iOS

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Mobile operating system for Apple devices

YouTube’s iPhone app includes closed captions

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Google has beaten Apple in the accessibility stakes by releasing its own YouTube app for the iPhone which includes a host of new features, including support for closed captions. 

The YouTube app which currently comes inbuilt in iPhones and iPads is made by Apple, and only features a tiny sample of the service’s vast video collection. The new app increases the number of videos available to mobile users and allows them to search for closed caption videos, a feature previously unavailable in the Apple version of the app. In addition to enabling closed caption search, the app also includes a 'voice search' feature, which means users can use their voice instead of typing to search.

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Video
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Digital media and technology: 
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YouTube
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Deaf/hearing impaired Digital Technology & Online Media news

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Mobile app accessibility reviews

Our Digital Media team reviews apps for their accessibility for blind and vision impaired users.

We review apps for Apple iOS devices such as the iPhone and iPad due to the accessibility features that comes inbuilt with these devices. We hope that as accessibility improves we will be able to profile and review apps for Android, Blackberry and Windows devices as well.  

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App reviews
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Inaccessibility even faster: Facebook’s latest update

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Facebook's latest app update has improved the speed of the software but has failed to increase the app's accessibility, and made performing some tasks impossible for blind users.

According to Facebook, newsfeed updates will load faster and actions such as commenting and clicking 'like' will be updated in real time. However, our testing of the updated app on an iPhone 4S shows a number of features that are still inaccessible using VoiceOver.

Some of the new accessibility barriers include:

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Digital media and technology: 
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VoiceOver
Facebook
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Blind/vision impaired Digital Technology & Online Media news

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Rival to Siri could enhance app accessibility

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A voice-activated virtual assistant tool called Nina could improve the accessibility of smartphone apps. Developed by Nuance Communications, the rival to Apple’s Siri will give users the option to use their voice to perform tasks on their phones, increasing usability for people with a disability.

This week, Nuance released the software development kit so developers can begin to integrate Nina into their apps. The virtual assistant technology can be used across both Android and Apple iOS apps.

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Digital media and technology: 
iOS
Android smartphones
iPhone
Android
Smartphones
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Blind/vision impaired Digital Technology & Online Media news

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