So, Josh's position is that no consumer electronics devices should be required to be accessible (i.e. no government regulation). What is a consumer electronics device? If the government didn't require windows to be accessible then Microsoft would probably have cried "undue burden" and not moved as quickly as it did to make win95 accessible. Put another way, the only reason windows is as accessible as it is now is because of government regulation; Microsoft didn't do it out of the goodness of its corporate heart or because it was "the right thing to do".
Now, regulation is a tool that should be used carefully, precisely - like a knife. Use it improperly and things can be hurt. Don't use it at all and things could be hurt. I don't think we can create a "meta law" here that ultimately says when regulation should be applied and when it shouldn't. each case should be considered on its own terms. -- Rich ----- Original Message ----- From: "Josh de Lioncourt" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of Mac OS X by theblind" <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, January 15, 2007 4:23 PM Subject: Re: New phone / accessibility issues > So, the argument is if a blind person just happens to find an iPhone > lying around and just happens to be, at that moment, in an emergency > situation, then they would need to be able to operate it? Clearly, if > the phone isn't usable then the blind person wouldn't own it. If 911 can > be accessed with a touch of the standard keys on the phone's casing, > then that argument is moot anyway. > > There are so many other issues that are so much more important than this > that the government should be acting upon, where I would support it. The > making of US currency accessible for example. I hope that the iPhone > will be accessible by the blind. I would very likely purchase one if it > was. But I don't think in this kind of access issue the government > should have a say. > > > Greg Kearney wrote: > > I would maintain that having all phones accessible to all users is a > > safety issue. The last thing you want is to have someone get to a > > phone in an emergency only to find that phone is is accessible to him. > > Of course the deaf deal wit this which is why we require tha tall > > phone be able to work with hearing aids and be connectable to modern > > TTY devices. > > > > Greg > > >
