Comments for The Mac-cessibility Network - News [Lioncourt.com]

Comment on AppleTV Software 4.4 Includes VoiceOver Enhancements by Lioncourt

Lioncourt — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 16:05:59 +0000

Please see our clarification on this at http://www.lioncourt.com/2011/10/17/appletv-voiceover-activation-clarification/

Comment on AppleTV Software 4.4 Includes VoiceOver Enhancements by sbelbin

sbelbin — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 12:29:35 +0000

Hi ok the upgrade to version 4.4 went ok,no sign of voiceover working with the triple click of the right hand /play button.
Do I need to enable the triple click function somewhere else the same as wwhen you set up voiceover to come on with iphones etc or off,with a triple click of the home button

Comment on Xcode 4.2 Provides Enhanced Accessibility with VoiceOver by bertp001

bertp001 — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 21:41:30 +0000

Thanks for bringing the VO enhancements in Xcode 4.2 Interface Builder to my attention.

Comment on Steve Jobs Steps Down As CEO of Apple Inc. by Cara

Cara — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 23:44:54 +0000

Steve, you’ve touched many, many lives much more deeply than your role as merely a CEO of a tech company. The innovations you’ve brought about, which benefit the visually impaired community are life-changing, beyond words! Thank you!!!

Comment on How to install Dropbox on the Mac using VoiceOver by jcast

jcast — Thu, 26 May 2011 00:59:36 +0000

Thanks very much for this.

Comment on Apple’s Live Media Event Round Up and product Accessibility by blindcat7

blindcat7 — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 19:37:51 +0000

Someone on one of my discussion lists stated that the rear facing camera on the 4th generation Touch does not possess the resolution necessary for Digit-Eyes and that the forward facing camera can solely be used for Facetime chat. If this is true, it is absolutely unaccesptable. I understand their need to differentiate the Touch and the iPhone, but to do it at the cost of one of the most useful accessibility tools available is just not right. If the front facing camera literally is solely useable with Facetime, what a waste of a 5 megapixel camera. I had been waiting for the 4G Touch specifically for the hope they would add a camera so I could use Digit-Eyes.

Comment on Review: iOS 4.0 Has Arrived – What’s New in VoiceOver by Blake

Blake — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 21:20:06 +0000

Here’s some info about what landmarks are.

Quoted from http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria/terms#def_landmark

Landmark

A type of region on a page to which a user may want quick access. Content in such a region meets a specific purpose, different from that of other regions
on the page and relevant to specific user purposes, such as navigating, searching, perusing the primary content, etc.

Hope this helps.

Comment on Apple Releases Safari 5 by TVSoundGuy

TVSoundGuy — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 03:33:17 +0000

Well today has been a day for geeking out for sure. I’m writing this comment in Safari 5 after visiting Facebook and Twitter and the speed improvement is definitely noticeable on the Macbook Pro I am using. I have not yet used the Safari Reader yet, although I imagine I will soon.

Comment on Apple Unveils iPhone 4 and New Accessibility Features by TVSoundGuy

TVSoundGuy — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 02:30:22 +0000

Yet another milestone for apple. Great to hear that they are bringing Braille to the iPhone. I’m really tempted to buy an iPad and am waiting for someone to talk me out of it.

Comment on Google Chrome for Mac Disregards Accessibility by pkasting

pkasting — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 00:37:18 +0000

I’m not sure what justification you have for saying that Google is not providing our team the proper resources to do accessibility. I speak only about the Chromium project, of course (Android is an entirely separate project), but there’s certainly no stinginess or resource shortage where we wish we had more support for accessibility and can’t get it.

You are correct that users see a product that currently lacks screen reader support no matter what the explanation is, but to characterize this as somehow being due to us “not giving any consideration to” or “disregarding” accessibility is simply factually wrong, and I believe the main thrust of your article is an attempt to characterize trends and attitudes, not to report on the (obvious) fact that web content in Google Chrome is not currently accessible. So no, I would not agree that your description was “reasonably accurate”.

If you’d like to have more points of view than just my own, you’re welcome to ask the development community anything you’d like about accessibility or any other topic. We’re an open-source project and have multiple different contact points (mailing lists, IRC channels, etc.) that you can find at http://chromium.org/ .

Comment on Google Chrome for Mac Disregards Accessibility by Lioncourt

Lioncourt — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 21:57:42 +0000

@pkasting:
Thanks for taking the time to comment. I believe that, whatever the technical explanation, our description of the situation was still reasonably accurate. Google’s implementation of the browser breaks accessibility, which ever way you slice it. However it is justified, all end users see is a wholly inaccessible product at launch. I really hope that all you say is true, and that a fully accessible version of Chrome for Mac is in our near future, but I don’t believe Google is providing its developers, like yourself, with the proper resources to do accessibility correctly, or even well. The Android OS, for instance, has limited access, and that access is clumsy at best. I don’t blame the developers on the ground.

Comment on Google Chrome for Mac Disregards Accessibility by Jon

Jon — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 19:42:44 +0000

I work in education and I completely understood the point of this article in regards to accessibility. When dealing with content online in education, especially the delivery of online courses, we need to be section 508 compliant. Since Google has decided to ignore accessibility, we certainly will not be recommending its use to our students.

Comment on Google Chrome for Mac Disregards Accessibility by pkasting

pkasting — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 19:42:18 +0000

I’m a developer on the Google Chrome team.

I agree with you that accessibility is important. In fact, I don’t think you’d find anyone on the team who disagrees. When you say that Google “broke, disabled, or chose to remove” accessibility support, you’re not correct; the truth is more complicated.

The Chromium codebase uses WebCore as its rendering engine. Unlike the current version of Safari, which is single-process, Chromium is a multi-process browser. In particular, the rendering processes, where the WebCore code actually runs, operate inside a sandbox with no access to the user. All communication is done via IPC to a browser process that asynchronously interacts with the user.

In this model, support for a screen reader is not so simple as using the existing support in WebCore. The screen reader needs to interact with the browser process, which in turn needs to talk to the renderer process. Doing this in a secure, performant way that still makes both the browser and the screen reader work properly is a very difficult task.

Someone is currently working on precisely this task, but we didn’t want to delay the release of milestone 5 for the Mac (or other OSes) until this was done. The relevant tracking bug, if you’d like to star it to receive updates, is at http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=27112 .

Comment on AT&T Announces Data Plan Changes for US iPhone and iPad 3G Users by Blake

Blake — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 19:42:05 +0000

If another US iPhone carrier is ever announced, watch the people leave AT&T in droves. Of course AT&T still ends up making a decent buck from the recently increased $325.00 USD early termination fee.

Comment on Google Chrome for Mac Disregards Accessibility by Lioncourt

Lioncourt — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 19:30:38 +0000

In the context of the article, I believe it is clear that “accessibility” is referring to access to persons with disabilities, which is an accepted usage of the term. In my opinion, the sentence you site would only be confusing to someone taking it entirely out of the context of our post, this web site, and the subject being discussed.

Comment on AT&T Announces Data Plan Changes for US iPhone and iPad 3G Users by Jake

Jake — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 18:05:34 +0000

Can anyone say class action? I’m betting it’s coming and I for one want to be in on it. It’s bad enough that AT&T’s actual service is horrible, but to change our data plans without warning?

Comment on Google Chrome for Mac Disregards Accessibility by Don Morris

Don Morris — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 18:01:34 +0000

Since when has “accessible” come to mean “usable by the blind and deaf”? (Apologies to those I’ve left out, or if I’ve used a term that — today — is offensive.)

When you say that “Google’s final release provides no accessibility to web content whatsoever”, one would think that Chrome can’t be used by anyone.

Comment on Happy Birthday VoiceOver by TVSoundGuy

TVSoundGuy — Thu, 06 May 2010 03:27:42 +0000

Purchasing a Mac is something I did as a matter of economics. Same for my iPHone. Same for my soon to arrive iMac. I’m glad there is choice for access technology and that companies like Apple are willing to innovate and make accessibility a art of their overarching concerns regarding the user experience.

Test drive a Mac, even if it’s for a week or two. You’ll find that you two will become old friends quite quickly.

Kevin

Comment on Happy Birthday VoiceOver by brandt

brandt — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 16:47:24 +0000

Well, reading this article makes me want to swich all the more. I used jaws For windows synce 4.03 and there is still some problems now. VO just looks user friendly, even in documentation. I’ve had viruses, malware etc. Name it, it happened at least once. Mac sounds like part of the name of my next computer.

Comment on Happy Birthday VoiceOver by TVSoundGuy

TVSoundGuy — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 01:08:43 +0000

Reading this post was really great. It was very much like reading a history of the US space program, from John glenn to the Moon landings to the establishment of the International Space Station.

For a five year-old screen reader, Voiceover has not only landed men on the Moon and established a space station, it has ALSO established bases on the Moon and Mars, built and implemented craft that run on plasma, is exploring Europa for life and has opened up space to industry and tourism that is changing the economics of the solar system.

I suppose the other screen readers are making their strides too, what with the outdated and expensive technology to put people in orbit, constant repair missions and old thinking that equates to a looming crisis in which future exploration of the cosmos is seriously threatened by lack of confidence in the ability to go beyond and dream big.

Voiceover is bravely going where no one has gone before. In the next five years, it will be interesting to see how Apple will move beyond the solar system with its innovation and inclusive thinking. Happy birthday, Voiceover. May you enjoy many more.