by Shelly Brisbin
Important Apple-focused accessibility site to shut down
AppleVis is shutting down. The site has been a crucial resource for blind and visually-impaired Apple users since iOS accessibility was new, though it’s always covered all Apple platforms. It’s a news site, an informed but opinionated blog, a place to track OS releases and their accessibility features, an accessible app directory, and a lively community forum. AppleVis has long served newer Apple users along with those of us who own the moniker “power user.”
In a post on the site on Saturday, AppleVis founder David Goodwin said he is no longer able to keep the all-volunteer project going.
Maintaining AppleVis has essentially been a full-time responsibility for me since I founded it in 2010 — a commitment I’ve undertaken entirely on a voluntary and unpaid basis. This level of dedication has demanded countless hours of work encompassing nearly every aspect of AppleVis’ operations, often starting or ending well outside what many would consider a typical workday. While I’ve been largely happy to make this commitment, driven by our mission and the positive impact we’ve had on the community, it has come at significant personal cost.
Goodwin also wrote that moderating the site’s increasingly volatile forums had become a challenge he wasn’t able to surmount. He also said the technical demands of a site with such a broad mandate had become too much.
AppleVis doesn’t look flashy—it was designed to meet the needs of people who do not primarily rely on vision to gather information. But it has always been important. If you needed to know whether an app was accessible to VoiceOver before buying it, the AppleVis app directory could probably tell you. If you wanted a full list of feature updates and bug fixes in the latest macOS beta, AppleVis had it, relying on a tenacious team of in-house sleuths, and sometimes a bit of encouragement from within Apple. And the site’s community-driven approach meant that accessibility bugs and limitations got a public airing when they needed it. In recent years, AppleVis took inspiration from Six Colors’ annual Apple report card to develop its own community-driven Apple Vision Accessibility Report.
The community of blind Apple users has been mourning the loss of AppleVis on social media and on podcasts. The site is currently in read-only mode, and as of August 31, it will go offline, taking 14 years of archives with it. Though several individuals have come forward to propose ways of saving it, Goodwin and his team haven’t yet indicated that they’re open to a rescue.