I recently called Apple Accessibility line for help with an encrypted backup. I was told that I’d been referred to a “Senior advisor”, or some such. Later, I was shunted to someone else. Both of these Apple Accessibility geniuses kept telling me to “Go Down” or “Just below that”, even though I told them I was blind, a VoiceOver user, and using “the screenreader JAWS on my PC”. They were very patient and, ultimately, helpful, but I was very surprised they didn’t seem to have a working concept of screenreader fundamentals, including TAB navigation.
I’ve had better experiences in the past. I guess a lot depends upon with whom you get on the other end of the line. From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Teresa Cochran Sent: Monday, August 11, 2014 7:24 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Advocating for VO Accessibility To my way of thinking, Apple *facilitates accessibility in third-party apps, and not all of the reps at the accessibility service number will necessarily know all of the specific blindness-related apps. this is not to say that they shouldn't be familiarized with them to some extent. However, making accessibility available in a mainstream product is somewhat new territory. I would fully expect the folks at apple accessibility to be familiar with the apps built into iO s, such as Mail, Calendar, and Safari. There are many, many third-party apps, and I'm afraid the specific blindness-related ones like Seeing Assistant, Bard, and NFB Newsreader will be lost in the shuffle for the most part. I look at it this way: how many average blind folks know about switching devices for iOS, to be used by quadruplegics using mouth controls? Accessibility is always an education process. For example, i have experienced some hearing loss, but not to the extent that hearing aids are required. When hearing aids become necessary for me, I will definitely need to learn a lot about the use of them with iOS. Icould be learning now, as well. I know for a fact as a former access tech trainer that some trainers specialized in certain types of accessibility. I used Braille, and a colleague was much better than I was at teaching low-vision solutions, since I had never been sighted. I think we're at a frontier, and we need to be aware of this, even though, in all possible worlds, anyone getting paid to advise on accessibility issues should have some breadth and depth of knowledge on this very broad subjet. Just my two, Teresa "We can see with the eyes, but we see with the brain as well, and seeing with the brain is often called imagination."--Oliver Sacks On Aug 11, 2014, at 2:45 PM, Michelle Bernstein <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: The bard mobile app is easy to locate I agree. The nfb Newsline was not, for me, when I searched nfb or national federation of the blind in the iTunes Store and the App Store. What was surprising to me was that these apps were not familiar to the people who answered the apple accessibility phone line. Apparently I misunderstood the point of the original poster in that he is looking for advice regarding speaking with developers, not individual stories of frustration with dealing with customer service for the accessibility device providers. So please disregard my earlier post. -- The following information is important for all members of the viphone list. All new members to the this list are moderated by default. 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