[access-uk] Re: Accessibility of Tiger OS
- From: "Ray's Home" <rays-home@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 12:33:54 -0000
Glad we seem to agree here Tink. Funny you should mention the cost element.
There's been one of those occasional messages you get on lists over on the
Zoomtext list about why we pay so much in the UK. I doubt the questioner will
get an answer, or at least one that attempts a justification.
Given the financial position of non-working non-educational customers the Apple
accessibility could have a lot going for it if development is sustained. (Not
suggesting for a moment though that the state of screen reading on the Mac is
going to suit 'productivity' minded customers.
Ray
Personal emails: Email me at
mailto:ray-48@xxxxxxxx
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tink Watson" <tink@xxxxxxxxxx>
| Ray,
|
| I think you're right. Given some development time, Voiceover will be a
| force to be reckoned with. For the moment, I tend to agree with Adrian, when
| he said that support for productivity related activities was limited, but
| daily browsing, emails etc were ok.
|
| The cost implication is certainly the biggest significant factor for
| Voiceover and in time I think we'll notice a growing transfer across to the
| Mac.
|
| Tink.
| ----- Original Message -----
| From: "Ray's Home" <rays-home@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
| To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
| Sent: Monday, March 06, 2006 8:27 PM
| Subject: [access-uk] Re: Accessibility of Tiger OS
|
|
| I'd only say Tink that it is very early days yet. I think people can have
| legitimate doubts as to exactly how much development effort will go into the
| field of accessibility for VI people with the Mac and the next couple of
| years should show us how serious and how far Apple is prepared to go. I was
| only trying to point out that at least, as far as I understand it, Safari
| now has rather more keyboard support than it once did. I'm unlikely though
| to have the money to spare to see for myself. I'd be very interested to
| know whether the ability to assign keystrokes in the Apple operating system
| has any relevance to our needs, and how much, if at all, Apple script can be
| enlisted in making things easier for us.
|
| The Windows screen readers, with some help from Microsoft it has to be said,
| have come a very long way in the last ten years. For that reason I am not
| about to rush out and buy a Mac, and most PC users who use mainstream office
| applications won't either.
|
| People working in the multimedia industry, including sound, might have some
| hopes, seeing how dominant the Mac is there, but I think they'd better not
| be holding their breath. (smile)
| Ray
|
| Personal emails: Email me at
| mailto:ray-48@xxxxxxxx
|
| ----- Original Message -----
| From: Tink Watson
| To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
| Sent: Monday, March 06, 2006 8:12 PM
| Subject: [access-uk] Re: Accessibility of Tiger OS
|
|
| I'm not convinced about the accessibility of Safari, particularly with
| Voiceover. It lacks much of the quick key functionality that Jaws does with
| Internet Explorer and Firefox, which for someone who is used to jumping
| around a web page from heading to heading, list to list etc, made page
| navigation very slow and cumbersome.
|
| Regards,
| Tink.
|
|
|
| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| From: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
| Of Ray's Home
| Sent: Monday, 06 March 2006 10:21
| To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
| Subject: [access-uk] Re: Accessibility of Tiger OS
|
|
| No worries about the capslock Phil!
|
| I've come across a guy on another list using the Mac with Tiger and screen
| reader. he's become visually impaired fairly recently and I think it might
| have been that his wife chose the computer for its looks, as women tend to
| do, (smile). Anyway, he seems to be getting on quite well as he regularly
| comes onto the mail list and does a fair bit of internet work too. I hear
| Safari, which is Apple browser is much better than it used to be for
| accessability. Not so though with all the Apple programs I'm led to
| understand.
|
| Someone else who bought a Mac recently was Andrew Hodgson who we don't
| here so much of on this llist now, but it might be worth emailing him for
| his thoughts on it, learning curve, it usefulness and so on. I believe he
| bought the Apple Mini which you can buy without a monitor or keyboard for
| £350.00-400 .00. It's very very small being little bigger than a CD in its
| width/depth measurements, and maybe 2" thick. It has good connectivity, and
| reasonalble power. Some folks are running audio applications on it. Of
| course it comes with OSX Tiger with the bundled screen reader. That's not a
| bad price to pay for getting into Mac computing if that's where you want to
| be headed.
|
| Its early days yet for the Apple screen reader and one can reasonably hope
| things will get better as the OS and screen reader are updated. Don't
| forget too that the Apple does come with some screen magnification features
| too.
|
| I don't know what support is like, but there is at least one email list of
| blind Apple users you might search out.
|
| HTH.
| Ray
|
| Personal emails: Email me at
| mailto:ray-48@xxxxxxxx
|
| ----- Original Message -----
| From: Phil Stephenson
|
| Yup, have had a couple of total Mac fans raving about using apple mac'S.
| I CURRENTLY USE WIN xp PRO WITH jaws 7 AND AM NOT UNHAPPY BUT I DID USE A
| MAC SOME 10 YEARS OR SO AGO WHEN I COULD USE SCREEN-ENLARGEMNET SOFTWARE.
| so MY QUESTION IS A GENREAL ONE AT THIS STAGE, ANYONE OUT THERE USING A Mac
| AND IF SO HOW DO THEY FIND THE ACCESSIBILITY OF tiger AND THE RANGE OF Mac
| programs available. Yeah I know any switch would require a lot of dosh but
| that's not my key question at this stage.
|
| Hopefully I won't be shot simply for even suggesting the switch from
| windows to Mac!!
|
| Look forward to receiving your comments,
|
| cheers,
|
| Phil
|
| p.s. sorry about the caps lock being on for part of this!!!
|
|
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