Archive for September, 2008

Apple Inc. will be releasing two new varieties of earbuds for their iPod line of digital music players next month. The standard set will be priced at $29, while a higher-quality in-ear set will set you back $79. Both will include controls to play, pause, and skip through currently playing music on your iPod. Additionally, [...]

OpenOffice.org has released the release candidate for version 3.0 of the popular, powerful, multi-platform, free, and open source suite of office productivity programs. Yes, that’s a mouthful, but the suite has earned every one of those superlatives, and now it has another to add to its resume: Accessible. The team of developers at OpenOffice.org has [...]

In addition to the "VoiceOver Getting Started for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger Podcast", Apple has now released "VoiceOver Getting Started for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard Podcast". This podcast is available in the iTunes Store and is designed to introduce the use of VoiceOver to new users, though seasoned veterans may learn a thing [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

In addition to the massive accessibility improvements to iTunes 8 with VoiceOver on the Macintosh platform, GW Micro has just announced that they have been working closely with Apple to bring the Windows version of iTunes 8 to users of Window-Eyes, the most powerful screen reading solution for the PC. In a statement posted by [...]

iTunes 8, the latest version of Apple’s popular music management and music store software was released today with massive improvements to accessibility with VoiceOver. Our initial findings show that the entire iTunes Music Store appears to now be accessible through an HTML-style interface. New features, such as the "Grid View" and "Genius List" functionality appear [...]

As we type, Apple is unveiling new iPods and a new version of iTunes at a special event in San Francisco. One of the first things mentioned was built-in support for VoiceOver in the new iTunes 8, which will be available later today. How this access will differ or improve upon the access in iTunes [...]

Keith Reedy has provided two new entries to our Guides & Tutorials section. Learn how to use multiple tracks in "GarageBand with VoiceOver 2" or how to use special effects in "GarageBand with VoiceOver 3". If you haven’t already done so, start with general usage of GarageBand in "GarageBand with VoiceOver 1". Thanks again to [...]

We’re pleased to announce another entry to our Guides & Tutorials section. This time, Lioncourt.com contributor Cara Quinn describes some tricks for controlling streaming media in Safari from the keyboard, a great trick for VoiceOver users. Check it out!