GarageBand Now Accessible For Blind Users

By Ricky Buchanan • February 24, 2008

Somewhere within the recent updates of OS X and iLife ‘08 the accessibility of GarageBand was greatly improved. GarageBand is now almost fully accessible to VoiceOver users and others who need the accessibility API.

On the MacVisionaries list Lewis Brock reports about GarageBand:

There are one or two main areas which are not very accessible:

Pan controller not editable through voiceover.

Piano roll function. This is only really used to polish notes up or basic input.
Magic Garage Band.

There are one or two other issues including importing samples to tracks to specific track points and measures. This needs to be improved along with the above mentioned issues. This has been pointed to Apple’s iLife developers and accessibility team.

When I talked to Lewis he also explained that some of the parts of GarageBand are technically accessible but in fact take so many steps to use that they’re not practical to use, so let’s hope that gets improved soon too.

- Ricky Buchanan, ATMac

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About the Author

Ricky Buchanan

Ricky Buchanan is 33 years old and the founder and main writer for ATMac. She's bedridden with severe CFS/ME or perhaps a primary mitochondrial disorder - the doctors are not sure. When she's not working on ATMac or her other websitse she composes music, listens to audio books, does other disability advocacy, watches TV with her flatmate, and enjoys her cat.

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