I'm sure most on this list are frustrated at Apple's refusal to make
iTunes accessible with VoiceOver, myself included. It has been
almost a year and a half since VoiceOver was released and to this
date the most popular application Apple offers cannot be used with it.
Yes, this is deplorable. Apple's whole strategy over the past five
years has surrounded iTunes and the iPod. Without them, there would
very likely be no Apple today.
If one looks up iTunes' history on the Internet, one will read how
iTunes was born from an application called SoundJam. SoundJam, like
iTunes of today, is/was a Carbon-based application. Discussion has
gone around and round on this list about the benefits and the
difficulties of making Carbon-based applications accessible. Yes,
making Carbon applications accessible is hard but its not impossible.
Like all things done well, it takes time to do this.
The point that is being missed, however, is that Apple has,
reluctantly or not, made a rather large commitment towards
accessibility over the past three years. We can argue about the
rationale behind VoiceOver all we like. The bottom line is that we
have VoiceOver. Further more, we've seen what Apple has in store for
us in Leopard. If we take Apple at face value for the VoiceOver
Leopard features, then VoiceOver Leopard should be a rather nice
release. However, no where on Apple's Leopard pages does it say
anything about VoiceOver working with iTunes in Leopard!
VoiceOver has existed for 18 months. Apple seems to release new
versions of iTunes about once a year, so surely somewhere in that 18
months the iTunes team had to know about VoiceOver and the importance
of accessible applications. And iTunes 7 is every bit as
inaccessible as iTunes 6 was with VoiceOver.
Again, taking Apple at face value based on the inclusion of
accessibility as one of the top 10 Leopard features, Apple is really
committed to accessibility. However, the credibility of this
commitment is in serious jeopardy when Apple sees fit to release
inaccessible versions of its most important application.
So do we now sit and wait a year for iTunes 8, hoping beyond hope
that it is at long last accessible? If not, then iTunes 9?
Thanks for reading. Just my $.37!
Tony
