Slau had a chance to visit Digidesign in San Francisco, and got to experience first hand the tremendous progress being made toward ProTools accessibility with VoiceOver. We discuss his experiences with Digidesign, the developer behind ProTools access, the progress being made, and what we can expect from ProTools in the future.

Our product picks:

• Steve’s pick – BoxCar
• Darcy’s picks – Moxie and AirFoil Speakers Touch
• Cara’s picks – iFitness and Final Excuse Pro
• Eric’s picks – Binaural Beats and Apple In-Ear headphones
• Holly’s pick – ooTunes
• Josh’s pick – Frotz for iPHone

Show notes:

• The Mac-cessibility Network
• MobileMe
• Steve’s pick – Mail2Web.com
• Josh’s picks – The Bean word processor for Mac OS X and MobileMe iDisk for iPhone
• Cara’s picks – I-Map-U for iPhone and Shazam
• Holly’s pick – Gmail
• Darcy’s pick – JoinTogether for Mac

Show notes:

• List of VoiceOver Compatible iPhone Applications
• Josh’s picks – Tweetaro for iPhone and subscription-based iCal calendar’s (for Mac or iPhone)
• Cara’s picks – EarthComber for iPhone and Solona.net
• Darcy’s pick – Pogo Plug
• Holly’s pick – Bose On-Ear Headphones

This episode features knights Holly Anderson, Darcy Burnard, Josh de Lioncourt, Cara Quinn, Steve Sawczyn, and Eric Troup.

It’s time for this month’s edition of the Mac-cessibility Round Table Podcast. This month’s episode is #3, entitled "A Visit From Steve-Megatron".

Topics covered:

• Introduce this month’s panelists, including Holly Anderson, Darcy Burnard, Steve Sawczyn, Eric Troup, and Josh de Lioncourt.
• Mac OS X 10.5.7 accessibility changes-"OMG!"
• MacSpeech Dictate.
• The upcoming World Wide Developer’s Conference and possible accessibility announcements
• The rumored Appled ultra-portable
• Rumors of text-to-speech and speech recognition in iPhone 3.0

Other resources and show notes:

• Steve’s picks – Jack OS X, Apple Earphones with microphone and remote, and the SendSpace.com Wizard for Mac
• Eric’s pick – Audio Book Builder
• Darcy’s pick – Solona.net
• Holly’s pick – SlingBox
• Josh’s pick – SmallDVD
• Josh’s new band and music EP – Stage 19, available on iTunes and Amazon MP3. Includes the Mac-cessibility Round Table Podcast theme song.

It’s time for this month’s edition of the Mac-cessibility Round Table Podcast. This month’s episode is #2, entitled "Sedated". Josh de Lioncourt’s sound quality is not quite on par this time, for which we apologize. He was travelling and away from his usual equipment.

Topics covered:

• Introduce this month’s panelists, including Holly Anderson, Darcy Burnard, Cara Quinn, Eric Troup, and Josh de Lioncourt.
• Accessibility of third-party products, and the response from developers to Apple’s approach to access.
• Front Row and what it offers the visually impaired in comparison to other home entertainment products.
• DRM-free music and variable pricing has come to iTunes.
• The new "Get a Mac" ads.

Other resources and show notes:

• Holly’s pick – Apple Airport Express
• Darcy’s pick – Understudy for Front Row
• Josh’s pick – Zoom for Mac
• Cara’s pick – Audacity
• Eric’s pick – VMWare Fusion

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

We are proud to introduce the Mac-cessibility Podcast, a companion to Lioncourt.com to bring you the latest news, commentary, and more from the world of accessibility of Apple products. In our first episode, we discuss the latest access news, discuss Net4Mac.com’s lack of accessibility, hear from a brand-new switcher in the SwitchBox segment, and more.

You can subscribe to the podcast feed by copying and pasting the following URL into iTunes or your podcast catcher of choice. We are not yet listed in the iTunes Music Store but hope to be soon.

Podcast feed: http://www.lioncourt.com/podcast/mac-cessibility.xml