Hi to all.

David C. responded to the posting of the Byron Yorke commentary on the Kindle on another list. Specifically, it's about how and why Apple has jumped in front of Microsoft in terms of visually impaired access. I requested and got his permission to reprint his post here as I think it has some historical significance. I am including that post (along with my post requesting that permission) because I allude to a comment that one of this list's moderators sent me privately after I posted my strong response to the Byron Yorke opinion piece on this list.

Ted

Date: Sat, 07 Aug 2010 12:39:38 +1200
From: David Chittenden <[log in to unmask]>
To: ted chittenden <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Civil Rights and the Kindle

Hello Ted,

You can publish my post. However, there are several companies and 
agencies which require their employees to use Blackberries because they 
give the organization an extremely high level of control over the 
person's email through the Blackberry network. There is now a screen 
access solution available from HumanWare for one or two Blackberry 
phones. It is not very good. It does not give complete access to the 
Blackberry phone. The screen access solution is called Orator.

David Chittenden, MSc, CRC, MRCAA
Email: [log in to unmask]


On 8/7/2010 1:06 AM, ted chittenden wrote:
David,
Can I have your permission to post your post below to the Vicug-L list or can you do it yourself. The reason I ask is that in response to my post on the subject on the Vicug-L list, Mark J. Senk, one of the moderators of that list, wrote me privately off-list, saying that he worked for the Federal government and that the only mobile device he was allowed to use (though not completely accessible) for his job was the Blackberry.

Ted
---- David Chittenden<[log in to unmask]>  wrote:
    
Hello,

Actually, though Apple has always had some commitment to accessibility,
they did not take it fully in-house until shortly after the turn of the
century.

Why did Apple develop Voice Over? In the late 80's and 90's, a company
known as Berkeley Systems, based in Berkeley, CA, developed and sold a
program called Out-Spoken for the Mac. According to a friend who worked
at Apple during that time, Apple worked closely with Berkeley Systems to
ensure Out-Spoken was fully accessible with the Mac. Never having used
the program, I cannot attest to the veracity of this statement.

By the end of the 90's, Berkeley Systems folded. They sold Out-Spoken to
HumanWare, if memory serves, who continued development of the Windows
product for another year or so.

Apple has always been quite heavily in the government and education
sectors. Apple was informed that the government would no longer be able
to purchase Macs do to requirements of the rehab act and Windows systems
being more accessible. As no screen-reader developer was willing to
develop for the Mac (it was seen as a losing proposition because MS had
over 95% of the market at that time), Apple quietly brought the screen
reader development in-house. With the release of OSX Tiger in 2005,
Apple unveiled Voice Over. At that time, only blind Apple fanatics, for
the most part, adopted the new screen access solution which enabled them
to return to their beloved Apple computers. Voice Over for OSX Leopard
was a huge leap forward for Mac access. I did not believe it at that
time, so went with a Windows computer instead. For the past couple
months, I have been playing with my landlord's Mac which runs OSX
Leopard and have realized it would have worked fine for me.

During this time, The iPhone was making its huge splash in the mobile
phone market. Apple quietly developed a revolutionary gesture-based
screen access solution which required a significant amount of processing
power and a newly created "multi-touch" capacitive touch-screen display
to function properly. Apple released the necessary components in the
high-end iPhone 3 GS.

A couple months later, Apple released OSX Snow Leopard which
incorporated the iPhone gesture-based commands to any MacBook Pro which
had a new multi-touch touch pad.

When the iPad was released, it incorporated support for bluetooth
braille displays and bluetooth keyboards (and bluetooth braille
keyboards as well). This innovation was incorporated in the new iPhone
4, and the IOS 4 upgrade for the iPhone 3 GS.

And finally, Apple has just released their Magic pad, which is a larger
touch pad that can be connected to any Mac via bluetooth (or USb I
believe), which is a multi-touch touch pad.

What can we predict for Apple regarding accessibility in the future?
Apple hired a blind braille specialist who also understands software
development last year. They also filed a patent for a way of generating
virtual braille simulation on a touch-screen last year.

For those who say we cannot trust Apple's commitment to accessibility
because they didn't bring their development in-house until after they
were about to lose business from the US government, I ask you to compare
Apple's record with Adobe, Panasonic, Microsoft, Xerox, and HP; all
companies which have been professing commitment to accessibility whilst,
save for a few show-piece products, have been continuing on with
business as usual.

   From what I have seen, Apple appears to be the only general market
high-tech company which has adopted accessibility in to its corporate
structure.

I challenge any of you to show another general market high-tech company
which has done at least as much as Apple has over the past five plus years.

David Chittenden, MSc, CRC, MRCAA
Email: [log in to unmask]


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