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
