• Retweet: @vmwarefusion : Fusion 50% off today, one day only. Details: http://is.gd/9Gqi Coupon code "CyberMondayDeal" # 2008/12/01
• It's Thanksgiving Day in the United States. We're thankful for Apple's commitment to accessibility in their products. # 2008/11/27
• We've added social bookmarking and "Send this to a Friend" to the Mac-cessibility Site as a trial. Let us know what you think. # 2008/11/27
• Apple released Safari 3.2.1 today. No known accessibility changes, but a good update to have nonetheless. Stability is the focus. # 2008/11/25
• News: Comparing Accessibility of the Big Three Operating System http://www.lioncourt.com/?p=247 # 2008/11/21

Apple has enhanced the iTunes store so that you can now search for movies that are closed captioned. To access the feature, select "Search…" from the Store menu in iTunes to access the Power Search, then choose "Movies" from the Power Search pop-up menu. There’s a new checkbox "Search movies that are available with Closed Captioning" under the row of edit text fields. Click the checkbox then click the Search button to view a list of all available movies from the iTunes Store with Closed Captioning. Fill in the text fields to fine-tune your search. As of this writing, there are fifty-two titles with more being added continually.

Apple released minor updates to QuickTime, iTunes, and FrontRow today. Our initial inspections have yielded no new accessibility enhancements with VoiceOver. The most notable differences in iTunes 7.6.2 appear to deal with syncing content back to iTunes from an AppleTV. If you find any accessibility enhancements we’ve missed, let us know.

As always, the updates are available through the "Software Update" option in the "Apple" menu.

iPods, QuickTime, and iTunes include support for Closed Captioning for the deaf and hearing impaired. Apple has expanded that to include AppleTV, and now offers movies from the iTunes Store which include Closed Captioning in the video file. Not all movies area available this way yet, but Apple is working with movie studios to add more as quickly as possible. So far, the list of movies is as follows:

• Abandon
• Bratz: Genie Magic
• Charlotte’s Web
• Clock Stoppers
• Domestic Disturbance
• Down to Earth
• Dragon Slayer
• Hey Arnold! The Movie
• I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead
• Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius
• Marci X
• Orange County
• Pootie Tang
• The Four Feathers
• The Ghost and the Darkness
• The Italian Job
• The Little Prince
• The Parallax View
• The Presidio
• The Shootist
• The Singing Detective

Check iTunes for more titles. Titles that include Closed Captioning are labeled with "CC".

Today, Apple released details on many new products. Here’s a brief rundown on what we know so far, and what it may or may not mean to blind or visually impaired users.

• iTunes Movie Rentals — Apple released a new version of iTunes today with support for movie rentals. Movies will begin showing up in DVD quality, complete with 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround Sound. No word yet on whether this update provides any accessibility improvements, but we’ll let you know as soon as we do.
• New AppleTV — AppleTV got a major overhaul. It no longer requires a computer to stream content, and you can buy or rent media from the iTunes store directly from the set-top box. No word on whether the AppleTV is accessible, though we are still optimistic that it may be in a future version, given that it is running a version of Mac OS X, and certainly has the horse power for speech output.
• iPhone Update — The iPhone got a huge number of improvements, and we heard once again that the SDK for developers should be available at the end of February. Once the SDK is available, third-party developers may be able to work on access solutions for blind or visually impaired users, and we are still hopeful that Apple may be working on this as well.
• MacBook Air — The MacBook Air is a new addition to the APple line of notebook computers. It provides far more power than notetakers and other portable assistive devices at a substantially cheaper price tag. The device is 0.76 inches at it’s thickest point, and an astonishing 0.16 inches at it’s thinnest. It includes WiFi, BlueTooth, USB, and much more. Since it is running Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, it includes VoiceOver, and thereby is in a great position to compete with other ultra-portable products from companies like Freedom Scientific.

As more information is available on accessibility features or issues with these products, we’ll keep you up to date.