Right. That is the official NFB position on screen readers. They asked
Microsoft to *not* improve narrator to the point where it would compete with
jaws and window-eyes.
I think the real test of the NFB policy will be determined when leopard is
released. Voiceover has some big problems right now. I personally can't use
it as my primary screen reader because the way it works in a terminal window
is a deal killer for me. But maybe it will be improved in leopard.
There are other free screen readers available, orca for gnome and nvda for
Windows. Voiceover is easily the best of the free screen readers. To be
fair, the other two are still in the development stage.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Greg Kearney" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of Mac OS X by
theblind" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2007 7:27 PM
Subject: Re: Hi
Biggest problem with the Access World review is that the author told me
in person before the review was ever written that he would "make sure
this blew up in Apple face." He never intended to give it a fair review.
The whole matter was dishonest from the start.
There are those in the blindness community who do not want built in
screen readers in any OS. They believe that Apple by doing so will cause
Microsoft to do the same. At that point the market for third party screen
readers will disappear and with it their choices in Windows screen
readers. So they oppose any effort by Apple to introduce accessibly as
part of the OS.
Greg Kearney
On Apr 12, 2007, at 6:16 PM, Access Curmudgeon wrote:
Welcome Ari. I think you have hit on four of the biggest reason why
switching is appealing for screen reader users. Here are some more:
http://home.adelphia.net/~bmss/vo/reasons.html
That Access World article was all wet, very disappointing. Here is a
list of most of the problems with it:
http://home.adelphia.net/~bmss/vo/aw060505fix.html
Those URLs are expected to go dark sometime.
