Fortunately, a workaround has been posted which gives VoiceOver users the ability to install the latest version of the Flash plugin. Here are the steps:

• Download FlashPlayer version 10.1 from Adobe Systems
• Mount the disk image (.DMG) which was downloaded.
• Open the context menu on the installation application included on the disk image – "Install Adobe Flash Player.app" (VO-Shift-M)
• Select the option to "Show Package Contents".
• The contents of the app file will be displayed in a new Finder window. Navigate through the folders to Contents/Resources/
• At that location, you will find an installation package called "Adobe Flash Player.pkg". Open this package with Command-O

At this point, you can follow the normal installation steps, presented as a traditional Mac OS X installer, which is, of course, accessible.

Given the eighteen months to two years we can expect to wait for Flash accessibility, as well as the fact that, had Apple allowed Flash-based apps on the AppStore, VoiceOver users would have been subjected to far greater risks of inaccessibility when purchasing apps on their iOS devices, it is not surprising that users are taking Adobe’s assurances of a commitment to accessibility with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Thanks to John C. Welch and DaringFireball for bringing this workaround to our attention.

We will be covering the event live via this live stream, and listeners may interact with one another and with the hosts of our stream on Twitter by using the hash tag #VOLive in their tweets.

Our coverage will begin streaming shortly before the keynote begins at 10:00 AM PDT, 1:00 PM EDT. We hope to see you there!

Note: We will not be providing audio from the event itself, only announcements and discussion as we collect information from the keynote.

We hope to see you tomorrow!

There have been two transformative moments in my professional career that I associate with gaining equal access to the printed word. The first was in the mid-’90s, when, as a university researcher, my department obtained a braille embosser and access to the fledgling Internet. One afternoon, a graduate assistant who worked with me casually dropped a braille copy of the cover article from that week’s Time magazine on my desk. For the first time, I could read the same text as my sighted colleagues at the same time they did.

The second transformative moment took place Monday evening, April 5, 2010. On that night, I purchased a book from a book store, exactly as my sighted neighbors and colleagues would. I then sat in my den and read that book on the same device as my sighted counterparts.

Be sure to click (or tap) here to read the full review.

Last month, Adobe promised Flash and Flex accessibility for Mac OS X in the future, though by all accounts that is at least eighteen months away. Applications currently available for the iPhone that were developed using Adobe’s Flash to iPhone app technology are inaccessible with VoiceOver.

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

iBooks will be available for other iPhone OS devices later this summer.

We’d like to thank Shaun for taking hte time to address M.J.’s concerns, and hope that the Mac-cessibility Network can continue to encourage constructive discussions like this one.

Adobe understands how important it is for computer users with disabilities to be able to access the entire Internet. In recognition of the needs of computer users with disabilities, as well as the demands on developers who need to easily create applications and content which comply with global accessibility standards, Adobe is planning major upgrades to the accessibility support in Adobe Flash Player.

The upgrades expand on Flash Player’s existing support for accessibility via the Microsoft Active Accessibility interface (MSAA) and will enable accessibility across all three major operating systems (Windows, Mac, and Linux). The Flash Player will employ IAccessible2 from the Linux Foundation and the WAI-ARIA specification from the W3C to address user and developer needs and to ease interoperability with assistive technology vendors.

Additionally, enhancement are planned to the free and open-source Flex software developer’s kit (SDK) including improvements to complex components such as Flex datagrids and adding support for WAI-ARIA to simplify development of custom user interface components. These improvements are expected to start with the next major release of Adobe Flash Player (following Flash Player 10.1), and the first successive release of the Flex SDK.

We are cautiously optimistic that Adobe will hold to this commitment, despite the lack of accessibility in native iPhone applications built using the Flash platform, which we strongly encourage Adobe to rectify.

The real question, ultimately, will be whether or not the accessibility of Flash and Flex will be adequate, as well as whether Adobe will be as successful in encouraging developers to support accessibility as Apple has been.

We applaud this announcement. This is the first step in the right direction, but Adobe has a long road ahead of them to convince Mac and iPhone users with disabilities of their commitment to accessibility. Here’s hoping that Adobe has turned a new page in accessibility of their products.

Apple’s iBooks page describes its accessibility thus:

Unlike a paper book — or e-books on other devices — you can change iBooks on iPad to suit the way you read. Turn iPad to portrait to view a single page. Or view two pages at once by rotating to landscape. Change the text size. Even change the font. Touch and hold any word to look it up in the built-in dictionary or Wikipedia, or to search for it throughout the book and on the web. iBooks works with VoiceOver, the screen reader in iPad, so it can read you the contents of any page. Even with all these extras, reading is so natural on iPad, the technology seems to disappear.

Our readers will remember the controversy last year when the Authors’ Guild tried to block text-to-speech on Amazon’s Kindle book reader, claiming that text-to-speech was equivalent to audio book performances by human narrators.

The guild will find it much harder to argue that bizarre stance this time, as the access is being offered via VoiceOver rather than a generalized text-to-speech option. By taking this approach, Apple will be providing VOiceOver users with a streamlined experience, and putting the Authors’ Guild in a position of specifically having to oppose access for visually impaired users to their content. We do not believe the guild will want to try to take such a hostile stance.

The iBooks application will also work as a reader for free books in ePub format, whether that content was purchased from the iBooks store or not.

Once again, Apple is putting visually impaired users on equal footing with their sighted fellows.

VoiceOver was shown in the survey to have a fifty percent increase in users reporting its usage, only lagging slightly behind the Window-Eyes screen reader from GW Micro. A large percentage of users also stated that VoiceOver and other low or no cost solutions were viable alternatives to pricier third-party screen readers. Fortunately, it appears that the misconceptions about the Mac platform and the VoiceOver screen reader are becoming a thing of the past as users become better aware of their viability.

Unfortunately, however, the survey downplays the problems with accessibility of Adobe Flash content. A note included on the survey reads:

It must be noted that Flash content, like most other items listed here, can be made accessible. In fact, Flash content can have other general accessibility issues listed (e.g., ambiguous links, difficult forms, missing alt text, etc.). While treated here as a distinct item, it’s important to note that Flash is not inaccessible merely because it is present in a page, but because the Flash author has not implemented accessibility.

The above excerpt is only true for Flash content being accessed via Windows. Other operating systems, including Mac OS X, do not have any accessibility for Flash content, and to date, Adobe Systems has been unwilling to change this situation. If you haven’t already, please sign our petition to Adobe System to implement accessibility in Flash for the Mac OS X platform.

We have contacted WebAIM about the ambiguity in the above paragraph in the hopes that they will make changes to clarify that information.

Update — WebAIM has responded very quickly to our note, and has modified the Flash information to note that it is only applicable to the Windows OS. We applaud their quick response.

In the past, we have been critical of AFB’s attitudes toward Apple and the accessibility of its products. We are very happy that, in the past year or so, AFB seems to have altered its stance, and we commend them for their willingness to fairly evaluate the Mac and iPhone platforms.

Steve Sawczyn of ATMaine.com and our very own Mac-cessibility Round Table Podcast wrote a rebuttal to the original article, which the NFB agreed to publish. You can read it here.

This is certainly a step in the right direction, although we still have concerns with the NFB’s unwillingness to admit its errors in the original article, but applaud the editor for accepting Steve’s piece and publishing it in the current edition of the Braille Monitor. We sincerely hope that, in future, the NFB will take more care to offer accurate information to its readers.