A review by Sandi Wassmer
This product was reviewed in July 2011 and it was priced at £99 at the time of writing.
About me
I am Sandi Wassmer, a female forty-something geek with
Retinitis Pigmentosa. I was diagnosed when I was 15, was asymptomatic until my early twenties and registered blind in 2008. I do have some residual vision, but would not exactly call it useful. I have no night vision, no peripheral vision, no depth of perception, permanent double vision and photopsia, am colour blind, can read 46pt font on a good day and use both screen reading and magnification.
I am an Apple fangirl, so it's no surprise that I have a Mac Mini, iPad and iPhone.
Installation and set-up
The installation and set-up process of the Apple TV was fairly straightforward, but did require a competent technical person to complete it. One thing to take note of is that it doesn't come with an HDMI cable, which is required.
The installation process is purely visual.
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You plug your HDMI cable into the Apple TV and your TV monitor, switch the TV over to the correct input and then the language menu will display on-screen.
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Using the remote control provided, you can select your language by scrolling up or down; configuration is much the same.
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The screen then prompts you to select the type of wifi security your network uses.
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Once selected, you are presented with an on-screen keyboard, which uses the up, down, right and left buttons on the remote control for navigation.
For me, this was very frustrating, as it took what seemed like an eternity. You are then asked to opt in or out of sending usage information to Apple via the Apple TV in order to improve their services, which was pretty vague, so I opted out.
Getting started
At this point, you are presented with the main user interface, which comprises four sections:
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Movies
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Internet
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Computers
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Settings
I was keen to set up the VoiceOver screen reader, so selected Settings in the first instance.
As I am an iPhone and iPad user and the Apple TV runs on the same Operating System (iOS), I went to the General sub-menu to find the Accessibility options, but they weren't there. I then looked around the other menus, thinking that they may be in a different place on the Apple TV, but could not find them.
After scratching my head a while, I recalled hearing that only iOS 4.2 for the Apple TV had VoiceOver, so I checked what version the Apple TV was running on and discovered it was 4.0, so had to select Update Software from the sub-menu in the General menu. I would recommend to those purchasing, that they request their Apple TV be pre-installed with iOS 4.2, if possible.
User interface
As it stands, the user interface is good for people with low vision. Text is white on black and the visual cues to denote which item has been selected are well defined. There are also audio cues to denote when the user moves from item to item within the navigation.
When updating the software, there is visual feedback, with both a progress bar and an estimated time to completion.
Once the update has been completed, the Apple TV will restart. You must ensure it remains plugged in during this process. When the machine restarts it shows the Apple logo, with visual feedback provided by a progress bar.
Once restarted, you are taken back to the home screen. I then returned to the Settings to continue my search for VoiceOver. The Accessibility sub-menu was available and, when this item is scrolled to, the Universal Access icon is displayed on the left.
Accessibility features
VoiceOver is the only accessibility feature available on the Apple TV, and this differs to the other devices running on iOS. The Apple TV is not a touch screen device and there is no Zoom functionality.
You can select the speech rate you want from 4 choices - slow, normal, fast and very fast.
Up until the point that you are able to turn on VoiceOver, I would expect that most visually impaired people will need a sighted person to assist them.
Finding content
I then set a few tasks for myself. The first was to find a specific movie trailer in the "In Theatres Now" sub-menu in Movies.
I scrolled through the film poster images as VoiceOver read out the titles. I made my selection and VoiceOver focus was taken to the Play HD button to play the trailer first.
If not selected, the film's information is displayed. VoiceOver started reading the information out immediately. It read what was displayed on screen, as well as information that was not displayed. If you scroll within the page, full information is displayed. Unlike VoiceOver in Apple's other devices, there was no focus given to denote what content was being read. In addition to this, when scrolling to the Play HD button, there is no visual cue to let you know where you are.
When you play the trailer, you are then taken outside of the "system" and the content is delivered without VoiceOver interaction or Audio Description.
However, once the trailer has finished playing, you are then taken back to the trailer information page.
Other features
In some sections of the system, such as YouTube, there is sub or secondary navigation that VoiceOver does not read, so I recommend investigating and familiarising yourself with the vagaries of the different features, in order to ensure you are aware of which content areas you can access and how. In the main navigation, VoiceOver states the number of options in the sub-menus, but does not do so in some of the different internal services, such as iTunes and 3rd party services, such as YouTube.
You can access the files in iTunes and iPhoto on your computer so far as Home Sharing is activated on your computer.
If you have any other Apple devices running 4.1 or above, such as an iPad or an iPhone, you can use the AirPlay feature and stream content from your mobile device to the Apple TV.
To buy or not to buy
Despite some inconsistencies, I found the Apple TV pretty intuitive and easy to use, as one would expect from Apple, but the Apple TV is all shirt and no trousers in the UK. The interface is slick, but until Apple do a deal with a content provider, like they have with Netflix in the US, I don't really see the point.
At £99, once there is ample content available, it will prove to be great value for money. For me, the mix of screen reading and visual cues worked really well. However, I suspect the fact that the system is not fully navigable using VoiceOver alone would make it unsuitable for people with no or very restricted vision.
Once Apple iron out the glitches and provide some decent content, the Apple TV will be good to go.
Legal disclaimer
This review reflects the opinions of the author only. RNIB cannot be held liable for opinions expressed in this article.
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