AppleTV for All

The goal of this petition is to put pressure on Apple Inc. to implement closed captioning and or subtitle solution for the deaf and hearing impaired consumers of their products.







Apple, Inc. sells videos, video podcasts and movies for download, but provides no means for alternative audio or captioning for the hearing impaired.







A 1998 FCC ruling requires that any company that distributes programming to televisions must closed caption 100\% of non-exempt programming by Jan 1 2006 and 75\% of exempt programming by Jan 1 2008.







Apple, distributes media, that is most likely compliant with this ruling, but they do so in a non-compliant manner by eliminating these captions as part of their 3rd party distribution process.







Nearly 1 in 12 Americans is hearing impaired or deaf. As technology advances, too often is this disability over looked. Often citing cost factors, companies s like Apple will neglect this major demographic all together, virtually preventing us from enjoying many mainstream technologies.







The reality is cost is not a factor, the majority of the media that Apple is re-distributing already contains the necessary captioning or subtitle information, they simply refuse to include these "tracks" of data along with the product they are from which they profit greatly.







This is blatant disregards for persons with disabilities. By signing this you are in placing your name as being in full support of the request to have Apple Inc. do whatever it takes to provide this group on consumers with a fair opportunity to take advantage of their product.