Domino train is a version of mexican train for the iPhone, and it is lots of fun to play  It was demoed on the most recent Screenless Switchers podcast.  It costs $0.99 on the app store, and we encourage everyone who enjoys fun and addictive games to check it out.

We’d like to thank everyone who sent in questions. If you have a question you’d like to have answered on a future show, or if you would like to let us know your thoughts on the Q&A format, feel free to drop us a note here.

We will answer as many questions as we can in the time we have. Not all questions are guaranteed to be answered, but we will keep unanswered questions on hand for future Q&A shows, and will produce more Q&A shows if our listeners find them useful.

Also, on 29/October/2011, the knights will be recording a special Q&A episode of the podcast. You can send your questions into ask at maccessibility.net, or interact with us live at 1:00 PM ET, 10:00 AM PT on Twitter using the hashtag #VOLive. Further details are forthcoming.

This functionality only works during the AppleTV setup phase. During setup, it will say, "Triple-click Play button to activate VoiceOver". Once the AppleTV is setup, this functionality is no longer available.

In general, Apple has taken an approach to Xcode which mirrors that which they employed in making GarageBand accessible. Due to the complex nature of the user interface, the app has been divided into major sections which VoiceOver calls "groups". This makes understanding and navigating the myriad of controls, settings, and features with VoiceOver a vastly improved experience.

While more workable now than in the past, the Interface Builder portion of Xcode still provides some challenges. However, thanks to recent improvements, it is now possible to construct a UI with VoiceOver, though it is still not an ideal workflow. It should be noted, though, that with the increased popularity of both Mac OS X and the iOS operating systems, more information is readily available for building UI’s via code, which may prove to be the more efficient method for some visually impaired developers.

Additionally, when used in conjunction with an iOS device such as an iPhone, iPod, or iPad running iOS 5.0, AirPlay no longer directs VoiceOver speech to the AppleTV, making it a much better experience for visually impaired users. Previously, the delay between VoiceOver actions on the device and the feedback from the AppleTV or other AirPlay enabled device made use extremely problematic.

We extend our deepest condolences to Steve’s family, friends, and colleagues.

On behalf of all of us here at Mac-cessibility, thank you, Steve Jobs, for all that you gave the world…and us.

While the vast majority of iTunes releases have worked well with VoiceOver, there have occasionally been issues. In these cases, Apple has always responded very quickly to issue a patch which includes fixes for these bugs. There continues to be a small minority of users who jump to wild conclusions, declaring that Apple is abandoning VoiceOver and the customers who rely on it. ONce again, reports of VoiceOver‘s death are greatly exaggerated.

• RoaringApps.com – A site to check the Lion compatibility of your applications
• Tunesify Lite – A Mac app for converting FLAC files to a more useful format
• Hanging with Friends Free – A Hangman game that is mostly accessible with VoiceOver

1. First, make sure Dropbox isn’t already running.  One of the first things the setup program does is to place Dropbox in to your login items.  So even if you were unsuccessful installing it in the past, the app may be running.  Go in to Activity Monitor and look at the process table.  If there are any entries for dropbox, you can remove them by selecting “quit process” from the toolbar.
2. Make sure you have the latest version of the Dropbox software in your Applications folder.  At the time of this writing, the latest version is 1.1.34.
3. In the Finder, go to your Applications folder, select Dropbox, and press VO-Shift-m From the resulting context menu, select “view package contents”.
4. A folder called Contents will appear.  Open it and select the MacOS folder.
5. From here, you’ll find a file called Dropbox, that you need to open.  This is a unix executable file, and will open in the terminal.  You can ignore this terminal window for the time being.
6. After a few seconds, the Dropbox setup will appear.  This setup dialog is self explanatory and completely accessible.  At some point during the setup, you may hear VoiceOver announce the presence of a new window.  This is an authentication dialog, where you must enter your admin password.  If focus does not shift to this window, you’ll have to use the VoiceOver window chooser to get there.

After you’ve completed the setup, Dropbox should be properly configured and working.  It’s worth noting that since you launched Dropbox from the terminal, that’s where it will be running.  So if you quit the terminal, Dropbox will quit as well.  Once you’ve done this, you can reopen it in the normal way, the way you would open any other Application.

In a recent blog post, the folks behind Inkling describe their commitment to accessibility, and how they’ve worked to make their iPad application accessible with VoiceOver, as well as improve its use for various visual impairments and other disabilities. The fruits of these efforts are available in the most recent version of the application, and the Inkling team says further improvements will be on the way.

We applaud this forward thinking app for being so forward thinking in its commitment to accessibility as well. After all, education is for everyone.