It probably would be more accurate to say "for the last 10 years" than "always".

In the early 2000s, Apple realized that some of their most prominent school deals were in danger of falling apart due to OS X's insufficient section 508 compliance. Since OS X marketshare was too small to ensure a sufficient ecosystem of third party accessibility solution providers (as existed for Windows), Apple formed an in-house accessibility team.

Over time, Apple realized that doing accessibility in-house and treating it as a full stack responsibility fit in well with the company philosophy, so today accessibility is indeed treated as a very important aspect of products.

Coincidentally, this week marks the 10th anniversary of the official release of VoiceOver, Apple's OS X screen reader.

Hmm, I missed this story. I'll have to look for it. It's a great testament to his vision and integrity, no matter what others may have perceived of him.