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.
Over the last couple years, we’ve seen a welcome increase in the number of companies and independent developers making their apps accessible. Hardly a week goes by when we don’t hear about a new app being made accessible out of the box—or about a developer making a previously unusable app fully accessible.
Increasingly, these apps aren’t just from private developers, but rather from big companies with diverse user bases and many other interests. This month’s AppleVis editorial team app pick comes from this latter category.
The AppleVis Editorial Team app pick of the month for June 2014 is Twitter. In June 2014, Twitter released an update to its iOS app that, among other things, includes a dedicated accessibility section. In this section, there are several options specific to the needs of VoiceOver users, including a user-configurable Magic Tap (two-finger double tap) gesture—the first of such user-definable accessibility gestures we’ve seen.
Twitter’s Accessibility Team has done a lot over the last year to improve the user experience of the Twitter iOS app—and the Twitter website in general—and their efforts are commendable. While the current version of the Twitter iOS app still has some minor bugs, the app’s accessibility has come a long way—and we are confident that the existing minor issues will be addressed in future updates. Link to Twitter in the App Store
Our second app pick for June 2014 is Weather Radio by WDT. Besides a new feature to provide subscription-based lightning push notifications, accessibility was a major focus in their recent version 3.0 release—with the end result being that the app is now almost completely accessible. Members of our team were especially impressed by WDT’s active interest in accessibility and willingness to listen to VoiceOver user feedback, and we look forward to great updates and bug fixes to come. For those just getting started with Weather Radio, we have a podcast demonstrating the app—including the new lightning alerts feature. Link to Weather Radio by WDT in the App Store
Our final app pick of the month for June 2014 is Hangouts, the Google+ messaging app. With version 2.1.0 (released in late June 2014), Google has improved many of the accessibility issues that were present in earlier versions of the app. Link to Hangouts in the App Store
What app releases and updates were you most impressed by in June? Please do let us know in the comments!