Wow, such interesting arguments. When eBook readers do not have built-in
speakers, speech output is impossible. When the page of the book is a picture
of the page, a scanned image, speaking that page is impossible. When the law is
written such that the copyright holder has more rights around who can and
cannot access the book than the potential reader has, accessing the book may
not be legally possible.
If you want to just flail around ineffectually making lots of noise but not
necessarily getting very far, your stated approach can have limited success.
However, would it not be better to learn the specifics in any particular
situation so you can actually become effective? For instance, the author's
guild is focused on keeping the copyrights law strong since writing and
controlling who and how the book is read specifically effects the author's
income. Authors do not earn any money for books which are checked out of
libraries. However, people who really like books they read in libraries have a
greater chance of purchasing their own copy. The argument against
text-to-speech in all eReaders has actually been, if text to speech is used,
people will not purchase the recorded versions of books, and the recorded
versions are much more profitable. This is why NLS is so strict about who can
access their professional recordings.
When software is being designed, adding text-to-speech is significantly less
difficult than adding TTS access at a later date. The same is true for
wheelchair access to buildings.
Depending on how the code is written, adding TTS and screen-reader navigation
may well be extremely complex. In some cases, the entire operating system needs
to be rewritten in order to add TTS and spoken navigation. To rewrite an OS can
take a few years. You have no idea how long the original software was being
developed before the company released the product, so the blanket statement
that adding speech is a trivial matter, is completely incorrect in most cases.
Bugs should be fixed quickly. I love this statement. It demonstrates complete
and total ignorance. Bugs usually take a lot longer to track down and correct
than adding new features. Operating systems are extremely complex. Bugs may
have several causes. Changing code to repair one bug may cause a worse bug
somewhere else in the system. Back when I studied programming in university, I
spent most of my programming time tracking down, correcting, and then tracking
down the bugs that the corrections generated. Sometimes, I left minor bugs
because they did not impair the program's primary function, and I could not get
the program to run any other way.
All that said, unless you can either get a strong public upswell behind you to
get laws changed, or you can develop good will between you and the developers,
ineffectual flailing around may cause as much harm as good to your efforts.
David Chittenden, MSc, MRCAA
Email: [email protected]
Mobile: +64 21 2288 288
Sent from my iPhone
On 19 Dec 2013, at 8:35, eric oyen <[email protected]> wrote:
well, when I get what I want in a timely manner, I don't worry about it. Its
when I get substandard service, features or it takes a lot longer than it
should to get them,, then I am one of the most complaining bastards out there.
I make no bones about it, I expect excellence and anything less deserves
attention to resolve.
Take, for example: the book famine for the blind. We have the same rights as
the general public to access media, yet there are those that are fighting us
tooth and nail because they don't want to deal with the problem. The American
Authors ild is particularly strident on this. They won't allow the publication
of content for the blind unless we sign up on a special registry (does anyone
at the library have to do this just to borrow a book?).
How about the E-book consortium which is trying to get a waiver based on flimsy
reasons (such as design modifications to the hardware, etc). Most all functions
on these devices are in SOFTWARE and is not difficult to code for. Yet Amazon
(and others) seek to get that waiver knowing full well they are locking out a
non-trivial market segment.
Now apple did give us accessibility. However, that wouldn't have happened if
these two conditions were not met:
1. we bitched to them for 4 years before they took notice
2. the blind represent the 2nd largest market segment for computer and
smartphone technology among the disabled.
in the 1970's, the deaf demanded (and got) close captioning (which started
showing up on TV in the early 1980's).
2. wheel chair users fought for 20 years for accessibility rights (and got them
with the ADA in 1992).
Now, we the blind are the last to get anything and we are having to fight tooth
and nail to get it.
My point is this: we are being put last before anyone else. We get treated like
incompetent idiots, yelled at because they think blindness equals deafness and
generally get disrespected in general public. If you are happy with this
situation, fine. Just don't expect the rest of us to just lay down and accept
it. I want whats mine and I will work to get it. If this means that I go into
court to get what is legally mine, I will. Why be satisfied with anything less
than what everyone else gets without even asking for it?
If anyone says I can't do a thing because of my blindness, then they had better
stay out of my way while I prove them wrong (in the most public manner
possible).
We have rights and its time we had them enforced.
-eric
On Dec 18, 2013, at 2:52 AM, Krister Ekstrom wrote:
Yeah, and it doesn’t matter if we get what we want, because then we whimper and
whine about the fact that we have gotten what we want, either it is too late,
too little, too much or just plain spoken the wrong way. I know that what i now
will say is gonna offend people and i apologize in advance for that, but if we
bash Apple accessibility and Apple decides that they don’t want to have
anything whatsoever to do with the blind community then it’s a catastrophy that
we deserve. Don’t misunderstand me, pointing to bugs and things that aren’t
right isn’t wrong and shall be done provided it’s done in a constructive,
polite and creative way, complaining serves no purpose and in the long run
could end up really badly for us.
/Krister
18 dec 2013 kl. 03:42 skrev David Tanner <[email protected]>:
Well, Robert it probably does more to hurt all blind users of Apple devices
than it ever will to help make things better. But, as I am sure you known
blind people have a long history of being hateful, spiteful, not appreciating
what is done for them, and constant complainers.
Sent from my accessible iPhone
On Dec 17, 2013, at 7:53 AM, ROBERT CARTER <[email protected]> wrote:
Hi,
I think the idea that accessibility is less important to Apple since the death
of Steve Jobs is nothing more than pure speculation and if anyone can prove
otherwise, I would love to see the evidence. I see no value in such comments.
Robert Carter
On Dec 17, 2013, at 7:42 AM, Scott B. <[email protected]> wrote:
Absolutely right. They can talking to engineering. But engeeniering has the
final say. I agree since the great Steve Jobs has passed we're probably not
seeing as much interaction from Accessibility as people saw before. To sum it
up very briefly Accessibility is where you take the accessibility suggestions
or problems. They either act upon them y supporting you the person who needs
help or passing it on to the engineering team by escalation. Please also keep
in mind these are tier 2 support personnel so they can't know everything either
so be easy on these people.
On 12/17/2013 03:37, Ray Foret Jr wrote:
Of late, I have noticed complaints against the Apple accessibility team as if
to suggest that we are being ignored. It seems to be the belief of some that
the Apple accessibility team fixes accessibility bugs and problems with Voice
Over. I do not believe that this is the case. It is my belief that the Apple
accessibility team has, in fact, a very limited role at Apple. Frankly, with
the passing of the late great Steve Jobs, that role has perhaps demenished
greatly. I believe that the Apple accessibility team never has had actual
decision making capacity with respect to actual implementation of fixes for
Voice Over. They didn’t even have this power under Steve Jobs. Unless I am
very much mistaken, all the accessibility team has any power to do is to
forward our findings over to the development teams but nothing more. They
cannot even tell us whether or not our reports will be acted upon. Now, this
last is most likely a part of Apple’s non disclosure policy: however, I
suspect that even if this was not so, Apple’s accessibility team would not be
informed in any case. In short, it seems that the only function that this
accessibility team has and will ever have at Apple is not much more than a kind
of clearing house of feedback from us blind users. I cannot help wonder how
many Apple app developmental teams look at submissions from the accessibility
team and say to themselves, “Oh, no, not again.”. I suspect that this explains
why it is that our reports seem to go unheeded.
Sent from my Mac, the only computer with full accessibility for the blind
built-in!
Sincerely,
The Constantly Barefooted Ray, still a very happy Mac and Iphone 5 user!
--
Scott Berry
Email: [email protected]
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