AppleVis has announced its 13th Golden Apple Awards, recognizing apps and games designed for (or useful to) people who are blind or visually impaired. The awards also honored a developer and included a new award for ongoing achievement.
- The past yearâs best app, as voted by AppleVis community members, is Seeing AI from Microsoft. Developed by a blind engineer within Microsoft, Seeing AI was first released in 2017, and has evolved to include a growing list of modules that use machine learning and AI features to read text, identify objects and products, and describe photos and people.
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Best Game for 2024 went to Downcaster: Deckbuilding RPG, by Rick van der Wall.
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Jienfeng Wu took Developer of the Year honors for his resurrection of Soundscape, an app initially developed by Microsoft, and later dropped. Now called VoiceVista, the app allows blind users to understand their surroundings by using sound at various pitches and frequencies.
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A new award, named for the founder of AppleVis, recognizes a developer who has made ongoing contributions to accessibility. The David Goodwin Award recognizes a developer who has made an outstanding and lasting impact for people who are blind, deaf/blind, or who have low vision over a minimum of the last three years. The inaugural award went to Envision Technologies, whose EnvisionAI uses AI to process visual information and provide it to blind users through an app or via the companyâs smart glasses. Honorable mentions for the Goodwin Award went to Weather Gods Ltd (Weather Gods), and Aira Tech Corp (Aira Explorer)
Nominees for the Golden Apples were made by a committee of writers and podcasters (disclosure: yours truly included), and accessibility experts. The nominees were then voted on by AppleVis community members.
