hi
this is all i am tring to get at. no way am i intending to bash apple
i love my mac, it goes everywhere with me, i will never ever go back
to windows, smile
but it is rediculous because in gordons' case, what if for example,
he brought a pac amte display or braillenote.. then when he got
leopard it woudln't work.
and if they don't support languages they will lose a lot of
customers, what happens if a french person uses the mac in french?
how will they read the screen?
in braille, i mean
we are not criticising apple but they soon show off the damn visual
elements ooo look at spaces, look at time machine, lovely and visual
but we don't show it from a voice over perspective, but oh when
itcomes to braille we won't you to spend thousands of dollars on a
display that we may not support. vista and windows systems will
support nearly all displays so giving this information will not be a
secret or vialation of plaguing ideas
regards, will
On 17 Mar 2007, at 09:02, Gordon Smith wrote:
This is one of the issues which I find myself banging my head
aganst when trying to convince other potential VoiceOver users that
the Mac is indeed accessible and usable. Josh is correct, Apple is
indeed under no obligation. But you know, it wouldn't hurt, just
for once, to be cooperative! They don't seem to understand that in
the case of many blind individuals and, indeed, organisations, a
Braille terminal represents a significant investment. I can only
speak from my own personal experiences. My terminal is currently
on its last legs, and needs to be replaced. I am trying to put off
the replacement until I know which model or models Leopard will
support. I require dual-platform access, like many others I am
sure. I have no concerns at the Windows end. Most every display
is supported. But for some obscure reason, Apple is playing it
very close to their chest. Where's the problem this close to
release? Surely its in everybody's interest, including Apple, to
ensure that their software can be used upon release. They didn't
hesitate to publish samples of Alex, and dangle the proverbial
carrot with regards some of the new and improved applications in
Leopard. I do work at a private level for one of the Windows
accessibility companies. They have never made a secret of what
will and won't be supported in terms of hardware. I just don't
believe it's true that at this stage in Leopard's development apple
is unaware of what will be supported. It just doesn't make sense
to me. After all, it surely cannot be long before the operating
system media itself goes for mastering. This must be the case with
a product whose distribution is global and of which Apple can
expect millions of purchases. Even assuming that the release date
has been pushed back as late as June, this must still mean that
they're cutting things fine. So personally, I just don't buy the
confidentiality stuff, not at this stage. If it is indeed true
that they really don't know what they're going to support, then I
would suggest that we all get ready for a huge disappointment where
Braille is concerned. And let's face it, VO has changed very
little since its initial release. I'm speaking in terms of overall
functionality here. Let's face it, we don't even have basic stuff
like drag & drop, which most computer users take for granted. With
Tiger's limitations on the cut & pasting of files, for instance,
that is a major issue. At least I think it is. I've never
understood why Apple chose not to add that into the operating
system actually. But that's another matter. Here's hoping that
Apple will get their proverbial finger out, and give their
customers a little bit more information so that they can prepare
for the switch to Leopard.
On 17 Mar 2007, at 00:06, Cheryl Homiak wrote:
Yes, I'm not at all supprised.
I admit I'm spoiled because of how well brltty works for me,
especially in linux but even on the Mac terminal. Of course brltty
has all sorts of support for displays and language translation
tables, but hopefully the apple product will eventually do that for
Macosx.
