Hello,
I have seen comments/complaints about the inaccessibility of musical equipment around the web for years. I am a blind Blues guitarist and I have been looking for a multi-effects unit for almost 25 years. Although it would be nice if the units themselves were accessible, it is not necesary. Since almost every multi-effects unit today provides a software editor that runs on MacOS, Windows, IOS, and Android it would be sufficient for these editor apps to be themselves accessible. Since Apple, Google and Microsoft have already done the "heavy lift" in terms of providing the text-to-speech engines and voices to go along with them, it is only necessary for the app developers to make use of these screen reader technologies. These editors are provided free of charge. They are only useful if you purchase the musical equipment, so they make this softwre readily available. It makes sense. But a key value of IOS is being disrupted. I remember when I played with an iPhone 8 for the first time. I took it home on Friday and by Monday you could not have pried it out of my cold dead hands. IOS accessibility was and is absolutely phenomenal! So to my question... Is there any way for Apple to reject apps on the App Store that are not screen reader accessible? I do not suggest this for all apps. Sure, that would be nice. But apps that are specifically designed to manage hardware devices would be excellent candidates. For example, the Alexa app used to manage my Echo and Dot devices would be a major disappointment. Thankfully, the app is accessible, so no problem. But I have yet to find one app from 15 different multi-effects companies that are screen-reader accessible. Line 6 is in a major announcement cycle for their Helix Stadium product which is supposed to ship this Fall (2025). They have never released an accessible editor in 10 years of the Helix product line. Us blind guys keep begging them to fix their editor apps, but They don't listen. No harm, no foulm, right? Hey Apple, what if you changed the rules and added some teeth to the app requirements? Make these developers meet your high-quality accessibility standards going forward. I wonder what Line 6 would think if their app for the Helix Stadium was rejected due to lack of screen reader support. It just occurred to me that if Apple were able to reject inaccessible apps, I'd probably be interested in adding an iPad to my environment. Thoughts?
By David Richards, 28 June, 2025
Forum
iOS and iPadOS
Comments
Hi. You may be interested…
Hi.
You may be interested to know that iOS 26 will be introducing accessibility nutrition labels to the app store. Just like privacy nutrition labels, this will, at least initially, encourage developers to stipulate which, if any, accessibility features are supported, to give us users an informed choice on whether to download the app or not, based on its accessibility. While this will be voluntary at first, there are talks it will be manditory in the coming months.
Hope you find this useful.
PS. the above information is in the public domain.
I have a thought.
That is never going to happen. Now we come to the practical possibilities.
1. Somebody figures out the protocol/interface for some hardware/editor, and writes their own.
2. Build a software-based effects rig hooked to a midi pedalboard, and possibly a midi controller with a bunch of knobs. Use the knobs controller for knobs usually on pedals, e.g. to change settings, change as needed and save presets. Map the midi pedals to presets and stomp to change as usual.
I freely admit, I don't do enough guitar to know whether this makes practical sense or not. It seems reasonable but it really depends on how various software effects work, naturally.
To be clear, I am absolutely 100% with you, the more accessible hardware the better, and there's really not much of a reason why an accessible editor shouldn't be possible, they tend to be fairly simple programs, after all. But since that doesn't seem to be happening any time soon, then I wonder what possible solutions are. Thoseare my shot.
P.S.
The software for the Enya Nova Go Sonic:
https://www.enya-music.com/collections/nova-go-sonic?srsltid=AfmBOoqC5o-eGjy4jaBL72gPN3xOcFFYuFrKfx2TZwcu2ZmzdeFtzi_d
seems initially accessible, you can change the four presets anyway between their defaults. I need to sit down with it and figure out if you can edit them and save your own. I haven't been doing much guitar lately because they need to straighten out whatever's going on with my left shoulder. So I've been focusing more on keys and other instruments like Jew's harp, various flutes, and harp and kantele, which don't really mess with it.
Here's some Youtube about the guitar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRMCh_HGrDY
I'm not suggesting this really solves anything as such, I'm just throwing something out that's at least somewhat accessible.
App ratings
Not much help but if I buy something and the app isn't accessible it gets a 1 star rating from me. I think many companies are a little obsessed by their ratings. I know it's not going to have anyone quaking in their boots but it is at least a way to flag it up. And a review explaining why of course.
App Profiles
Thank you, Christopher . No, I was not aware of this. I think the idea is fantastic! I know as I peruse the App Store that I would love a quick way to ascertain an app's accessibility. In a competitive world , this can even guide people towards accessible apps and away from those that are not. The difficulty in the musical gear space is there is no competition. If the vendor does not provide an accessible app, they prevent others creating one by refusing to provide the MIDI specs for their product. It is possible to reverse engineer the protocol for a unit if one is motivated enough, but what does that say about the vendor?