Apple

Apple has today released tvOS 17, bringing several new features, including FaceTime support, an updated Control Center, and improvements to Apple Fitness+.

For VoiceOver users, the Eloquence speech synthesizer is now available.

When Apple announced the iPhone 5, I told myself I wouldn’t do it—that I wouldn’t buy one.

And yet, there I found myself walking out of my local AT&T Store on launch day, a 64 GB iPhone 5 in my pocket.

Well, had it not been for the unusability of many Reference apps, I'd have mentioned this first. Any decent and feature-rich screen reader should provide a pronunciation editor. All TTS engines have their own pronunciation problems or quirks and VoiceOver's TTS engine (called Nuance Vocalizer) is no exception to the rule.

First and foremost, I admit that I love the double-tap approach Apple has implemented in VoiceOver. However, as one becomes more and more familiar with certain apps, it would be quicker to locate a button or link and then activate it via a single tap instead of two. Imagine being able to flick around left or right to find something and then tap once to activate it.

After my first and second posts concerning VoiceOver new features, it's time to mention one more feature.

As I’m gradually adding apps to my iPhone 4S and enjoying the extensive features and gestures provided by VoiceOver, I thought I’d add my desired features which might be considered by Apple for inclusion in future releases of iOS. Of course, I use the phrase “iOS 6” here and in the rest of posts dedicated to this topic because it seems the most logical release of the OS which can accommodate my features; however, there would be nothing wrong with implementing one or more of them in, say, iOS 5.2.

On April 29, 2005, Apple Inc. introduced Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. Included in Mac OS X Tiger's list of features was the VoiceOver screen reader. VoiceOver was not Apple's first foray into assistive technology: Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar introduced Universal Access which provided customizations to the operating system for those with visual, hearing, and physical disabilities. In fact, Mac OS X Universal Access was influenced by similar technologies which were bundled with the classic Mac OS (Mac OS 9 and earlier).

Apple has today released watchOS 10, bringing an overhauled Watch interface with a focus on widgets to get you access to more information at a glance. There are also redesigns to many apps, updated watch faces, new workout features, and more.

For VoiceOver users, Apple has made additional improvements with voices in watchOS 10. The Eloquence speech synthesizer is now available, and voices are now more responsive and can also be customized in the Watch app on iPhone in addition to on the Watch itself.

How Will Apple Finish Out 2015?

With Apple's annual Worldwide Developer's Conference now just days away, a lot of people are wondering what new shinies we'll see. Will there be a new Apple TV? Yet another update to some Mac or other? A better iPad Mini? What will iOS 9 and OS X 10.11 bring to the table? Will Apple continue its headlong rush into dazzling new features at the expense of quality, or will it slow down and start refining what it has already done?

As many of you will know from personal experience, there is a longstanding issue with VoiceOver on Mac where Safari may become unresponsive with VoiceOver repeatedly announcing the message “Safari not responding.” When this issue occurs, the user's Mac may become unusable for up to several minutes at a time. Sometimes it can be resolved by switching away from Safari. Sometimes restarting VoiceOver can resolve the issue.

With the public release of iOS 9 now just three days away, we wanted to let you all know that we plan to have lots of information and resources ready to share with you as soon as Apple makes its new version of iOS available for download.

Our coverage will include a number of Blog posts with information on what you will find in iOS 9, along with podcast demonstrations of some new and changed features.

We are pleased and excited to be opening the doors today on a completely new area on AppleVis, one that we hope will help to keep you up-to-date on the current status of accessibility on iOS and OS X.

As AppleVis has grown and evolved over the past 5 years, we’re aware that it’s become increasingly more difficult to keep track of what accessibility-related problems have been reported and discussed on here.

So, to make this easier, we are pleased to announce the launch of The AppleVis Accessibility Bug Database.