28 Sep 2008, Posted by Chris Kaufman in Culture, Design, Technology, 1 Comments

iPod to be Accessible to the Blind

Apple has volunteered to work with the state of Massachusetts to make iTunes 8 and the new iPod nano fully accessible, unlocking music, movies, and the free lectures and other educational material in iTunes U to blind users.

According to a report by the Associated Press, John Olivera of the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind said the state approached Apple for help in making the wealth of educational material in iTunes U available to blind students. 

Apple worked out an agreement with Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley to make iTunes fully accessible, using VoiceOver technology developed for Mac OS X Leopard to enable blind users to set up an iTunes account, access iTunes U content, purchase albums, and rent movies.

There are currently “major gaps in the online world for blind consumers” the AP story noted, but cited Coakley as saying, “Apple is the leader, they’ve become the industry standard. Other companies that compete will have to or want to do this.”

The agreement will build upon the existing accessibility features introduced in iTunes 8 to make iTunes U fully accessible by the end of the year and complete full access to remaining portions of iTunes by the end of June 2009, according to a report by Mac accessibility site Lioncourt. 

The agreement includes a three year commitment to maintaining accessibility in iTunes, and Apple also donated $250,000 to the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind. 

Prior to the agreement, Apple had made much of iTunes accessible with the release of initial VoiceOver support early last year. Apple enhanced VoiceOver and added Braille support in Mac OS X Leopard last fall. The company has also added Closed Captioning playback support in recent iPods and Apple TV and has provided support allowing iTunes content producers to add subtitles to their material. (Apple Insider)