I think the only way to know the answer to the question of whether Apple will remain committed to accessibility and the improvement of VoiceOver in particular is to wait and see. They, as with every other company in this capitalist environment, is primarily concerned with making money for their shareholders. The reason they haven't done much with respect to accessibility till now is because section 508 of the ADA and perhaps other laws as well (legalese details here) have forced their hand. I believe that they must comply with 508 in order for them to sell to the government and more importatnly, to schools (K thru 12 I believe only so far). In fact, the only reason windows as is accessible as we find it today is because the government threatened to cease all dealings with Microsoft circa 1995 until they addressed the accessibility concerns relating to Win95. It was completely incompatible with PC adaptive technology which was primarily dos-based.
-- Rich ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ari" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of Mac OS Xby theblind" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, April 13, 2007 12:05 PM Subject: Re: Hi Aren't you guys worried also though that Apple might not be that committed to accessibility? I know they built VO, but will they always make the effort of keeping it up to date? Are there enough blind people buying Macs and showing Apple that it's good what they're doing? Are there people at Apple who a person can contact to express appreciation and encourage them to develop more features, like an accessibility team? I'm asking since I've read some article where the author criticises Apple on accessibility a lot, I think the site was Blind Confidential, or something like that. Ari ----- 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: Friday, April 13, 2007 5:58 PM Subject: Re: Hi > None of the third party screen reader company have the financial backing > to mount a serious legal challenge to Microsoft and I do not think the > government will either. > > The day of the third party screen reader is over in five years time they > will not exist. Microsoft can not permit a situation to exist where a > competitor has built in screen readers and they do not. > > Greg > On Apr 13, 2007, at 9:42 AM, Joshue O Connor wrote: > >> Greg said: >> >>> 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. >> >> Lol :-) and then Microsoft will end up with an anti-trust case as the >> inclusion of a fully functioning screen reader will be seen as >> anti-competitive and an abuse of their monopoly, a threat to third party >> vendors. >> >> I can see the headlines now... >> >> Josh >> >> > >
