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About Us

Founded on 29 April 2005, MacVisionaries is a small company specialising in products and services to help the blind use the Apple Macintosh computing environment. The fact that Apple released Mac OS 10.4 on the day we were born is no coincidence - this date also represented the day on which the first ever computer usable by the blind out of the box without additional hardware or software became available. This is due to the fact that Mac OS 10.4 and later includes a feature called VoiceOver, which allows a blind person to independently use the computer by navigating with the keyboard and receiving feedback through a speech synthesiser.

We passionately believe that VoiceOver will improve the lives of many blind people:

• For those who cannot afford the extremely high cost of Windows screen readers VoiceOver represents a very cost-effective computing solution.
• For those in education, or other environments where Macs are shared, a blind person will be able to use any computer without any special adaptation.
• Even for those using Windows with a commercial screen reader, Mac OS 10.4 and above provides an alternative accessible environment, and choice is certainly good.
• Finally, we believe that having VoiceOver available on all Macs will increase sighted peoples' understanding of what a screen reader is, and will also provide developers of web sites and software applications a free platform on which to test the accessibility of their products.

However, while VoiceOver allows the blind person to use a Mac, the Mac still lacks some of the additional special applications that blind people need, nor are there any training material for VoiceOver users, or a community where users can turn for help. MacVisionaries has been set up to fill these gaps: at present we provide a mailing list which allows users to exchange hints and tips, and ask for help. In the upcoming weeks we will also be launching a series of applications that will further enhance the blind Mac user's experience, and tutorials to help you get started.

Finally, one of the main attractions of the Mac platform is the zero cost of VoiceOver. Accordingly we aim to keep our prices drastically below those charged for similar products on the Windows platform. In fact, we are trialing a system where all our products and services will be absolutely free, and you can donate an amount corresponding to what you can afford, and how useful you find the product/service. We are doing this to make our products/services available to all - but we do need your donations to continue running.

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Copyright © 2005, MacVisionaries.