AppleVis

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We are thrilled to announce the launch of Club AppleVis. Club AppleVis offers members and friends of our community a means of directly contributing towards the financial costs of operating AppleVis—thus ensuring that we can continue to deliver the information, help, and support that so many people have come to value and rely on over the past 8 years.

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We are pleased to announce the launch of the AppleVis iOS App Hall of Fame, where we will be acknowledging and celebrating the apps that exemplify all that is great about owning an iDevice.

Our goal for the Hall of Fame is to showcase the passion and hard work that app developers put into creating great 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 and entertainment that the sighted world takes for granted.

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Hello everyone, The time is almost here! Within 24 hours, iOS 7 will be available to the masses, and we at the AppleVis Editorial Team are very much looking forward to the public release. As we announced on Sunday, there will be lots of podcasts, guides, and blogs available to help you quickly get up to speed with iOS 7, so please do check back on AppleVis when iOS 7 goes live tomorrow. In addition, the AppleVis Zello channel will be open from 1:00 p.m. EDT / 6:00 p.m.
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The purpose of this post is to try and answer some of the questions that VoiceOver users may have before or after they update to iOS 7.

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The Kindle app for iOS devices is not usable with VoiceOver. We believe that it is time for Amazon to stop excluding blind iOS users from their Kindle Book Store, so hope that you will support our Campaign for fair and equal access by lobbying them to make the app accessible. Not only would this be a good commercial decision for Amazon, but it is simply the 'right' thing for them to do and arguably something they have a legal requirement to do. As consumers, it would also provide us with some much-needed competition and choice when shopping for eBooks.

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For some time now I have been considering various ways to make the AppleVis site an even more useful resource. Inevitably, I end up facing the same old problems: the time demands; not having a breadth or depth of knowledge of the iOS platform, VoiceOver and iDevices; and having a writing style that doesn't lend itself to creating editorial content.

However, it’s clear that there are many users of this site who possess a wealth of knowledge and experience, so I think the time has come to invite more people to get actively involved in maintaining and creating content.

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We would like to invite everyone in the AppleVis community to join us for a virtual get-together as a way to help people connect in new ways during the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Our virtual get-together will be held via Zoom on Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 2:00 p.m. CDT/ 7:00 p.m. UTC. To join the meeting from iOS, Mac, PC, or Android, simply follow this link. You can also join the meeting by manually enterring Meeting ID 842 8555 7596 into the Zoom app.

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At the end of each month, members of 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 they think is the most noteworthy.

The AppleVis Editorial Team app picks of the month for October 2014 are as follows:

1. KNFBReader

Updated to version 1.2 (version 1.3 released 11/2/2014); October, 2014.

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I'm pleased to announce the launch of a new feature on the AppleVis site, our Campaign of the Month.

Each month we will select an app that currently has accessibility issues, and ask you all to contact its developers and encourage them to improve VoiceOver support.

To make this easy, we've created a handy little form that will do most of the work for you. The form even includes a draft message that you can either use as it is, or edit to your own liking.

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The app chosen this month for induction into our iOS App Hall of Fame is Light Detector.

Gaining double the number of votes of its nearest challenger, this would seem to be a very popular choice among the AppleVis community.

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LookTel have just released a new app that promises fast and accurate recognition of everyday items, such as cans, packages, ID or credit cards and DVDs.

LookTel Recognizer enables you to store images of objects in a library or database. You then simply point your iPhone's camera at an object and the phone will instantly recognize and describe the item. A barcode scanner is also included to provide additional labeling help.

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When browsing the AppleVis site, be sure to look out for the newly added page element that shows a list of similar content. This new feature automatically scans the content of the page that you are viewing and creates a list of posts that are similar. As an example, if you were viewing the entry for a podcast player in the App Directory, the list might contain links to other podcast apps, discussion about the app in the forum, a blog post about podcast apps, and a guide on how to use the particular app. This should make it a lot easier to find relevant information on this site.
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At the end of each month, members of 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 they think is the most noteworthy.

The AppleVis Editorial Team app picks of the month for September 2014 are as follows:

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This month we are encouraging you all to contact Starbucks and ask that they make their iOS app accessible to their many blind and low-vision customers.

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This month we are encouraging everybody to contact the developers of Words With Friends, and ask that they make this very popular game accessible to all.

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The March vote for induction into our iOS App Hall of Fame was a landmark for being the first ever where every single nominee received multiple votes. It also saw the clearest winner, with ooTunes Radio gaining significantly more votes than all the other nominees.

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In her latest song, "Shake it Off," the country/pop artist Taylor Swift wrote, "...the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate." While I am sure that Ms. Swift was not referring to some peoples’ recent comments about Apple's commitment to accessibility when she wrote the song, the basic idea behind that particular phrase still applies.

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Hello everyone, With the release of Mac OS X Mountain Lion having been announced for tomorrow, we thought the time was right to bring you some exciting news. David Woodbridge has put together a series of podcasts demonstrating the new features (including accessibility) of Mountain Lion, and these podcasts will be available tomorrow once Mountain Lion is released. So, if you're curious about Apple's next-generation operating system for the Mac, check back tomorrow!
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Groupon is one of the world's leading providers of daily deals - offering discounts of up to 90% on all the things that you love, such as fun and exciting experiences, restaurants, theaters, spas, shops and more.

Unfortunately, the latest update to its iOS app has introduced some significant issues for VoiceOver users, making browsing of deals frustrating and time consuming.

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I've just added a new page to this site that lists iOS apps developed specifically for the blind or people with low vision.

With the benefit of hindsight, this seems like something that we should have done some time ago, but they do say better late than never ... right? <smile>