Accessible Mobile Apps - Issue #64

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Hey y'all,

Hope you're having a wonderful week. If you're not having a great week, may I suggest jumping to the first article about AppleVis being saved from shutting down. That news should brighten your day!

This next week is going to be a busy one for me as I'm traveling to iOSDevUK to give a talk about how quickly you can transform an in-accessible iOS application into an accessible one. Stay tuned for the slides and replay! And if you'll be at the conference, too, come say hello. 👋

As always, don't hesitate to reach out with any suggestions for the next issue. Would love to hear them! 🙂

Robin

AppleVis is back!

In the last issue, I shared an article about the closure of AppleVis. Since that announcement, we've heard some great news: Be My Eyes is acquiring AppleVis, and the website is re-opening on September 9. You can read more about the announcement below:

Here's a great talk if you've ever wondered what it looks like in practice to use accessibility annotations in Figma for communication among designers and developers:

Creating a Developer Culture of Accessibility

On October 10th, there will be a presentation at WordPress Accessibility Day about developing a culture of accessibility by Mark Steadman and Jessie Frio. Although the rest of the schedule is mostly geared toward Web and WordPress, this talk applies to everyone.

iOS

Free eBook: SwiftUI and Accessibility: Creating Inclusive iOS Applications

For free, you can download this eBook and see some tips and tricks you may not already know when it comes to accessibility in SwiftUI:

Awesome Hidden iOS 18 Features — Eye Tracking, Music Haptics, Accessibility

Here's a nice overview to the new accessibility features on iOS 18. My personal favorite is the vehicle motion cues to fight motion sickness.

visionOS: Calculate Relative Position to User

Recently I've been playing around with accessibility on Apple Vision Pro. In this article I talk about calculating the relative position between the user and an object in space, to announce it's position in accessibility announcements. I would love to hear how you go about solving the same problem!

Android

Series: Accessibility in Jetpack Compose

I've got a well-made series for you that covers a bunch of topics about accessibility on Jetpack Compose. It's definitely worth a look, and a follow for its author Karol Wrótniak, who writes about both Android and Flutter. Thanks Karol, for sharing this!

Part 1: Introduction, minimal touch / pointer target, accessibility considerations for color blind users:

Part 2: Scaling, text size, focus order, labeling:

Part 3: Semantic properties and screen orientation:

Part 4: List, Link Semantics and Testing:

Accessibility Testing on Android

If you're looking for the bare-minimum amount of information you need to get started with accessibility testing, check out this article to get setup:

Join the Appt Slack Group

Use this link to join the Appt Slack workspace for mobile accessibility. Ask technical questions, share resources, get advice from other developers, and most importantly connect with developers who share your passion for a11y.

If you or your company is interested in sponsoring an issue of the Accessible Mobile Apps newsletter, send an email to hello@accessiblemobileapps.com.