Forgot to say that last night the only way I was able to finish watching my 
video was to choose the iTunes link and pay Apple $1.99 for the download. I was 
going to do that again today, but I couldn't find the iTunes link for the one I 
wanted, unless I wanted to buy the dvd, which I didn't. 

Regards again, 
Gigi

On Aug 9, 2013, at 2:51 PM, Eugenia Firth <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi guys
> I just had a very bad accessibility hour. Luckily, this was not something I 
> had to do, but the better I got, be more I wanted to do it.
> 
> I have an application on my iPhone which sort of works with VoiceOver. For 
> one thing, the links don't always tell you what they are, and there are some 
> existing buttons or whatever they are that you can't tell exist. So, if you 
> want to play a video like I did last night, you have to get sighted help to 
> turn VoiceOver off and activate the button to play. The other thing is that 
> if you watch the free ones like I started to last night, you get interrupted 
> with an ad, and there's no way to get back using VoiceOver, never mind that 
> VoiceOver tells you that your video will start up in 12 seconds, but it never 
> does. 
> 
> Then add insult to injury. You are asked to do a survey. You are suspicious 
> taht there might be some accessibility problems, but forge on anyway. They 
> sent me a message to my iPhone with the link for doing the survey. I should 
> have chosen the email option because , you guessed it, it didn't work with 
> the iPhone. I could read all the questions, and find all the choices, 
> including the part to make comments. However, when I double tapped on the 
> answers, their dumb computer didn't recognize that I had tapped on them. 
> 
> So, I got out my Mac, and this time it worked. You guys can imagine what I 
> had to say, and of course, it was not complimentary at all. At the end I told 
> them to contact Apple accessibility to improve their program. Then I told the 
> survey people that I had spent an hour on their survey. I told them I had to 
> do it twice. 
> 
> Regards, 
> Gigi
> 
> On Aug 9, 2013, at 12:59 PM, Brian Fischler <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
>> Hey Gigi,
>> 
>> Well put. I know I was only speaking about fantasy games, but wanted to 
>> refer to the big picture as well, this was just my example, and I think you 
>> summed it up very well. There are far more important things that need to be 
>> made accessible to people with all sorts of disabilities. This was just my 
>> way of chiming in. Thanks again for your thoughts and comments.
>> On Aug 9, 2013, at 1:51 PM, Eugenia Firth <[email protected]> wrote:
>> 
>>> Hi there
>>> I am not a sports fan like my brothers. However, your comments are not 
>>> small here. I think what is needed is that accessibility, especially for 
>>> sensory accessibility, be required as a course for all computer 
>>> programmers, including those doing iOS. This is because, and I see it in 
>>> the group that I belong to, it never even occurs to those folks what is 
>>> needed and why something doesn't work. A lot of them just plain flat don't 
>>> get it, and when you have a big group of people doing the project, then you 
>>> are probably going to have a whole bunch of them that have not gotten it 
>>> yet. So, what I think you are looking at, is a group of people that sat 
>>> down and looked at the program that they had gotten, and thought some 
>>> wonderful ideas that would work just great for our sided friends. I'll bet 
>>> they never even thought that someone like you would want to play the game
>>> 
>>> Until programming for sensory disabilities is a required course at 
>>> universities for computer programmers, I think we are going to continue to 
>>> have our programs broken from time to time. We are all busy trying to get 
>>> companies to recognize the importance accessibility, and Apple, for one has 
>>> done a good job on that. However, until we get universities across the 
>>> board to recognize that, we will continue, in my opinion, to have an uphill 
>>> battle. There are too many people out there thinking "I think it's too bad 
>>> that these people can't do anything. That's a real shame." We have to get 
>>> people away from that centuries-old mindset, and that is not easy. 
>>> Sincerely,
>>> Gigi
>>> On Aug 9, 2013, at 12:24 PM, Brian Fischler <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Hey all,
>>>> 
>>>> Having nowhere to write this as it is much more than 140 characters, I 
>>>> wanted to share my experience and opinion with the group. Relating to the 
>>>> big picture, I do get that this is fantasy football, but it really has 
>>>> opened my eyes to where accessibility falls with big companies.
>>>> 
>>>> Going completely blind over the past several years, one of the things I 
>>>> miss most is being able to play team sports such as baseball and football. 
>>>> One of the ways I have adjusted to not being able to play or see the games 
>>>> anymore is by playing fantasy baseball and fantasy football. As my vision 
>>>> has deteriorated and I have come to completely rely on voiceover 
>>>> technology playing fantasy games has gotten harder and harder. 
>>>> 
>>>> The most important part and most fun is the live draft. It's where you 
>>>> build your team for the year. Do to sites like Yahoo and ESPN using java 
>>>> and flash to run these drafts, I have had to auto pick which doesn't allow 
>>>> you to participate with everyone else, and leaves you with an inferior 
>>>> team starting out. Two years ago, I was so excited when after scouring the 
>>>> web and app store I came across an app released by an individual 
>>>> entrepreneur called Big Noggins that was the first app that made it 
>>>> possible for you to draft your ESPN and Yahoo teams on your iPhone. I was 
>>>> so thankful and surprised when the app actually worked with Voiceover. Of 
>>>> course I figured once the live draft started there would probably be some 
>>>> complications with Voiceover. Nope, the app worked perfectly with 
>>>> Voiceover. Amazing, as technology had made my day a little brighter by 
>>>> allowing me to once again participate in a live draft. I know in the big 
>>>> picture this is just fantasy games, but anything that brings you a little 
>>>> enjoyment is a good thing, and I was so thrilled for the past two years to 
>>>> be able to draft my own teams.
>>>> 
>>>> With the 2013 fantasy football season coming up I have been preparing to 
>>>> draft my teams and kept checking the app store for Big Noggins release of 
>>>> the 2013 draft app. With the season getting closer and closer, and no 
>>>> release of the app, I began to investigate what was going on. I went to 
>>>> Big Noggins website and discovered that his technology that allows people 
>>>> to draft their team on an iPhone had been acquired by Yahoo. Ok, well, 
>>>> yahoo is supposedly a forward thinking company when it comes to 
>>>> accessibility. I downloaded Yahoo's 2013 fantasy football app which has 
>>>> been completely retooled for 2013, and now thanks to Big Noggins 
>>>> technology allows Yahoo users for the first time to draft their team on an 
>>>> iPhone. 
>>>> 
>>>> Last night I decided to check out one of the mock drafts to prepare for my 
>>>> live draft and see how the accessibility works. No surprise, as even 
>>>> though Yahoo acquired a company whose app was fully accessible, Yahoo in 
>>>> implementing the technology into their own app completely broke its 
>>>> accessibility with Voiceover. Once again leaving blind fantasy sport 
>>>> players in the dark. How could a company as big as Yahoo that claims to 
>>>> care about accessibility break something that once worked? It just goes to 
>>>> show where accessibility falls with a big company. They don't care. For 
>>>> years, I have been speaking with Yahoo about the accessibility of their 
>>>> fantasy games, and have been getting the typical we're aware of the 
>>>> accessibility issues and are working on it. After this latest experience, 
>>>> I now believe and know that companies like Yahoo could care less when it 
>>>> comes to improving accessibility. If this small entrepreneur was able to 
>>>> make his app accessible how in the world can a billion dollar company like 
>>>> Yahoo take that same technology, implement it in their app, and completely 
>>>> leave out accessibility. My only conclusion is it is they just don't care. 
>>>> ESPN is even worse than Yahoo, as I have tried contacting them about 
>>>> accessibility for five years, and have not once received a response. I 
>>>> find it pathetic that a company like ESPN, which is owned by Disney could 
>>>> care less about implementing any form of accessibility to help allow blind 
>>>> people to use any of their apps. Their website is an absolute nightmare to 
>>>> try and read with a screen reader. If Major League Baseball and other 
>>>> small entrepreneurs can make their apps fully accessible with Voiceover 
>>>> than their is no excuse for a company like ESPN to not be able to make 
>>>> their apps and website accessible.
>>>> 
>>>> I know that I am talking about fantasy games, and in the big picture, they 
>>>> are not important, but this experience with major companies does shed some 
>>>> light on where accessibility falls.
>>>> 
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>>>> 
>>> 
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