Learning Ally Audio App Now Free

Learning Ally, the audio book service for people with disabilities, has reduced the cost of their iOS app to free. The app previously cost $19.99. In order to use the app you must be a Learning Ally member. Click here to download the app which is compatible with both the iPad and iPhone. The app is the easiest way to listen to Learning Ally books on your iOS device. Now that the app is free it is a no brainer for members.

Unfortunately the app is still missing key features such as background audio play back, background downloads and the ability to browse the Learning Ally catalog directly from your iOS device. When listening to an audio book you cannot follow along with an ebook because the audio book will automatically pause. Also in order to download an audio book you first must add the book to your bookshelf via a web browser. These short comings weaken the user experience, but it is still great to listen to Learning Ally books on your iOS device.  Hopefully in time the app will be updated with these and other features. To learn more about Learning Ally click here. Click read more below to view screen shots of Learning Ally Audio in action.

Eyes Free Typing With Fleksy For iPhone

Fleksy is an app for the iPhone and iPod Touch that allows visually impaired users to type without needing to see the keyboard perfectly. Users press on the screen approximately where they think the correct letter is located on the keyboard. Fleksy is designed only for people with visual impairments. To use the typing feature in the app VoiceOver must be off, and then when you want to share the text you have typed you must turn VoiceOver back on by tripple-clicking the home button.

As the above video shows the taps on the keyboard can be fairly far from the correct letter without effecting the accuracy. If there are multiple possible words based on your taps. Fleksy will allow you to choose other likely words by flicking up and down on the screen.

After each word you must flick right to tell Fleksy that you are done typing that word. After each word, Fleksy will speak the word aloud using text-to-speech. To add punctuation you can flick to the right twice and the select the correct punctuation. If you have to enter a name, you can hold down on the keyboard and the letters will be spoken as your finger touches them, then you can release your finger to type the letter. To enter numbers and symbols rotate two fingers to switch between text, numbers and symbols. When you have typed your text, tripple-click the home button to turn on VoiceOver. Turning on VoiceOver automatically brings up the sharing menu which gives you the option to copy, email, text and tweet your text. Fleksy does not replace the standard iOS keyboard. I tested the app by closing my eyes while typing and found that the type was accurate and surprisingly fast. Fleksy claims that users can type up to 25 words per minute with practice. Fleksy is definately faster than typing with VoiceOver and the standard keyboard for visually impaired users. 

Fleksy sells for $14.99 on the App Store. Click here to download the app. Click read more below to view another video about Fleksy and to view screenshots.

EnableTalk Coverts Signs Language Into Spoken Words

For the millions of deaf people communicating is a large challenge. EnableTalk is attempting to solve this problem with a pair of computerized gloves that recognizes sign language and uses text-to-speech to convert the signs to spoken language. Watch the above video to learn more. The prototype gloves link with a smart phone and use a variety of sensors to recognized the signs. An app on the users smart phone then speaks the signs using text-to-speech so people who do not know sign language can communicate with the deaf user. The gloves could end the need for a sign language user to pass notes to non-sign language user, but the non-sign language user would still need to pass notes back to the hearing impaired person. The EnableTalk seem promising and will hopefully be available to consumers in the near future. Click read more below to view a picture of the prototype gloves.

Apple Configurator: Perfect Tool for Schools With iPads

More and more schools are providing iPads to all or some of their students. Setting up dozens of iPads manually can be time consuming and monotonous. Apple's free Mac app called Apple Configurator solves this problem by allowing schools to set up multiple iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch all on once. Click here to download the app from the Mac app store. Once the you have downloaded the app you can change settings and install apps on multiple iOS devices. Apple Configurator is a time saving app for anyone that needs to set up multiple iOS devices. Click read more below to view screen shots of Apple Configurator in action.

Kurzweil 3000-Firefly for iPad Released

Today the Kurzweil 3000 firefly app was released for the iPad. Click here to download the free app. The app, firefly, is the iPad version of Kurzweil's cloud-based reader and file storage product. If you have a firefly account all of your saved documents will be available to read on the iPad as well as any Mac or PC. Watch the video above to see firefly in action. Click here to learn more about firefly.

Firefly has many useful reading features, but will not replace the full desktop version of Kurzweil. Similar to the desktop version of Kurzweil, firefly highlights words as they are read, which makes following along easier. Firefly includes high quality text-to-speech voices. Users can adjust the text-to-speech rate and highlighting options with ease. The interface is extremely clean and simple to learn. The app can read documents with images and rich text formatting. Firefly is a simple and easy way for teachers to distribute accessible instructional materials to their students with dyslexia or physical disabilities. While firefly is ideal for reading documents, it does not offer any annotation features such as highlighting, text entry, note taking or speech notes. Also, documents cannot be added to the firefly app directly from the iPad using the "open in" feature. It would be very cool if firefly offered the ability to scan documents using the iPad's camera and then read the document using optical character recognition (OCR).

The firefly iPad app is a must have for current firefly web users. If you do not have a web account you can still try out sample documents from within the app. For people who do not want to be tied to a computer all of the time the iPad app is also very useful. If you are not a current Kurzweil 3000 user but do not have firefly the new app may be a compelling reason to get a firefly web license. Click read more below to view screen shots of firefly.

Proloquo2Go 2.0 Released With Many New Features

Earlier this week Proloquo2Go 2.0 was released. To view the video on its original site click here. Proloquo2Go is one of the best augmentative alternative communication (AAC) apps for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. Some of the new features include the ability have multiple users, new text-to-speech voice and new page layout options To review a full review of Proloquo2Go click here. To download Proloquo2Go click here.

Click read more below to view screenshots of Proloquo2Go.

Apple Releases New Podcasts App

Today, Apple released a new app called Podcasts. Click here to download the free app. The app has a number of improvements including the ability to subscribe to Podcasts from your device. Podcasts are a great way for people with reading disabilities or visual impairments to keep current with the news. Click read more below to see screen shots of Podcasts in action.

iOS 6: Guided Access Accessibility Feature

Apple's upcoming iOS 6 software update for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch will include a great accessibility feature called Guided Access. Guided Access will allow teachers and parents to control their children's device usage. For example, you will be able to lock app controls such as settings. This will ensure that children will not change settings or use distracting features. This feature will benefit people with autism. Guided Access will also allow teachers to give tests on the iPad or iPhone and ensure that the students will not be able to search for the answers or exit the test app. Guided Access will allow museums to use iPads as displays without worrying about people changing to another app.

iOS 6 will be released in the fall. To learn more about iOS 6 click here.

iOS 6: Single App Mode Will Help Teachers Give Tests on the iPad

Apple's upcoming iOS 6 will include single app mode which will allow teachers to keep students from leaving a test. This way students cannot leave the test and go look up the answers online. This allow teachers securely administer tests on the iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch.

To learn more about iOS 6 click here.

Watch Apple Announce iOS 6 Accessibility Features at WWDC

Watch the video above to learn more about the new accessibility features coming to iOS 6. The video will automatically start playing at the point were Guided Access is being announced. Click here to learn more about iOS 6 accessibility.