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• It's Thanksgiving Day in the United States. We're thankful for Apple's commitment to accessibility in their products. # 2008/11/27

Tonight, Apple has launched a brand-new web site devoted to accessibility in their products. The site replaces and supersedes their old accessibility page with a site with extensive information on VoiceOver and the rest of access features through Mac OS X, iPods, and so on.

The new site can be found at www.Apple.com/accessibility

As we reported earlier, Apple teamed up with GW Micro to make iTunes 8 accessible with Window-Eyes 7. This was accomplished by fully implementing MSAA (Microsoft Active Accessibility) in the iTunes software. What that means, ultimately, is that other screen readers can also take advantage of the new accessibility features in iTunes 8 if they so choose.

It is clear that Apple’s commitment to accessibility extends far beyond their operating system. They have gone far beyond the efforts of other high-profile technology manufacturers, and we are delighted to be able to report on these efforts.

Lioncourt.com just spent a few minutes speaking with Apple’s Mike Shebanek about the new accessibility features announced in Apple’s products today. We’ve learned a bit about how the iPod Nano 4G’s speaking menus work.

Understandably, a device as small and compact as the iPod Nano hardly has the processing power to generate text-to-speech (TTS) on the fly…at least, not speech that would be up to Apple’s standards. Instead, Apple has come up with a unique way to offer speech on the iPod Nano’s menus.

Enter iTunes 8.

iTunes 8 is now fully accessible for both visually impaired Mac and Windows users. When paired with an iPod Nano 4G, iTunes taps into your Mac or PC’s processing power to generate tiny audio files for the various menus, artists, album, song titles, in your library. When you sync, that information is sent to your iPod Nano 4G.

The software uses the system voice settings in either Mac or Windows. The great thing about this is you will be able to purchase third-party voices, such as the Infovox iVox family of voices offered by Assistiveware, and use them on your iPod Nano 4G, including voices for foreign languages. Of course, most people will be very happy with Alex, the built-in TTS voice included in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.

Any changes to rate, volume, etc of your system voice will be respected and reflected on your iPod Nano 4G.

While the majority of features on the iPod Nano 4G are working with speech, there are some exceptions. Some games will not work, and the clock is not currently implemented. Mr. Shebanek stressed the fact that Apple wanted to get these features out to the visually impaired community now. They will move forward to perfect the system and listen to user feedback.

Another amazing piece of news from Apple today where regards accessibility for the blind and visually impaired is that the new model of iPod Nanos will have speaking menus. Arstechnica is reporting that the new Nanos will offer speech for all menu items and song info lists on the device.

Apple has shown unprecedented commitment to the visually impaired community today. On behalf of all of us at Lioncourt.com, we thank you Apple for your dedication to the blind.