On Apr 13, 2007, at 12:25 PM, John Heim wrote:
I'll bet I'm the only one on this list who has argued both sides. I think the jaws advocates underestimate and prematurely discount voiceover and the voiceover advocates unfairly criticize jaws. I can tell you one thing with 100% certainty... There are jaws users who are every bit as certain that voiceover stinks as many people on this list seem to be that voiceover has it all over jaws. It would be interesting to get the two groups together. I would like to put some of you folks together with the people on the nfbcs list.
Actually, I used to be a huge advocate for Jaws. I worked professionally as a Jaws Script writer for Marriott International for several years. I used JFW for a decade.
Over the past few years, I became increasingly less satisfied with Jaws's performance. This led me eventually to evaluate and switch to Window-Eyes on the Windows side. I write Windows software for a living, so I use WIndows every day still. I use a Mac as well, and enjoy VoiceOver tremendously, and am now running a MacBook with Parallels and both OSX and Windows Vista simultaneously. I've been on both sides, and Have determined that VO and WE are the screenreaders I believe to be the best at what they do, and JFW is not. And this coming from someone who has years more experience with JFW than the other two.
