Apple Releases IWork and ILife ‘08
— ♣On Tuesday, Apple released the latest versions of their IWork and ILife application suites.
IWork sports many new improvements to both Pages and Keynote, (the word processing and presentation apps respectively), and now also includes a new and impressive spreadsheet offering named Numbers. Initial reaction from the VoiceOver community of users has been somewhat mixed.
Pages, while far from perfect, seems to be substantially more accessible than its previous incarnation. Indeed, by hiding the various toolbars and rulers from the application’s View menu, the program becomes even more usable, and it appears to be a powerful word processing tool now available to VoiceOver users, despite its few accessibility shortfalls. More testing will be necessary to determine the full bredth of this programs potential for visually impaired users.
Numbers has more problems in terms of accessibility with VoiceOver. While it appears that many tables and other areas can be accessed, a great many of the application’s controls are not recognized. Still, it is better than expected, and it appears that only minor adjustments would need to be made to improve the way it cooperates with VoiceOver. As with Pages, further testing is required.
ILife ‘08 sports many new changes to its suite of multimedia and related software, including improvements to Garage Band. The previous version of Garage Band was usable by at large with VoiceOver, particularly when coupled with the optional physical control board IControl. Whether accessibility improvements have been made in ILife ‘08’s apps, we are unsure at this time. When we have more information, we will publish it. In the meantime, a general review of the new and impressive features in Garage Band is available in this MacWorld.com article.
If you are interested in seeing improved accessibility for these apps with VoiceOver, we strongly encourage you to contact Apple Accessibility and voice your thoughts.