The MacOS Voice Over App And The Visually Impaired

VoiceOver is Apple Software for the visually impaired and comes built-in every iDevice you own. It takes the concept a little further than what Microsoft did with Ease of Access and the Microsoft Narrator. But of course it does, it´s Apple, they always take it one step further and we love them for it. Read on and find out everything you need to know about the VoiceOver App.

Created With Apple´s DNA

As everything that Apple has ever done, the VoiceOver App is dedicated to creative people above anything else. The company indicates that the software is prepared to tell the user absolutely everything that is going on in the screen of their iDevice. Also, it provides what Apple calls “helpful hints” while you´re using it to enhance the end-user experience. It allows you to plug a refreshable braille display, keyboard or the built-in gesture recognition technology. The more than 35 available languages make it very useful for Mac users around the world.

One important fact about the VoiceOver App is that it is not just a screen reader but is an integral part of the Operating System. This means that it was not added afterwards like is the case with Microsoft Narrator, but the Operating System was designed with it. It works awesome with Safari and if you happen to be able to read in multiple languages and visit different websites, the VoiceOver App recognizes it and automatically changes its language to match the content in the screen. There are many options in the refinements menu that can be tailored to make the software perfect for your everyday experience.

Expanding The Reach

If you are not a person with visual imparities and have been to iTunes, you will recognize some movies have an AD icon in them. This stands for Audio Description and means that this software will describe you what is going on in the movie. You can, thanks to this technology, watch a movie without actually watching, but having someone tell you what is going on while you´re listening to the dialogs.

The app also has what the company calls a Dark Mode which resembles a lot to the High Contrast Mode in Windows. This allows users to do two things: one is to concentrate only on their work while all the menus fade to the dark and the other to increase contrast and allow those with a lighter visual disparity to perform better in all of the built-in apps.

Only On Apple

Although, just like Microsoft, there is a tutorial published in Apple´s page on how to create apps that are VoiceOver-friendly, the percentage of companies that go the extra mile is still small compared to the giants that spent the big bucks in making it happen. Therefore, Apple doesn´t assure users that third-party apps on their iDevices will work with VoiceOver.