It's Time for Amazon to Step Up and Make Kindle Books Accessible to Blind iOS Users

The Kindle app for iOS devices is not usable with VoiceOver. We believe that it is time for Amazon to stop excluding blind iOS users from their Kindle Book Store, so hope that you will support our Campaign for fair and equal access by lobbying them to make the app accessible. Not only would this be a good commercial decision for Amazon, but it is simply the 'right' thing for them to do and arguably something they have a legal requirement to do. As consumers, it would also provide us with some much-needed competition and choice when shopping for eBooks.

Amazon has shown with other apps, such as Audible and Amazon Mobile, that they can make apps that are accessible and easy to use with VoiceOver. In fact, the Audible app was recently inducted into our iOS App Hall of Fame, which shows just how much the community appreciates Amazon's commitment to  making Audible books accessible to all of their customers. Now, we simply want Amazon to demonstrate a similar commitment to Kindle books.

Amazon might cite technical or legal reasons why it is not possible to make Kindle books accessible with VoiceOver, but Apple's iBooks shows that this does not stand up to scrutiny. Amazon could and should ensure that Kindle books are accessible to all of their customers. They should be rather ashamed that this is not already the case. We hope that our lobbying will go some way towards convincing them that they can and will make Kindle accessible to all.

We hope that you will all spare just a few moments to support this Campaign by submitting this form. Please note that you will need to be registered and logged in. When you click 'Submit', your message will be mailed directly to Amazon.

As with all of our Campaigns, we have provided a draft message. However, do please feel free to modify this ... perhaps to say how having access to Kindle books would personally benefit you.

Thank you for your support.