The problem that Microsoft now faces is related to its near monopoly
status. But I doubt that if they were to provide a screen reader they
would be in any kind of serious trouble. I fully expect that with in
a few year a screen reader will be just a part of any OS and the
third party screen readers will just go away.
THe biggest technical problem with third party screen readers is they
break with each now release of the OS.
Greg
On Apr 13, 2007, at 9:20 AM, Ari wrote:
If I can do most things with VO, I think I'd rather take the
chance. Especially because JFW and all other screenreaders are so
expensive, it's probably worthwhile trying to learn VO, also
considering the thing which I find the most brilliant: that I can
go to any sighted person's Mac, and, because I've learned VO, I can
use it just like that. It is also a good thing to learn the other
operating system's screenreader, since then you can use it whenever
you need to anyway. I also heard the Narrator story, and, I don't
know if this is true, but I heard that the screenreader
manufacturers could sue microsoft if they developed a screenreader
that was good, you guys know like when makers of things like web
browsers sued microsoft because of the incorporated browser and
stuff, I suppose that's what screenreader manufacturers would do?
But John, you do have the point, I need to be as productive as I am
with the windows system, in that my documents and assignments need
to look good, and I can be able to do most things.
Ari
Ari
----- Original Message ----- From: "Alastair Campbell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of Mac
OS X by theblind" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, April 13, 2007 5:03 PM
Subject: Re: Hi
John Heim wrote:
Wow... I totally disagree that voiceover is easy to llearn when
compared to jaws.
I was in a similar position, and wrote this:
http://www.nomensa.com/resources/articles/accessibility-articles/
screen-reading-with-apples.html
(Which although some things are easier than I previously thought, it
is still fair to say that application support is still somewhat
lacking, depending on what you do with it.)
I kept going, and created this help guide:
http://alastairc.ac/notes/osx/voiceover/voiceover-basics/
I suspect that (like me) a lot of the issues were more to do with
differences in OSX and how they impact keyboard controls rather than
the screen reader itself. It's a fine line, but an important one.
Voiceover has a lot of potential, I'm definitely looking forward to
the next version
(http://alastairc.ac/2006/08/the-potential-of-voiceover/).
Oh, and I made a backup of the Voiceover wiki before it disappeared,
is it worth putting back up?
Kind regards,
-Alastair
