Earlier this week, Barnes and Noble launched their Nook app for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. Not only does it allow you to read your books with VoiceOver with speech and/or braille, it contains a helpful accessibility tutorial that pops up when you start the app for the first time.
Set up and sync
Setting up the app takes only a few seconds, but does require internet access. You can create an account if you don't already have one, and if you do already have an account, once you sign in your library is synced to the device.
Accessibility help
While the sync is taking place, you are given the option to read an accessibility tutorial. You can also get to the tutorial at any time from the Settings menu, although it only appears if VoiceOver is running.
You also get useful hints from VoiceOver, for instance when you open a book VoiceOver says "two finger swipe to read continuously" before reading the visible page.
Next time?
There are improvements that could be made to accessibility. For instance:
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The tutorial mentions using a four finger flick up and down to move to the first and last item on the screen, whereas the correct gesture is a four finger tap in the top or bottom half of the screen.
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The menu that should pop up when you press and hold a word, to offer features like annotating and dictionary look-up, doesn't appear to work when VoiceOver is running.
If you have any comments about the accessibility of the app, you can feed them back to Barnes and Noble at accessibility@book.com.
Come on Amazon!
These small issues may not even be noticed by many readers, and the great news is that you now have a choice of three eReading apps that work with VoiceOver - iBooks, Kobo and now Nook - which between them offer a huge number of eBooks.
If only Amazon would follow suit and make their Kindle app accessible...