We are pleased to announce the winners of the seventh annual AppleVis Golden Apple Awards.
Since their launch in 2012, the AppleVis Golden Apple Awards have afforded blind and low vision users of Apple products the opportunity to recognize and acknowledge the hard work and dedication which developers have put into making and maintaining great and accessible applications over the given year. The response of past nominees and winners to this recognition from blind and low vision users shows how winning an AppleVis Golden Apple has become a tremendous honor.
Voting for the 2018 AppleVis Golden Apple Awards was held between December 8 and December 14, 2018. Voting was open to all blind and low vision users who are not employed by any of the shortlisted companies.
We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all the developers who were shortlisted for an award. Without exception, all of the shortlisted apps were worthy nominees - as demonstrated by the significant number of votes each received. All of the developers showed a strong commitment to improving the lives of blind and low vision users in 2018, and our appreciation for their efforts cannot be overstated.
Below are the winners of the AppleVis Golden Apple Awards of 2018:
Best App: Weather Gods
This weather app for iOS takes a unique approach to presenting weather information, and VoiceOver accessibility is a major consideration of the app's design with its developer constantly engaging with blind and low vision users to seek feedback and suggestions on how to enhance the user experience.
From the App Store:
Meet the Gods: Fire, Ice, Water, Air & Moon delivering you the Weather as you have never experienced it before. Weather Gods redefines the weather app with painstakingly crafted data visualizations, procedural graphics and audio that enable you to literally see, hear and feel the weather. With no more weather icons to decode, the Weather Gods is simply the quickest, most engaging, most enjoyable way to get the accurate weather information you need.
The Weather Gods skillfully integrates premium weather data into an elegant, iOS Exclusive, easy-to-use interface that will delight casual users and weather enthusiasts alike.
With a wealth of rich weather data from the worldās most respected providers, the Weather Gods provide detailed site-based forecasts for over a million locations worldwide. Our advanced, next-generation notifications are easy to setup and bring you exactly the information you want right when you need it.
With 24 hour charts, observed weather, built in moon phase, widget, world clock and much, much more, the Weather Gods is a powerful personal time machine that lets you travel the world and visit the future. Please come join us on this exciting journey as we begin our mission to bring you the finest, most practical, most enjoyable weather app experience ever. We canāt wait to hear what you think!
Read the AppleVis iOS App Directory entry for Weather Gods
Best Game: FEER
Designed with VoiceOver users in mind, FEER is the first endless runner for iOS that enables vision impaired and sighted gamers to compete equally.
The developer of FEER is another who has proactively engaged with the AppleVis community in an effort to optimize the user experience and gameplay for VoiceOver users.
From the App Store:
Dense fog will make it hard to see the Zombies. Slide underneath the Ravens and jump over the Zombies, trying to grasp your feet. But save the fairies or you will run blind and have to run in the dark. Only those with the best ears survive in this dark world and can save the fairiesā light.
Use the Weapon to shoot the Zombies into pieces. Take the Boost to travel fast forward in high speed. Collect twice the lights with the Light Doubler or use the Shield to protect you from your enemies.
Post your score to the global Leader board or share it via social media. Invite and add friends to your personal list for group competitions.
Read the AppleVis iOS App Directory entry for FEER
Best Assistive App: Seeing AI; Developer of the Year: Microsoft
Beginning life as a research project to explore ways in which artificial intelligence (AI) could be used to enhance the lives of people who are blind or visually impaired, Seeing AI harnesses the power of AI to describe text, objects and people.
Since its launch in 2017, the tools offered by Seeing AI have evolved and expanded - enabling many blind and low vision users to replace a number of standalone apps with this single app capable of performing multiple tasks.
If there is a āmust haveā iOS app for blind or low vision users, Seeing AI claims that title for 2018. This has also earned Seeing AI the award as the AppleVis community's Best Assistive App, and Microsoft the award for Developer of the Year.
From the App Store:
Seeing AI is a free app that narrates the world around you. Designed for the blind and low vision community, this ongoing research project harnesses the power of AI to open up the visual world and describe nearby people, text and objects.
Optimized for use with VoiceOver, the app enables you to recognize:
- Short Text - Speaks text as soon as it appears in front of the camera.
- Documents - Provides audio guidance to capture a printed page, and recognizes the text, along with its original formatting.
- Products - Scans barcodes, using audio beeps to guide you; hear the name, and package information when available. (works with iPhone 6 and later)
- People - Saves peopleās faces so you can recognize them, and get an estimate of their age, gender, and emotions.
- Scenes (early preview) - Hear an overall description of the scene captured.
- Currency - Recognizes currency notes. (Requires iOS 11)
- Color - Identifies color.
- Handwriting - Reads handwritten text like in greeting cards
- Light - Generates an audible tone corresponding to the brightness in the surroundings.
- Images in other apps - Just tap āShareā and āRecognize with Seeing AIā to describe images from Mail, Photos, Twitter, and more.
- Photo browsing experience - Describes photos on your phone
Seeing AI is built to help you achieve more by leveraging the power of the cloud and artificial intelligence. As the research progresses, more channels may be added.
Read the AppleVis iOS App Directory entry for Seeing AI
We would like to extend our congratulations to the winners of the 2018 AppleVis Golden Apple Awards. We wish everyone a happy and safe holiday season and a prosperous 2019.
The complete list of all apps and developers shortlisted for the 2018 AppleVis Golden Apple Awards is available here.
Comments
Congrats
I've used most of these apps, and can and will honestly say that these awards are well deserved. Congrats to all winners, and happy holidays to everyone.