Apple To Hold Special Event on September 12

Apple announced today that it will be holding a special event on September 12. Apple is rumored to announce a new iPhone, iOS 6 release data and possibly more. iOS 6 will include many accessibility enhancements including Guided Access. The new iPhone may include a better camera, faster processor and larger screen.

Come back on September 12 to hear all the new from Apple and how it effects the world of assistive technology.

Back To School Apps

The start of school is just around the corner. Teachers, students and parents are preparing for another year. Below is a list of iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch apps that could be helpful for the upcoming school year.

Read2Go (Bookshare) - $19.99

Read2Go is the best way to access Bookshare.org books on your iOS device. Bookshare provides free accessible eBooks for people with print disabilities. Click here to learn more about Bookshare. Once you download the app you can download over 150,000 books directly to your device. The best part of Read2Go is that students can easily read books anywhere because of the portability of iOS devices. To learn how to become a member click here.

Learning Ally Audio - Free

Learning Ally (formally RFB&D) provides audio books to people with print disabilities. Members must pay a yearly fee in order to download books. To learn about how to become a member of Learning Ally click here.

Prizmo - $9.99

Prizmo converts a picture of a document into text which can be read using text-to-speech. In short from document to text to speech in just seconds. Prizmo is also the fastest and most accurate optical character recognition (OCR) app I have every tested.

iBooks - Free

iBooks is Apple's eReader app. It is simple to use and accessible using VoiceOver. With iBook Textbooks students and teachers can download select textbooks onto their iPad.

The list goes on, click read more below to view more great apps.

iTunes U - Free

iTunes U allows you to follow along with select classes from your iOS device. You can download classes from top universities and watch videos of the classes and read documents provided by the professor.

Khan Academy - Free

Great videos that walk you through many concepts from almost all subject. This app is great for homework help and learning new concepts. To learn more about Khan Academy click here.

Smart eBook Interface Makes Navigation a Breeze

A new concept eBook reader app improves navigation of eBooks on tablets. The app makes eBook navigation more like the navigation of a printed book. This concept is best for sighted users and may not work as well for  the blind and people with physical disabilities. The concept app allows the user to flip  through multiple pages quickly, find pages more quickly and more. Currently this is only a concept but may soon be coming to the App Store. While iBooks has an easy to use interface, this new concept seems to take it a step further. Click here to learn more about Smart E-Book Interface. Click "read more below" to see more images of the app in action.

   

Apple to Hold Education Focused Media Event Next Week in New York

Today, Apple sent out invitations to the media for an education focused media event to be held on Thursday, January 19 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The invitation reads, "Join us for an education announcement in the Big Apple." Rumors have suggested that the announcement will focus on iBooks, iTunes U and digital textbooks. We will find out for sure next week. Check back here as the event approaches to find out what Apple has in store for education and what it means for assistive technology.

iBooks Update Adds Useful New Features

Apple recently updated its iBooks app to add more add more features and make reading easier. One of features adds a night time reading theme to make reading in the dark easier on you eyes. The new update also add several new fonts and makes highlighting and taking notes easier. Yet another new feature allows you to read your book in full screen mode. iBooks is available here for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. 

New iBooks Read-Aloud Feature

Apple recently released an update to their iBooks app. The new version has a new feature called read aloud. At the moment the feature is only compatible with select children's books. In a compatible book there is a speaker in the top right corner. When the speaker button is pressed a menu appears with an option to read the book aloud. The read aloud feature highlights the words being read aloud so you can follow along. The voice that is used to read the text is a human voice, which is much better than a computerized voice. In all, the new feature in iBooks is great but is currently only for picture books.