macOS
VoiceOver was first introduced in Mac OS X 10.4 and the target was users who had difficulty in reading due to vision impairment, particularly the blind. A preview had also been made available for Mac OS X 10.3 Panther, and was titled "Spoken Interface Preview."
VoiceOver treats the user interface as a hierarchy of elements, which are navigated by various keystrokes. Elements also are "interacted" with—for example, interacting with a text box allows reading its text and, if possible, editing it; interacting with a scroll bar allows it to be moved using the keyboard.
VoiceOver also includes support for many Braille displays. In addition, VoiceOver includes features for those that cannot use the mouse, such as keyboard-based navigation. [2] For users with MacBooks or Magic Trackpads, a number of special multitouch features are also available. The trackpad will respond to gestures, much like iOS's version of VoiceOver. A specific example is using the trackpad to explore the actual visual layout of elements on the screen - sliding one finger around the trackpad will select elements, tapping twice will activate them.
In Mac OS X 10.5, Apple added the "Alex" voice, which offered improved quality of speech and a more human-like sound. Previously, the voices were directly descended from those used in Apple's "Speech Manager," which originated in the early 1990s. Also, Alex voice has natural breathing, unlike all other voices in Apple. [3]
In Mac OS X 10.7, Apple offered the download of RealSpeak voices from Nuance for use with VoiceOver.
Accessibility Inspector
Accessibility Inspector is made to verify the accessibility of OS X applications. It displays information about the GUI element that is currently under the cursor. [4]
iOS
A few months later, with the release of the iPhone 3GS, VoiceOver was added to iOS. When the iPod Touch was upgraded to match the hardware of the iPhone 3GS (in iPod touch's third generation), it also gained VoiceOver capability. The iPad, since its introduction, has also had VoiceOver capability.
VoiceOver on iOS interacts with the user by using various "gestures," different motions one makes with one or more fingers on the display. Many gestures are location-sensitive—for example, sliding one's finger around the screen will reveal the visual contents of the screen as the finger passes over them. This enables blind users to explore the actual on-screen layout of an application. A user can double-tap—similar to double-clicking a mouse—to activate a selected element, just as if a sighted user had tapped the item.
VoiceOver can also turn off the display but leave the touch screen sensitive to touch, saving battery power. Apple calls this feature "Screen Curtain". It is also available on Mac computers running OS X.
VoiceOver for iOS is activated using the "Settings" application. It can be found in the Accessibility section. The device can also be configured so that VoiceOver can be toggled by a triple-click of the Home or side button on the device. The user can also ask Siri to enable or disable VoiceOver.
A pointing device is a human interface device that allows a user to input spatial data to a computer. Graphical user interfaces (GUI) and CAD systems allow the user to control and provide data to the computer using physical gestures by moving a hand-held mouse or similar device across the surface of the physical desktop and activating switches on the mouse. Movements of the pointing device are echoed on the screen by movements of the pointer and other visual changes. Common gestures are point and click and drag and drop.
A scrollbar is an interaction technique or widget in which continuous text, pictures, or any other content can be scrolled in a predetermined direction on a computer display, window, or viewport so that all of the content can be viewed, even if only a fraction of the content can be seen on a device's screen at one time. It offers a solution to the problem of navigation to a known or unknown location within a two-dimensional information space. It was also known as a handle in the very first GUIs. They are present in a wide range of electronic devices including computers, graphing calculators, mobile phones, and portable media players. The user interacts with the scrollbar elements using some method of direct action, the scrollbar translates that action into scrolling commands, and the user receives feedback through a visual updating of both the scrollbar elements and the scrolled content.
A touchpad or trackpad is a type of pointing device. Its largest component is a tactile sensor: an electronic device with a flat surface, that detects the motion and position of a user's fingers, and translates them to 2D motion, to control a pointer in a graphical user interface on a computer screen. Touchpads are common on laptop computers, contrasted with desktop computers, where mice are more prevalent. Trackpads are sometimes used on desktops, where desk space is scarce. Because trackpads can be made small, they can be found on personal digital assistants (PDAs) and some portable media players. Wireless touchpads are also available, as detached accessories.
Mission Control is a feature of the macOS operating system. Dashboard, Exposé, and Spaces were combined and renamed Mission Control in 2011 with the release of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. Exposé was first previewed on June 23, 2003, at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference as a feature of the then forthcoming Mac OS X 10.3 Panther.
A voice-user interface (VUI) enables spoken human interaction with computers, using speech recognition to understand spoken commands and answer questions, and typically text to speech to play a reply. A voice command device is a device controlled with a voice user interface.
djay is a digital music mixing software program for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch created by the German company algoriddim. It allows playback and mixing of digital audio files with a user interface that tries to simulate the concept of "two turntables and a microphone" on a computer. Before the commercial release in November 2007, djay had initially been released as freeware in June 2006. In December 2010 the software was also released for the iPad, and subsequently for iPhone and iPod Touch in March 2011.
The iPod Touch is a discontinued line of iOS-based mobile devices designed and formerly marketed by Apple Inc. with a touchscreen-controlled user interface. As with other iPod models, the iPod Touch can be used as a portable media player and a handheld gaming device, but can also be used as a digital camera, a web browser, for email and messaging. It is nearly identical in design to the iPhone, and can run most iPhone third-party apps from the App Store, but it connects to the Internet only through Wi-Fi and uses no cellular network data, as it lacks a cellular modem.
Apple Inc. has designed and manufactured several models of mice, trackpads, and other pointing devices, primarily for use with Macintosh computers. Over the years, Apple has maintained a distinct form and function with its mice that reflect their design languages of that time. Apple's current external pointing devices are the Magic Mouse 2 and Magic Trackpad 2.
iOS is a mobile operating system developed by Apple exclusively for its smartphones. It was unveiled in January 2007 for the first-generation iPhone, launched in June 2007.
The iPhone 3GS, stylised as iPhone 3G🅂 is a smartphone that was designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. It is the third generation iPhone and the successor to the iPhone 3G. It was unveiled on June 8, 2009 at the WWDC 2009 which took place at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.
The Magic Mouse is a multi-touch wireless mouse sold by Apple Inc. and manufactured by Foxconn. The first-generation Magic Mouse was released on October 20, 2009, and introduced multi-touch functionality to a computer mouse. Taking after the iPhone, iPod Touch, and multi-touch MacBook trackpads, the Magic Mouse allows the use of multi-touch gestures and inertia scrolling across the surface of the mouse, designed for use with macOS.
iOS 4 is the fourth major release of the iOS mobile operating system developed by Apple Inc., being the successor to iPhone OS 3. It was announced at the Apple Special Event on April 8, 2010, and released on June 21, 2010. iOS 4 was the first version branded as "iOS" rather than "iPhone OS", due to the release of the iPad. It was succeeded by iOS 5 on October 12, 2011.
iOS 7 is the seventh major release of the iOS mobile operating system developed by Apple Inc., being the successor to iOS 6. It was announced at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 10, 2013, and was released on September 18 of that year. It was succeeded by iOS 8 on September 17, 2014.
Control Center is a feature of Apple Inc.'s iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS operating systems. It was introduced as part of iOS 7, released on September 18, 2013. In iOS 7, it replaces the control pages found in previous versions. It gives iOS and iPadOS devices direct access to important settings for the device by swiping down from the top right corner on the iPhone X and newer, and on all iPad models starting with iOS 12 or iPadOS, with previous models using a swipe from the bottom of the screen. It is similar to the SBSettings tweak for iOS jailbreaking. Control Center was also added to Macs in macOS 11 Big Sur, released on November 12, 2020.
Force Touch is a haptic pressure-sensing technology developed by Apple Inc. that enables trackpads and touchscreens to sense the amount of force being applied to their surfaces. Software that uses Force Touch can distinguish between various levels of force for user interaction purposes. Force Touch was first unveiled on September 9, 2014, during the introduction of Apple Watch. Starting with the Apple Watch, Force Touch has been incorporated into many Apple products, including MacBooks and the Magic Trackpad 2.
tvOS is an operating system developed by Apple Inc. for the Apple TV, a digital media player. In the first-generation Apple TV, Apple TV Software was based on Mac OS X. Starting with the second generation, the software is based on the iOS operating system and has many similar frameworks, technologies, and concepts.
iOS 13 is the thirteenth major release of the iOS mobile operating system developed by Apple for the iPhone, iPod Touch and HomePod. The successor to iOS 12, it was announced at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 3, 2019, and released on September 19, 2019. It was succeeded by iOS 14, released on September 16, 2020.
iPadOS 13 is the first major release of the iPadOS mobile operating system developed by Apple Inc. for their iPad line of tablet computers. The successor to iOS 12 on those devices, it was announced at the company's 2019 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 3, 2019, as a derivation from iOS, with a greater emphasis on multitasking and tablet-centric features. It was released on September 24, 2019. It was succeeded by iPadOS 14, released on September 16, 2020.
iPadOS is a mobile operating system for tablet computers developed by Apple Inc. It was first released as a modification of iOS starting with version 13.1 on September 24, 2019. Before the release of iPadOS, iPads were released with iPhone OS, which was later renamed to iOS. New iPadOS versions are released every year mostly in sync with iOS, tvOS, and watchOS.
iOS 16 is the sixteenth major release of Apple's iOS mobile operating system for the iPhone. It is the successor of iOS 15, and was announced at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 6, 2022, alongside iPadOS 16, and released on September 12, 2022. It was succeeded by iOS 17 on September 18, 2023.
