The ballots are in and the votes have been tallied. It's time to count down the top 10 biggest and most influential stories of 2015. This year's panel included Jeff Bishop, Shelly Brisbin, Ricky Enger, Chancey Fleet, J.J. Meddaugh, Jamie Pauls, Joe Steinkamp.
Each panelist gave us their opinions on the biggest stories in assistive technology and we've compiled their votes to create our annual list. We'll reveal a new story each day on the way to number one and announce the winner on the next Blind Bargains Qast. You can go here for our previous storiesWe continue on with our 8th big story of 2015.
Spring turns into Summer and then Summer turns into Fall. With global warming it may be difficult to tell that there are four seasons in a year. one way you can mark the passage of time is to check the iCal on your Apple Watch to notify you when the next whole number of iOS shows up. It tends to drop from a tree almost every year near the end of Summer. Except, thanks to the hand off nature of Apple products now, you will be updating not only your iPhone... but your Mac, your Apple TV and that handy Apple Watch] mentioned earlier as a new iOS tends to mean major updates for Watch OS, TV OS and OSX. Ah, the iCircle of life!
The release of iOS 9 was a bit rocky at first. Thanks to App Thinning, a way for your bulky apps to stay up in that iCloud until you need them most, several patches were released in rapid succession. Which meant that the brand new iPhone 6s series of phones had a bit more to do beyond letting you shoot 4k video, take Live Photos and 3D Touch your apps. Naturally the new version of iOS came with improvements to access. However, that got lost in the shuffle in the initial launch phase of the new Apple OS.
While some were busy pressing their fingers into their phones on every app they owned hoping that their new 6s would give them Apple's version of a "right click", others who had the iPad Air 2 or the slightly larger iPad Pro were looking at the Apple equivalent of multitasking with the new multi window support features. For some, especially on the iPad pro, being able to cut and copy from one window to another was totally worth the price of admission. Older Apple iOS users could press on their iDevices all they wanted, but the long Press Event demos would have to do until they upgraded their hardware to take advantage of several iOS 9 key selling points. With all that in mind, depending on how deep you are into the Apple Eco system, iOS 9 was a big story for mainstream and assistive access.
We'll reflect more on the year in Apple on the BB Qast "year in A.T." show. But you can get your say in first by leaving us a remark in the comment section below or sending in an email to feedback@blindbargains.com with what Apple did right, or wrong, in 2015.
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Joe Steinkamp is no stranger to the world of technology, having been a user of video magnification and blindness related electronic devices since 1979. Joe has worked in radio, retail management and Vocational Rehabilitation for blind and low vision individuals in Texas. He has been writing about the A.T. Industry for 15 years and podcasting about it for almost a decade.
