Hello Mr. Morales, I thank you very much for the 37 cents, though I hope you won't mind if I "buck up" with 63 more...
You did not come out and say it, but I, much as you, am surprised at the number of blind apologists of Apple on this board. Apple had a lot of time to make its signature applications accessible with voiceover. Yet still, there has been little progress toward this end. It's been said by some on this board that Apple's priority and focus has been toward "productivity applications", and that it's ok for programs such as iTunes to remain in the sidelines. As much as I am to respect the view points of others, it is asinine for anyone to presume arbitration over "productivity". Not everyone buys a computer for solely word-processing. There are some who are pacified by the words of Apple ."Oh don't worry, daddy Apple will make everything betta for you blind folk". And they buy it hook, line and sinker. They believe it so much that they will chastise anyone for having a healthy skepticism therein. Accessibility has NEVER been a sexy issue for any mainstream software company of note. Despite, Jobs' presentation to the contrary, the track record suggests that voiceover development is ancillary to everything that Apple is doing. This needs to change, and it can't happen if some blind users continue to make excuses for them. I have no biases toward either platform. But the current state of Apple's Initiative on Accessibility is not enough to warrant my total commitment to the Mac. Bottom line: I have way too much to do, than to sit down like a whimpering stray dog, begging for Apple to throw me a freakin'' bone. In the interim, I will use Excel on Windows. One final point. I agree with the assertion that blind users are a "special interest". But where I disagree is with the notion that we are a special interest of equal consideration. We don't need equality. Rather, we should have equitability. Voiceover is not an application of choice. In as far as blind users are concerned, it is fundamental to the usage of the operating system. Therefore, accessibility should be a central consideration in all of Apple's software development. Simple deductive reason shows that it is not. I don't think that Steve Jobs' mention of Voiceover served anything but to make Apple look good. What I'm more concerned about is if they follow through with what they say. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tony Morales Sent: Wednesday, September 13, 2006 3:09 AM To: [email protected] Subject: iTunes' Inaccessibility and VoiceOver 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
