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The Braille Institute of America has launched a new iOS app that aims to make it easier for the vision-impaired to find useful apps.

Visually Impaired Apps (ViA) claims to fill the need for "a one-stop shop of useful apps that help visually impaired people stay connected and engaged with the world…

Those looking for an accessible OCR app for their iDevices may very well be in luck.  Text Detective is a new, fully accessible app that was released to the U.S. iTunes store yesterday.

According to the app's description, Text Detective will allow one to scan printed documents--and edit, email, or copy the resulting text to other apps--all in a completely accessible interface.  While the app is designed mainly for the iPhone 4S, it can run on other iOS devices as…

AFB have just announced the forthcoming release of AccessNote, their note taking app for iOS.

With many of us already using mainstream apps that offer more functionality than appears to be present in the initial release of AccessNote, it will be interesting to see where it will fit in the iOS marketplace. At $30, some might anticipate that it will sit rather uncomfortably.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on AccessNote. What do you think it will bring to the iOS platform…

Within the last couple of years, many apps have entered the market specifically for iPhone users who are blind.   They range from color identifiers, to VoiceOver-specific Facebook clients, to touch-typing apps…and everything in-between.  Some people think a higher price tag for blindness-specific apps is reasonable, others do not.  The answer, I think, lies somewhere in the middle.

As many AppleVis users have pointed out in various discussion threads,…

Over the past few weeks there has been much media speculation that Facebook will shortly be releasing a major update to its iOS app.

By all accounts, this will be a complete redesign, so it would seem timely to remind Facebook that it has a publicly stated commitment to providing a great experience…

Each month, the AppleVis Editorial Team selects an iOS or Mac app which has been submitted to the site in the previous month that we believe to be a must-download. This app can be from any category, and is chosen because our Team members think that it is the pick of all the apps posted in that month.

Making our selection for June was particularly difficult, as many new and noteworthy apps were posted to the site. However, after much discussion, we have picked…

We are pleased to announce that the latest iOS app to be inducted into our App Hall of Fame is Pandora Radio.

Pandora Radio is free personalized radio that only plays music you’ll love. Just start with the name of one of your favorite artists, songs or classical composers and Pandora will create a custom "station" that plays similar music.

Pandora has narrowly…

Fleksy is getting better on an almost daily basis as its betas reach testers. It's pushed my bluetooth keyboard to the sidelines and while it would be better if we could bring it up in each and every application instantly instead of typing in a separate application (if Apple had allowed it), that might not be quite far-off. Syntellia has made Fleksy's SDK available to developers, meaning they can integrate it into their…

We are pleased and excited to announce that David Woodbridge has agreed to join the AppleVis Editorial Team.

As you might have read, we recently posted that we were looking for an experienced Mac user to join our Team and to help develop the Mac-specific…

No big announcements yet other than the fact that so far 30 billion apps have been downloaded and that the Store has 400 million accounts but, guys, this is really terrific! WWDC attendees are now watching a video in which a blind person who lives near a jungle can find his way there using his iPhone. A developer is also talking about how his app can help the visually impaired. Yet again, this is Apple's difference with the rest of the big companies out there. Accessibility has a special…

Now that sounds a bit geographical, doesn't it? As Apple's World Wide developers Conference (WWDC) is on the horizon, Apple's App Store is down. It's to be held later today in San Francisco and many analysts believe iOS 6 will be unveiled there along with some hardware-related pieces of news and, perhaps, a couple of surprises. No one knows the very exact features of iOS 6 other than what some tend to call Google-free 3D maps and better photo-sharing. So, as you see, guessing its…

We are pleased and excited to announce that two members of the AppleVis community have very kindly offered to donate a $20 iTunes Gift Card each month for us to giveaway to one lucky user of the site.

This wonderful gesture is in recognition of what we are trying to achieve here at AppleVis, and to help us make this an even more valuable resource to the community.

To be in with a chance of winning the Gift Card, you simply need to post any of the following to the site…

We are pleased to announce that the latest iOS app to be inducted into our App Hall of Fame is Digit-Eyes Audio Scanner and Labeler.

For some time it was looking like this would be an extremely close vote, with several apps appearing to be in contention. However, Digit-Eyes ultimately won out as the firm choice of AppleVis users, gaining more than double the…

Anybody calling Amtrak's Customer Service in recent months is likely to have encountered a recorded message in which they were encouraged to use the company's iOS app.

According to this message, the app enables you to check the status and times of trains and buy tickets, meaning that there is no need to wait in a queue for your call to be answered. Or at least that is the case if you are…

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>

The list does not include games, as I feel that these would not sit comfortably on this list. The apps that are included all offer functionality and features that are not available from…