Linked List: January 25, 2023

Wednesday, 25 January 2023

Twitter(rific) and Accessibility 

Speaking of The Iconfactory’s Ged Maheux, Steven Aquino has a brief interview with him regarding Twitterrific’s long-excellent accessibility support, and the whole Twitter shitshow:

For his part, Maheux told me in an recent interview conducted over email “accessibility should be important to any developer” but added The Iconfactory’s resolve to support it to the fullest extent possible certainly has strengthened over time. The company, he said, has garnered much feedback from people in the disability community over the years, who continually have asked for improved accessibility in Twitterrific. Moreover, Maheux explained it “really means the world to us” to have members of the community get in touch and thank them for all the hard work put into making the app as accessible as it can be to everyone.

I’ll repeat this until I’m hoarse, but the apps that best support accessibility features for disabled people invariably are also the most usable for everyone. As for the future, it’s ominous:

The loss of Twitterrific is one The Iconfactory, and especially disabled Twitter users, will mourn for some time. To its credit, Twitter’s own first-party app used to be pretty solid in terms of adopting system accessibility features like Dynamic Type and Increase Contrast on both iOS and the Mac. Of course, that all changed drastically and (likely) irreparably when Musk inexplicably and unconscionably gutted the company’s entire accessibility team as part of the layoffs that occurred in early November.

Linea Sketch 4.2 

Ged Maheux at The Iconfactory:

Organic Ink gives your sketches a rustic and natural appearance that is unlike anything previously offered in Linea. You can even tilt your Apple Pencil as you draw to quickly shade wide areas with texture.

Such a cool effect, period, but kind of amazing to see it live, not as a filter applied in post.

Users of the venerable drawing app Paper, by 53/WeTransfer, can now easily transfer their creations into Linea. When imported via iCloud, Paper files are converted into a layered sketch document, perfect for further refinement in Linea.

Spread the word about this to anyone you know with an archive of old Paper sketches. Right from the start Linea has always struck me as Paper’s spiritual successor.