There was a special Apple event in San Francisco yesterday and Apple unveilled a bunch of updated hardware and software. There were plenty of accessibility highlights – some of which were even announced on stage by Steve Jobs which is great for the general public’s awareness of accessibility being an issue!
There’s a streaming video version of this September Special Event available from Apple’s website, or you can save bandwidth and read a transcript of MacWorld’s liveblogging of the event, written by two MacWorld reporters as they watched.
Here are the highlights in terms of accessibility:
iTunes 8 Available
iTunes 8 has been released, along with an upgraded version of QuickTime. iTunes 8 sports a “Genius” playlist creator which will find songs that go well with what you’re playing, and a new grid view to scroll through album covers, amongst other things. Accessibility aspects of iTunes 8 are many:
The Mac OS X iTunes is fully accessible on Leopard systems. This includes creating new iTunes Store accounts, purchasing full albums, accessing iTunes U, and renting movies – all of which were stumbling points previously.
Ironically, the only inaccessible feature of iTunes 8 that anybody has reported so far on the MacVisionaries mailing list is that the installation agreement that shows up when you launch iTunes for the first time is not visible to VoiceOver users! There’s an easy workaround for anybody who wants to read it – the “print” and “save” buttons are functional, so just print it as a PDF or save as an RTF file and read it before you click the “Agree” button.
iTunes 8 will install and run on systems still running the Tiger operating system (10.4.9 and above, specifically) but anecdotal reports suggest that it doesn’t appear to have the accessibility improvements that Leopard allows.
The Windows version of iTunes is now accessible to those with Window Eyes 7.0 beta 3! GW Micro announced on their public mailing list today that they had been working closely with Apple to pull this off, and it’s certainly a wonderful thing for iTunes to be accessible on Windows.
Lioncourt.com has reported that iTunes accessibility under Windows is accomplished by fully implementing MSAA (Microsoft Active Accessibility in iTunes, which means that other Windows accessibility solutions – such as the screen reader JAWS – should be able to take advantage of the accessibility features very quickly.
iPod Nano 4G Released
A new iPod Nano 4G was announced, with new features such as a larger and brighter screen which works in landscape or portrait mode. It also features accelerometers like the iPod Touch and iPhone – to shuffle music you actually shake the device!
The biggest accessibility boon is that the new iPod will have speech enabled menus for both regular headings and song information! The speech will actually be pre-generated by the user’s computer, so your iPod will use whichever system voice you have. Lioncourt.com has spoken to Mike Shebanek – head of Accessibility at Apple – about how the iPod Nano 4G speaks, for those who want more details.
The technical specifications page for the iPod Nano 4G also list an alternative large font option, and adjustable contrast and backlight on the screen which should help low vision users. The Nano will also display captions when they are present, although I’m not sure how readable captions will be on a screen that’s less than 2 inches wide.
The new Nano also has headphones which have a tiny volume controls and a button which controls pause/play, next song (double click) and previous song (triple click) as well as having a tiny microphone for voice recordings to the Nano. I suspect that adding an external switch to make these headphones properly accessible to switch users would not be an incredibly difficult thing to do – perhaps a single switch accessible iPod Remote is closer than we think?
iPod Touch/iPhone Updates
Upgrades to the iPod Touch were also announced, as well as firmware upgrades to the iPhone and existing iPod Touch devices. I don’t immediately see any accessibility implications for these though.
What did you think of the new announcements? What did I miss? Leave comments below!
- Ricky Buchanan
Great to see these sorts of accessibility accommodation’s being made on these mainstream products. My favorite is the shuffling of music by shaking the device. How simply intuitive, overlooked and effective. You have a great blog here and I am very happy I found it. Annie
Annie Keys’s most recent blog post: Find Out First, Then Invest
@Annie: It’s definitely great to see mainstream devices getting accessibility built in. I love seeing how new ways of interacting with devices have accessibility implications too – the shake=shuffle is something that many people with fine motor problems could manage, so it helps with accessibility even though it’s not designed for that specifically. The article I wrote about games on the iPod Touch/iPhone that are controlled by shaking/moving/tilting the device is similar – nobody designed those for PWD specificaly, but they sure are useful for us!
I finally managed to get into iTunes 8 after it wouldnt accept my password for ages! (though the discussions/support group on apple.com didnt have any prob with my apple ID)
How do i know which films have got captions? I thought i had seen it mentioned somewhere in one of your newsletters, how to search for captioned films – but i cant find it?
can you also download youtube clips onto the ipod nano 4G?
Thanks
Kati
@Kati: Sorry for the slow reply, I’ve been busy. Glad iTunes is working for you again!
The article covering finding captioned movies is Search for captioned movies with iTunes. If you want to find something, try the search box up in the top right of the page – just a word like “captions” would find it.
@Kati: For getting your YouTube clips onto the iPod, I suggest you use TubeTV which is a free program. Once it’s saved the videos just import them into iTunes like you do with a song and putting videos from iTunes to your iPod is the same as doing it with music.
Do I download Tube TV onto my desktop mac are onto the ipod?
My success with iTunes was shortlived although it started up when i tried to log in it seems to be having problems with my apple ID. However I’m using the same name as I do on apple discussions so I dont understand why.
I have used iTunes store before as I used to have napster on my PC could this by why the store doesnt recognise me?
I wouldn’t get an iPod until I can reliably get into the store to download films!
At the moment I’m waiting to hear whether i get the lightwriter that has text messaging before i decide whether to get just the ipod 4G or the iPhone which maybe easier for me to send text messages on than my current mobile phone with small buttons.
So I’m trying to find out how easy it will be to do the stuff I would want to do on it.
By the way this i s a great site for information on keystrokes and mac accessibility! One of my favourites to visit :O)
Kati
sorry i meant to say ‘ I havent used iTunes store before’
and the first line should read ‘do i download tube TV onto desktop OR ipod’
‘scuse the typo’s!
@Kati: Tume TV goes on your Mac. I have no idea about your iTunes password but I’m pretty sure the forum passwords/usernames are separate from the iTunes ones. I might be wrong on that though!!
Good luck with your accesibility stuff. I’m glad you like the site
Hi,
Great news that apple is introducing some assistive tech to consumer devices, speech functionality on new iPod Nano looks fantastic.
However, what Apple haven’t made any big announcements over is a slightly backwards move. I often use ‘text to speech’ assigned to a particular keystroke to read large amounts of text on the screen. But with iTunes 8, in the iTunes Store, you can no longer select any text in a store items description. So for example, its no longer possible to use text to speech to read album description, podcast description etc..
I certainly don’t think this is a deliberate move by Apple, but its a shame that they have not realised.
Anyone any ideas on how the issue could be raised?
:wq, potz1024
@Potz1024: I suggest you email accessibility@apple.com about it. They don’t always reply directly to emails, but they’ll take note of it and if it’s appropriate they’ll file a bug report with the iTunes team. Let me know if you get any reply, it’s certainly something that’s important.
Also, I think you’ve been using vi too long
:wq,
r
Still deciding which iPod to go for, not sure whether the jog dial style of the nano’s or the touchscreen of ipod touch or iphone would be best. If i got funding for the lightwriter SL40 that allows text messages so then id just have to choose between ipod classic, nano 4G or Touch.
Looking further into the future (my condition is progressive) am I right in thinking I have seen mention of a scanning program working with ipod touch or iphone?
Wouldnt the bluetooth click-to-go thingy (http://www.click2go.ie/ ) that can control mobile phone menu’s work with an ipod touch or iphone if touching screen directly was no longer an option?
What gadgets are available to help been able to touch screens or press buttons/keys for as long as possible?
Lastly I’m trying to start a support group originally designed for people with severe speech difficulties or no speech who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) such as sign language, lightwriters, prologuo on mac etc.
If any of you use Prologuo or use switch XS I would appreciate a users review (as I also cover access to computers and as a xmas special am going to do a post on accessing online gaming and video gaming/ipods).
My site is not Mac or Apple specific like this but I would be interested to hear from anyone who has adaptions to ipods, iphones, video games (which people might want to buy for xmas.)
Thanks
Kati
it didnt show the link to the site in the post!
here it is:
http://dailystrength.org/groups/more-than-words
What about accessibility for the deaf? You might want to check this link:
Apple’s Blind Spot
http://www.i711.com/my711.php?tab=2&article=301
An Apple rep spent all of his time talking about accessibility for blind users in front of deaf audience and could not even answer urgent questions related to the audience’s needs!
Apple iPhone are not hearing aid compatible:
http://www.hearingexchange.com/blogs/?p=52
FCC Enforces HAC Filing Requirement: Fines Apple $5K
http://coataccess.org/node/5482
The list goes on and on..
Shame on Apple!
If blind users have screen readers, why can’t deaf people use voice recognition installed on mac os x? That’s one of things Apple might need to think about to start with. Also, improving alert flash and make it in different colors for those who cannot hear. Just to name a few improvements for accessibility for deaf and hoh users.