Probably there was a date certain when the folks in marketing made a good
enough case to the rest of the corporation for improving accessibility to
accommodate two different customer bases. First those who had
accessibility needs from the start of their lives and the second market
segment would be those who due to advancing age and physical deterioration
which comes with advancing years to all of us would also need that
accessibility. On and after that date certain that's probably why and
when such progress got made. The money potential and accompanying
demographic before that date didn't make good business sense but after
that additional demographic was taken into account the business sense
situation improved for accessibility. That date certain probably happened
several years ago given the way Apple went about setting up VoiceOver as
compared to the emacspeak project and the linux speakup projects. It took
time and thought and programming effort to get what we have working to the
extent it does as well.
On Sun, 24 Aug 2008, Tim Grady wrote:
Let me just say a few things. I have not like some of you perceive attacked
apple or the Mac, although I do think users of the Mac are quite silly
sometimes about their defense of the Mac, for example, you seem to think I
have some kind of personal grievance against Apple. You couldn't be more
wrong. I just happen not to agree with you about all of the plaudits you are
giving Apple. I like what Apple is doing, but I have to ask, why did it take
them so long to start? Ever since I started working with the LISA you could
see that Apple's equipment had great potential for accessibility. Instead of
putting a lot of time and effort into making their systems accessible they
chose to only give this a minimal effort and were almost put out of business
by Microsoft. Now, I'm not saying that was the only mistake Apple made. To
my mind they made a lot of bonehead mistakes that caused their problems.
Now, back to the Itunes thing that seems to have gotten your bowels in an
uproar. I simply stated that it wouldn't be hard for Apple to fix Itunes so
that every time Itunes was updated you didn't have to get sighted help to
click on the button to agree to the Itunes store terms. Calm down and take a
stress pill. I won't be publicly critical of Apple again on this list if it
gets you'll so upset, although the lists description is for the general
discussion of the Mac.
On Aug 24, 2008, at 5:37 AM, Scott Howell wrote:
John, your wasting your time because Tim just doesn't feel anyone is
looking out for his best interest and because we're blind, we're subject to
being snowed. Got news for you Tim , that isn't the case. Instead of taking
such a negative approach, why not take the opposite and realize that things
don't happen as quickly as we like. Point is your statements might be based
on personal experience, I don't know, but they are way off the mark from my
perspective. I assume your using the Mac? If so, do you find anything about
your experience you do enjoy? I'm just a bit confused by this entire thread
once we got beyond the issue of iTunes. I use iTunes actually a great deal
as a musician. Itunes isn't perfect, but (and we go full circle) it is over
90 percent accessible. I find the store is the greatest challenge, but for
nearly everything else, I've had great success with it. YOu want to talk
about software that's not accessible, lets talk about iWorks which is
something I'd like to see Apple get going. Open Office is getting there,
but it's not even there yet. In the end Tim, you need to look at the amount
of time invested and the results of that investment. In the scheme of
things, Apple really is years ahead in terms of making OSX etc. accessible
as compared to how long it took for windows-based screen readers to achieve
the same results. Does this make sense now?
On Aug 23, 2008, at 10:59 PM, John Panarese wrote:
> No Tim. You are falling back on a weak defense that is pointless to
> debate. You are implying that the blind, overall, are lied to or can be
> spoon fed anything from anyone. Both assertions are baseless and
> foolish. One can make the same claim for the sighted as well and be
> equally wrong. In regard to this topic, since the advent of VoiceOver, I
> believe Apple's progress speaks for itself. Thus, who is being forced or
> fooled into believing what? It amazes me that when one personalizes an
> issue, the grounds to defend that issue become blurred at best. The
> original subject was iTunes accessibility. You don't think it's good
> enough nor will it improve. Others believe otherwise. I think that's
> perfectly clear after all of this, and, again, comes back to opinions.
> In this case, though, the body of evidence indicates the latter, as
> opposed to the former.
> Take Care
>
> John Panarese
