ritch;
could you mail me offl ist?
whatD days are the state convention?
thanks
mike
On Jun 10, 2008, at 2:56 PM, Richie Gardenhire wrote:
Larry, et al, I have written to Apple on numerous occasions,
expressing my concerns for blind Alaskans with regard to the
iPhone. In the Alaska bush villages, the cell phone--particularly
the iPhone, is the only means by which blind people in those
villages can affectively communicate with friends and relatives.
Since AT&T and Sprint entered the Alaskan market last year, things
are improving, but it is not getting marketed into the hands of
blind villagers throughout the bush communities. Apple sent a
representative to Alaska to tour Mac store facilities statewide;
part of the fault lies with our stores; part of the fault lies with
tribal elders who have a post on the Alaskan market. Although our
numbers are growing slowly in the Alaska Mac community, more needs
to be done to encourage tribal elders, Mac store proprietors/
managements, and school districts to get iPhones and Macs into the
hands of as many blind people throughout our state. Bill Craig, a
Mac user in southeast Alaska, and an active participant in the
Alaska Federation of Natives, will meet with me through e-mails and
at our state convention in October, to put forth a resolution which
will encourage our stores in Alaska to help Bill and me to form a
marketing strategy so that more blind Alaskans can have exposure to
the Mac and VoiceOver, as well as the iPhone, and it's my hope that
the representative who was here last year will take his findings and
report them to the development team at Apple. I'm not saying that
our problems are any more unique than that of other states, except
to say that because of the huge distances people have to travel
here, the cell phone has become an intrical part of our lives here.
Alaska has a long way to go to catch up to other states in marketing
talking interfaces for cellphones, iPods, and other Apple products.
Stateside is ahead of us in that regard. Richie Gardenhire,
Anchorage, Alaska.
On Jun 10, 2008, at 12:34 PM, David Poehlman wrote:
255 applies to at&t here strangely. it goes like this, at&t must
provide
service and equipment which is accessible and they are doing that.
Many of
their phones are not accessible so if the law were applied in that
way, it
would be a real mess. Apple have provided an accessible os. if
someone
wants, they can use that os to access the AT&T services through a
pc card I
believe.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Larry Wanger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of Mac
OS X by
theblind" <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2008 4:25 PM
Subject: Re: The New iPhone--to Be Released in July
There is a federal regulation, 215 or 255? I can't recall it exactly
that addresses accessibility. My understanding is that complaints
about the iPhone were filed late last year under this requirement.
But
seriously, when things come to a point where we can't even answer a
phone as blind people are we really okay with saying that Apple will
get to it. Come on folks, do we love Steve Jobs and his innovation
all
that much. Its not acceptable!
DisabilityNation, an Audio Magazine by and for People with
Disabilities. Listen at http://www.disabilitynation.net
On Jun 10, 2008, at 1:15 PM, Chris Blouch wrote:
Which federal regulations would that be? There is Section 508 but I
thought that only applied to government procurement. So without
compliance the government will not buy iPhones or something. Also a
lot of laws only require registering a plan to reach accessibility
and demonstrate adherence to that plan, not that you must have
things accessible day 1. Apple may well have a plan in place but the
solution is not yet implemented or surfaced in a public product yet.
I suspect they have bags of lawyers who checked into this.
CB
Larry Wanger wrote:
Never mind that Apple is probably violating Federal requirements to
make phones accessible. You know, this morning my wife's cell phone
(an iPhone) was ringing with an important phone call and I couldn't
even answer it! Something is wrong with this picture. They are
aware of the problem and yet have taken no steps to make the phone
accessible.
DisabilityNation, an Audio Magazine by and for People with
Disabilities. Listen at http://www.disabilitynation.net
On Jun 9, 2008, at 8:07 PM, Richie Gardenhire wrote:
Unfortunately from the preliminary readings I've done, the new
iPhone 3G edition, will not be VoiceOver friendly. We will
probably have to wait a while longer for that to happen. But as
they say, "All good things come to those of us who wait
patiently." So I'm going to keep reading and checking to see what
comes down the pipe in the next generation of iPhones after this
one. Richie Gardenhire, Anchorage, Alaska.
