older version that was. Hundreds of comments, tweets, emails, and boos were posted, with some saying Fleksy was abandoning the blind community that helped it get off the ground by purchasing its original app, and others urging patience as Fleksy went through a transition and promised to reunite the two apps into one within six months.
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This post is a follow up to my post from December, Braille Display Users Deserve Better From Blindfold Games. In this post, I acknowledged the efforts of Marty for speech users, but pointed out the lack of accessibility for braille display users. While the use of a display is a luxury for some, for the deaf-blind this is not the case, as a display must be relied upon for access to information on a mobile device.
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It feels like losing an old friend. Or perhaps losing one's love of life. But American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language was my friend in the world of iOS apps and my love in the world of dictionaries. So going to bed one night with an awesome dictionary which ticks all check boxes in terms of accessibility and getting up the next morning, hearing about the app's takeover by a new developer, re-paying for and downloading it, and finding it an absolute mess in terms of accessibility is nothing but a huge blow to one's morale. And the story doesn't even end there...
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With the announcement of Apple’s brand new iPhone X the blind and vision impaired community has been buzzing about one of the biggest changes to the iPhone, the removal of the Home button and the addition of Face ID. We have grown very comfortable with our familiar Home button. After all, it’s been a very consistent part of our smart phone that we use probably dozens of times a day to perform a variety of tasks since the iPhone 3GS. Change is scary and sometimes, especially when it comes to technology it can be far too easy to assume that we will be left out.
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GoodReader, reportedly the world’s top-selling PDF file management, viewing, and annotation app for iPhone and iPad, has recently released an update which adds VoiceOver compatibility.
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When I spent a few hours with the Apple watch on April 8th 2015, I jotted down notes about the Apple watch’s physical description, general overall points, low vision and speech features, hearing, and Siri.
Some Initial Points
In a recent podcast of mine looking at the click wheel on the iPod nano 4/5th generations, and the touch screen access on the iPod nano 6/7th generations, VoiceOver access on the Apple watch has far exceeded my expectations.
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Today, Apple began selling the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in stores around the world. And, unlike past iPhone releases, consumers now have two devices from which to choose.
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Apple's HomePod and HomePod mini smart speakers can now recognize the sound of smoke and carbon monoxide alarms and send a notification alert to your iPhone or iPad.
The feature, known as Sound Recognition, was first announced in January 2023, alongside the launch of the second-generation HomePod. However, it required the revamped HomeKit architecture, which was released in November 2022 but then pulled in December. Following the release of macOS Ventura 13.3 and iOS 16.4, the new HomeKit architecture is available again, and Apple has enabled the Sound Recognition feature.
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Update 2 February: Although not specifically mentioned in the release notes, it’s great to see that version 3.0.1 addresses many of the issues mentioned in the original post below. For example, the Share button is now accessible and you can add topics of interest to your custom feed (although you currently need to use a combination of the 3-finger swipe up/down and exploring by touch to access all available topics, as swiping is not reliable).
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Google recently announced that it will shutdown its popular RSS aggregation service, Google Reader, on July 1. If the tech pundits are to be believed, the early frontrunner to be many people's replacement RSS service is Feedly.