A lot has changed since the introduction of VoiceOver. Here are some highlights:

• The creation of the Mac Visionaries community of visually impaired Mac users
• The birth of the Screenless Switchers podcast
• The introduction of Mac-cessibility
• The release of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard with VoiceOver enhancements
• iTunes introduces Closed Captioning in movie downloads
• NFB publishes their first flawed review of VoiceOver in Leopard
• Apple presents at CSUN
• Apple’s access efforts gains mainstream attention on MacWorld
• Apple extends its educational discount to students of Hadley School for the Blind
• AFB erroneously claims users can’t sync music with iTunes and VoiceOver
• OpenOffice gains Mac accessibility
• Full VoiceOver support is announced for iTunes
• iPod nanos gain speaking menus for accessibility
• Apple teams up with GW Micro to improve accessibility of iTunes in Windows
• Apple launches official accessibility site
• Apple and NFB reach agreement on iTunes access
• AccessWorld publishes a more accurate review of VoiceOver
• iWork becomes accessible
• The Mac-cessibility Round Table podcast is launched
• Apple announces and releases the iPhone 3GS with VoiceOver
• The VIPhone community is born
• NFB publishes a highly inaccurate review of VoiceOver, prompting community responses
• The Mac-cessibility Network is launched
• Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard is released with huge improvements to VOiceOver
• iPhone OS 3.1 is released with enhanced access
• Assistiveware releases Proloquo2Go for the iPhone
• Digidesign demonstrates upcoming access to ProTools
• The NFB publishes a more accurate look at VoiceOver
• Apple unveils the iPad, which includes the same access features as the iPhone
• iBooks to include VoiceOver accessibility
• iPad is released with spectacular accessibility

The iPad runs an expanded version of the iPhone OS, and therefore includes the VoiceOver screen reader, according to its product page. It looks similar to a large iPhone or iPod touch, but with a 9.7-inch multi-touch display.

The device offers much of the power of both an iPhone and a tradition notebook computer, using the same multi-touch technology which has made the former such a runaway hit among sighted and visually impaired consumers alike. While it can be used for web browsing, email, music, video, and all the other functionality one has come to expect from an iPhone, Apple will also be offering a multi-touch version of its iWork suite via the iTunes AppStore, as well as a new store and application called iBooks, which allows users to purchase and read electronic books from leading and independent publishers.

At this time, aside from the VoiceOver, Zoom, closed-captioning, white-on-black, and mono-audio features also found on the iPhone and Mac product lines, we are not sure about specifics in terms of accessibility. iWork for the Mac is almost entirely accessible, and Apple has made it a point to have good access to its AppStore offerings. We expect iWork for the iPad to be accessible, but this is not confirmed.

To date, electronic book stores, such as Amazon’s Kindle store, have not provided books in an accessible format, owing to DRM restrictions. We hope Apple may be able to pave the way for the visually impaired and their access to content with the iBooks application and store. If VoiceOver does indeed have access to the content in these publications, it would be a tremendous step forward for access to printed media.

The iPad comes in 16, 32, and 64 GB configurations, priced at $499 USD, $599 USD, and $699 USD, respectively.

The device includes 802.11N Wi-Fi, BlueTooth 2.1, and a 30-pin iPod dock connector. Additionally, an optional hardware keyboard and dock is available if you would prefer a hardware keyboard for extensive typing.

Optional 3G connectivity is available for an additional $130, and, in the USA at least, will be available via AT&T without a contract. Prices are $14.99 USD for 250MB of data and $29.99 for unlimited data.

The iPad will be available in late March, with 3G capable units to follow a month later.

We will be continuing to cover this latest products in the Apple lineup as information becomes available, and in an upcoming episode of the Mac-cessibility Round Table Podcast.

"Snow Leopard builds on our most successful operating system ever and we’re happy to get it to users earlier than expected," said Bertrand Serlet, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. "For just $29, Leopard users get a smooth upgrade to the world’s most advanced operating system and the only system with built in Exchange support."

In Snow Leopard, Apple has refined 90 percent of the more than 1,000 projects that make up Mac OS X. Some of these refinements include a more responsive Finder, Mail that loads messages up to twice as fast, Time Machine with an up to 80 percent faster initial backup, a Dock with Expose integration, QuickTime X with a redesigned player that allows users to easily view, record, trim and share video, and a 64-bit version of Safari that is up to 50 percent faster and resistant to crashes caused by plug-ins. Snow Leopard is half the size of the previous version and frees up to 7GB of drive space once installed.

VoiceOver users will find a substantial upgrade to the Mac OS X’s built-in screen reading solution, as detailed on Apple’s Accessibility page for Snow Leopard. Among VoiceOver‘s new capabilities are VoiceOver‘s new gesture-based navigation with multi-touch trackpads, similar to the iPhone’s VoiceOver controls, as well as enhanced web browsing features. Details of other refinements and capabilities for a range of Mac OS X’s Universal Access features can be found there as well.

Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard will be available as an upgrade to Mac OS X version 10.5 Leopard users on August 28 at Apple’s retail stores and through Apple Authorized Resellers, and online pre-orders can be made via Apple’s online store starting today. The Snow Leopard single user license will be available for a suggested retail price of $29 (US) and the Snow Leopard Family Pack, a single household, five-user license, will be available for a suggested price of $49 (US). Additionally, the Mac Box Set includes Mac OS X Snow Leopard, iLife ’09 and iWork ’09 and will be available for a suggested price of $169 (US) and a Family Pack is available for a suggested price of $229 (US).

Users who bought a qualifying Mac after June 8th 2009 are eligible for the Mac Up-to-Date program, and can upgrade to Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard for $9.95 (US).

The Mac-cessibility Podcast has been reborn as a round table discussion show, dealing with all things related to accessibility of Apple products. The show is planned to have a new episode once a month, starting with this week’s episode entitled "Reboot".

Topics covered:

• Introduce this month’s panelists, including Holly Anderson, Darcy Burnard, Cara Quinn, Steve Sawczyn, and Josh de Lioncourt.
• iPod Shuffle 3G, its multi-lingual support, and the possibility of more TTS languages coming in VoiceOver.
• iTunes 8.1 accessibility changes.
• iPhone software 3.0. Is accessibility coming? Are we getting closer?
• The Author’s GUild’s objection to text-to-speech in Amazon’s Kindle 2. What does that mean for TTS in other portable devices like iPods or a possible future accessible iPhone?
• Safari 4.0 public beta accessibility changes.
• General discussion of the state of accessibility on the Mac platform. How is the Mac perceived by non-Mac users of the visually impaired community? Is the perception improving? What myths are still persisting? Has Apple’s participation at CSUN helped?

Other resources and show notes:

• You can contact the Author’s Guild regarding their stance on text-to-speech on Amazon’s Kindle 2 from this page.
• Holly’s pick – Checkbook Pro from Splasm.com
• Darcy’s pick – Carbon Copy Cloner from Bombich.com
• Josh’s pick – www.GoodReads.com
• Cara’s pick – SyncMate from Eltima.com
• Steve’s pick – The Unarchiver

The new iWork ’09, which Apple released today, sports a slew of new features, but the most impressive to VoiceOver users will be its accessibility.

Apple’s come through for visually impaired users once again. This powerful productivity suite has been beautifully set up to work well with VoiceOver. Pages, Numbers, and Keynote all work well. Users can even choose from the various templates included with the products, each of which is labelled with helpful descriptions.

We believe that there will be a learning curve for those used to creating documents, spreadsheets, and presentations in Windows with Microsoft Office, but at this time, it appears that iWork ’09 is fully accessible.

Once again, we’d like to thank Apple for their commitment to accessibility.

Today, Apple announced updates to their iWork and iLife application suites. The new features are certainly impressive, and incremental, but we are uncertain at this time whether or not any accessibility enhancements are part of these updates.

Additionally, iWork.com became a public beta today. This suite of browser-based applications allows users to collaborate on iWork files over the Internet, and appears to be relatively accessible.

We will update further when we know more on the accessibility of these products.

We contacted Apple Accessibility about the access issues with IWork and ILife ’08. The response was brief but encouraging. Apple points out the dramatic improvements in accessibility with the IWork ’08 suite in particular, but is aware of the problems and is working to improve access in these products. Garage Band accessibility, according to them, is comparable to that in the previous version. We will report more when we have it.