Mac OS X 10.4: Apple Spoken Interface

The following Spoken Interface page has appeared on Apple's website.

The page describes an upcoming feature for Mac OS X ("included in the next major release of Mac OS X")

:

Introducing the spoken interface for Mac OS X. The Universal Access capabilities of Mac OS X will soon be enhanced with a spoken interface that provides a new way, through speech, audible cues, and keyboard navigation, to access the Macintosh.

The technology appears to be related to a previous job opening at Apple for programmers for a "Screen Reader" application. This technology provides spoken descriptions and the reading of text from the computer.

According to this article, Apple was pressured to release their own solution when the only developer of such software for the Mac discontinued their version. A lack of availability of such software may have threatened Mac OS X's adoption in the education sector.