And what's Apple got to do with Window-Eyes? We're talking too completely different scenarios here it seems.
Apple are developing their computers, their operating system and so on thus its easier for the company to incorporate such useful features such as a Screen Reading solution, a magnifier or whatever else into an operating system as they've done. Gw Micro, Freedom Scientific and the rest are third party developers who have to work within the framework as set down by Microsoft so I would imagine that this restriction hampers developers somewhat thus extra time has to be spent on the development of a Screen reading system, not to mention the fact that accessibility for the Windows operating system itself seems to be going backwards these days and that's not a fault of the Screen Reader developers rather its a fault of Microsoft. As for more and more blind people using Apple Computers with Voiceover? That's a very bold claim and I've certainly seen no data to support it, Apple still have quite a long way to go and I'm sure they'll get there eventually, look at how far JFW has come over 10 years. Fact is that integration between a Mac and Windows is still a problem in some areas and a classic example of this can be found with Microsoft Office documents, the whole Microsoft suite is accessible under windows and one could say - for better or for worse - that the Microsoft Office suite is a standard so far so good. When you come to using a Microsoft Office document on a Mac - particularly if you're using Voiceover - then its an entirely different and sometimes complex ball game. Microsoft Office isn't accessible on the Mac so that's the first major handicap so the only solutions from here are third party applications and some are more successful with Microsoft Office files than others, as I understand it Nisus Writer Pro for example handles Microsoft Word Documents than does Pages but neither handle them with 100% accuracy. On 28/12/2011, at 5:45 AM, Mrs. Lynnette Annabel Smith wrote: > Hello Paul > > I'm not in a position to argue the exact stats and figures, so I wouldn't > like to in any way contradict your quotes. However, Apple has shown what's > possible if the developer is prepared to play ball, so to speak. The number > of vision impaired people using their products is rising rapidly; even > Freedom Scientific's own vice president is an iPhone user I believe. So > although I see your point, I really think it's a case of milking the customer > for all they can get. > > Lynne > > > On 27 Dec 2011, at 17:52, Paul Hopewell wrote: > > HI Lynne, > Although WindowEyes may seem expensive it and other assistive technology > products have a small market compared with mainstream software. Last time I > looked the GWMicro team was about 20 strong and they all have to be paid. The > cost of employing each person could be around 100 K dollars including costs > like office space. to support this GWMicro has to make around 2 million > dollars a year, which means they have to sell around 4000 copies of > WindowEyes a year. Software pricing critically depends on sales volumes which > will always be small for specialised areas like assistive technology. > Now to someone like Apple or even Microsoft 2 million dollars a year is a > small sum which they can easily absorb. the only way to get affordable > assistive technology is for it to be included in mainstream products like > Apple or for it to b provided in a not for profit way like NVDA and Thunder. > The latter though cannot bring sufficient resources to bear to keep their > offerings fully up to date with the ever changing user environment. > So lets not be too harsh on GWMicro.! > Best regards.... > > Paul Hopewell > > ======================================= > > The Techno-Chat E-Mail forum is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus > and worm-free > > To modify your subscription options, please visit for forum's dedicated web > pages located at > http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/techno-chat > > You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Techno-Chat group at > either of the following websites: > > http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/techno-chat/index.html > > Or: > <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]> > you may also subscribe to this list via RSS. 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