I continue to work feverishly on my book, iOS Access for All. The writing is going well, but there is always more to say than I had thought. All of my initial page counts were low. As I work toward finishing the VoiceOver chapter, I’m looking ahead to the chapters about iOS apps. One will feature all of the Apple-supplied apps, and address their accessibility features and limitations. The second app chapter covers the best…
Category: Access and Disability
Kindle Accessibility: So What?
Posted in Access and Disability, General Store, and New Media and Tech
Amazon announced yesterday that its Kindle app for iOS had been updated to provide “more accessibility.” In fact, the update (with the inauspicious version number, 3.7) turns a largely inaccessible app into one that VoiceOver screen reader users can rely upon to read, navigate, and manage the contents of a Kindle library. And they did a great job, not merely making the app usable, but opening all Kindle iOS features up to VO. The fact…
Accessible Kindling
Posted in Access and Disability, General Store, and New Media and Tech
It’s an exciting day in accessible publishing. Amazon has finally released an accessible version of its Kindle app for iOS. Frankly, Kindle’s inaccessibility has made that platform easy to ignore, in the community of VoiceOver users. iBooks, Nook, and plenty of other ebook readers offer access via text-to-speech, but neither the Kindle devices, nor Amazon’s apps have done so. Where to buy books then? Anywhere but Amazon. And where to publish books about accessibility? Anywhere…
Me on the Tech Doctor Podcast
Posted in Access and Disability, Announcements, New Media and Tech, Pods and Presos, and Random Personal Nonsense
Over the weekend, I had the pleasure of being a guest on Robert Carter’s Tech Doctor Podcast. It’s a weekly show focused on technology and blindness. I’ve corresponded with Robert before. Turns out he is a listener to Shelly’s Podcast, and a fellow Texan. It was nice to finally meet him. Along with his co-host, Allison Hartley, Robert and I had a wide-ranging discussion of my career, low vision, the Macintosh/iOS, and the book I’m…
Introducing iOS Access for All
Posted in Access and Disability, and Announcements
I am very excited to announce my new book, iOS Access for All: Your Comprehensive Guide to Accessibility for iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. I feel a little strange announcing something that is not yet finished and available for you to read, but the fast pace of this social-media-driven world makes it important to begin talking about it while I’m writing it, and while I’m gathering ideas and feedback from potential readers. Here’s the “elevator…
Apple Versus Samsung, My Take
Posted in Access and Disability, Announcements, and New Media and Tech
Here is a story I wrote for Stabley Times about the latest Samsung lawsuit against Apple. This one is all about a subject that’s near and dear to my heart, the accessibility of iOS.
I’ve had the good fortune to appear on several podcasts lately, discussing iPhone accessibility. I’ve also recorded and written some stuff of my own on that topic. So I thought: why not just post all of those links in one place, for those of you considering the development of a 24/7 Shelly channel in your head? Chuck Joiner graciously invited me to join him on MacVoices for a little explainer on iPhone 3GS accessibility. It…
Random IPhone 3G S Thoughts
Posted in Access and Disability, and New Media and Tech
I’ve had lots of nice linkage since my post about iPhone 3G S accessibility. I don’t have enough new information for another proper post, but here are a couple of things I’ve been thinking about. The iPod Touch, my beloved iPhone substitute, was released, and updated to version 2.0 in conjunction with other iPod announcements, not during iPhone launches. So even if we are to see a hardware-updated iPod Touch, it will most likely be…
I’ll get right to the point: the iPhone 3G S includes several features that should make Apple’s smartphone accessible to many blind and visually impaired people for the first time. And rejoicing was heard in the land? We’ll see what we’ll see. The new phone, debuted at Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference, and due for release on June 19, includes a version of Apple’s VoiceOver, the screen reader built into Mac OS X. Since we…
Healthy and Doing Fine
Posted in Access and Disability, and Random Personal Nonsense
Birth announcements almost always end the same way. Baby is healthy and doing fine. That’s what we all hope for, right? And mostly, it’s what parents in the United States can expect to get. But seeing those words once again on a birth announcement made me wonder. What’s the best ending line for the announcement of the birth of a disabled child? Should parents be less giddy and thankful when they learn their new son…