[accesscomp] Fw: Breaking News! Amazon kindle App

From: "Bob Acosta" <boacosta@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "tektalk discussion" <tektalkdiscussion@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 3 May 2013 10:32:49 -0700
Breaking News! Amazon kindle App    
----- Original Message ----- 
From: AccessWorld 
To: AFB Subscriber 
Sent: Friday, May 03, 2013 7:14 AM
Subject: Breaking News! Amazon kindle App 


        
      AFB American Foundation
      for the Blind  TM   
                 
      
      Expanding possibilities for people with vision loss  


Breaking News!

New Amazon Kindle App Shows Improved Accessibility

Darren Burton

As readers of AFB's AccessWorld magazine, you may know I have written several 
articles over the years condemning the lack of accessibility found in Amazon 
Kindle devices. A couple of the devices have had some half-baked accessibility 
solutions, and the mobile apps have never been accessible or usable at all. 
However, yesterday we learned Amazon's new update for the Kindle app for 
Apple's iOS mobile platform has improved accessibility for people with vision 
loss.

We took a quick look at it on an iPhone 5 in our AFB Tech product evaluation 
labs this morning, and although there are still some things needing 
improvement, it is definitely a significant improvement over the previously 
inaccessible apps.

We downloaded a handful of books, and we were able to access the print content 
of each of them. You can read the text of a book in several ways, including 
reading continuously, by page, by line, by word and by character. Several other 
tools are also accessible, including the Go To Page tool and the icon 
indicating your current page and location. If you have low vision, you can 
change the contrast from black on white to white on black, and you can increase 
the font size. We found the bookmarking, highlighting and annotation features 
to be partially accessible, and we had mixed success with the table of contents 
of one book we tested. We have yet to come upon any accessible graphics, and 
that will definitely be a concern going forward, especially for textbooks.

Although they are a few years late to the party, we at AFB are certainly happy 
that Amazon did eventually get around to taking advantage of the built-in 
accessibility of the Apple iOS platform. Now, Amazon can keep the ball rolling 
by improving the accessibility of their Kindle and Kindle Fire tablet devices.

Stay tuned to AccessWorld magazine for a full evaluation in the June issue.


AccessWorld® is the American Foundation for the Blind's technology magazine.

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[accesscomp] Fw: Breaking News! Amazon kindle App

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