Hello, Like Windows, Apple relied on a 3rd party program, OutSpoken, for blindness accessibility back in the 90's. When Berkeley Systems went out of business, another company bought OutSpoken from them, but only worked on the PC version of OutSpoken for a couple years. The new company let the Mac version die immediately.
In the early 2000's (2002 or 2003 if memory serves), the Department of Education informed Apple that they would no longer be able to purchase Macs because of lack of accessibility for the blind. Education was one of Apple's largest sales streams. According to a friend who will remain nameless, Apple discussed developing a screen reader with him and others before they decided to take development inhouse in 2003. The original VoiceOver was released in OSX Tiger in 2005 (if memory serves), and was a decent screen reader. It was more functional than Microsoft's Narrator, but was not super impressive. And yet, from those humble beginnings, a core shift occurred in Apple's business model. Accessibility somehow became part of Apple's core structure. VoiceOver in OSX improved by leaps and bounds with every update of the OS. More interestingly, Apple developed a purely touch-based screen reader, from the ground up, for the iPhone 3GS. Apple stated at the time that the 3GS was the first mobile phone which had enough processing power to accommodate their screen reader. Considering that Apple does not apologise for what they do, and they do not use focus groups, and they are driven by improving the end-user's experience (not the computer-savvy "geek" experience), I strongly suspect the screen reader had been developed much earlier and Apple was waiting for the powerful processor to be ready. The initial 3GS VO was far too polished compared with the initial OSX Tiger VO. Microsoft and Google cannot claim that the phone processor chips did not have enough power for their screen readers. Android's screen reader is following the expected progression of a new screen reader that is being developed. It is finally acquiring something close to VO's polish of the 3GS generation. In another year, if Google continues as they are going now, I expect TalkBack to achieve VO's current polish. By that time, of course, I expect VO to be further along. Apple is the market leader here because they truly have accessibility as part of their core business. And, they continue appearing to be the only company which has made such a complete core shift. I happen to know that Microsoft's accessibility department is available for any other MS division which requests accessibility assistance. However, as of a couple years ago, no MS division was required to consult with the accessibility team. It is the decision of each MS division / department. According to a friend who did some technical consulting with Apple a few years ago, divisions in Apple were required to consult with the accessibility team. David Chittenden, MSc, MRCAA Email: dchitten...@gmail.com Mobile: +64 21 2288 288 Sent from my iPhone On 18/09/2012, at 9:05, Scott Howell <scottn3...@gmail.com> wrote: > David, > > True, but my point is that although a small portion of the overall sales, > APple still considers this segment worth the investment. I would love to know > what the real numbers are across all Apple products including the Macs. > > On Sep 17, 2012, at 4:19 PM, David Chittenden <dchitten...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Do not consider 100,000 iPhones to blind folk to be much of a market in this >> case. This number represents 0.3% of 1 quarter year of Apple's iPhone sales, >> but includes all models of iPhones for the past 3 years. In other words, if >> Apple were to stop supporting VO, they wouldn't even notice the tiny bump to >> their profits. Apple is not supporting concepts of universal access for >> their bottom line. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the "VIPhone" Google > Group. > To search the VIPhone public archive, visit > http://www.mail-archive.com/viphone@googlegroups.com/. > To post to this group, send email to viphone@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > viphone+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/viphone?hl=en. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "VIPhone" Google Group. To search the VIPhone public archive, visit http://www.mail-archive.com/viphone@googlegroups.com/. To post to this group, send email to viphone@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to viphone+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/viphone?hl=en.
