My comments below prefixed with KK: But I wouldn’t dismiss Nokia, whether on Symbian or Meego just yet. Nokia may stil have a couple of aces up its sleeve. It would be up to third party screen reader developers to innovate along with the newer changes that Nokia comes up with and that could even mean charging more. Of course, it wouldn’t be as good as the iOS devices.
KK: if history is any indication, Nokia hasn't done much to promote accessibility of its devices. We have solutions now for Symbian because of couple of excellent developers who figured out means to get into the operating system. Symbian has *no* accessibility API while every other mobile platform except Windows Phone 7 has it. And I haven't seen any indication of an accessibility API in Meego. Android has a lot of future potential when it comes to accessibility. Even with the current limitations of the accessibility API, it offers better options in terms of GPS as well as speech recognition than the iPhone. In fact, an Android based cell phone with a keyboard is currently the only fully usable GPS solution for the blind right out of the box in India and many other countries with good Google Maps. The GPS solutions available on the iPhone mostly come with maps covering America and Europe. While there are apps that use freely available data that comes from Google maps on the iPhone, but if you are going to end up using Google’s data anyway, Android has better apps for this purpose. KK: Agreed. Navigon has released their iPhone app for India which I am told is accessible with VoiceOver. I use it here in the UK. One last thing, I personally believe that Google’s accessibility team is doing the best they can. Introducing accessibility changes lead to security issues and instability that requires further resources to debug such problems. It comes down to core kernel developers to decide what goes in and what does not. KK: Wrong information. A properly implemented Accessibility API doesn't lead to any security or stability issues. In the early part of this decade, OS developers did have a misconception that some accessibility features lead to security leaks but I haven't seen any such issues for more than 6 years of accessibility related work experience. The so called accessibility team at Google was till recently a collection of two developers who were working on accessibility issues only a few hours a week. They now have one more full-time developer. To put it in perspective, Microsoft has more than 40 and Apple has about 15. Finally, Android is an open source platform. So, anyone can submit fixes and improvements and they will be accepted if they are proven to be of acceptable quality. So, Kernel developers have nothing to do with accepting or rejecting code contributions other than setting some base-line quality standards. Please try and get your facts right before rattling off opinions. Statements like "Accessibility changes can lead to security and instability" are very irresponsible and are detrimental to our cause. Thanks and regards, Kiran --- On Thu, 12/16/10, Kiran Kaja <kirankaj...@gmail.com> wrote: > From: Kiran Kaja <kirankaj...@gmail.com> > Subject: Re: [AI] What is Google upto? > To: accessindia@accessindia.org.in > Date: Thursday, December 16, 2010, 2:57 PM > I don't think Symbian will see many > of these technologies and applications. > It is a dying platform no matter what Nokia says. In fact, > they are trying > to move to a different platform called Meego which is Linux > based. Having > used an iPhone for a while, I can't imagine myself going > back to a Symbian > phone. Of course, it isn't possible for everyone to afford > the iPhone. That > is where Android comes in. We are beginning to see mid to > low end handsets > running Android. There are some screen reading solutions > already but there > are not good at all. All Advocacy organisations like RNIB > and AFB are > pushing Google to improve Android Accessibility. > > I think this is one area that blind and partially sighted > users in India can > have their say as well. We are going to be a large user > base and it is about > time to make our voices heard. I suggest that every one of > us who are either > using a mobile phone or is planning to use in the future > write to Google's > Accessibility team and ask for a full-fledged screen reader > and > magnification features in Android platform. In this day and > age, we do not > have to rely on 3rd party software for our accessibility > needs. Apple have > demonstrated that it is possible to include accessibility > features in an > operating system at no extra cost. There is no reason why > Google and other > major IT companies can't do it as well. So, lets start > writing to > accessibil...@google.com > individually asking for accessibility features in > Android. Alternatively, we could assemble our individual > requests and one of > us could submit them on behalf of AccessIndia. > > Sorry for deviating from the topic but technology is > evolving rapidly and if > we don't take our concerns to the right people at the right > time, there is a > risk of blind and partially sighted users being left > behind. > > Regards, > Kiran > -----Original Message----- > From: accessindia-boun...@accessindia.org.in > [mailto:accessindia-boun...@accessindia.org.in] > On Behalf Of Harish Kotian > Sent: 16 December 2010 01:54 > To: accessindia@accessindia.org.in > Subject: [AI] What is Google upto? > > Hello > > Check out on the links below and get a feel of exciting > days ahead for us. > > These technology are in its infancy but surely there is > more we can expect > from it. > > Presently the concern is all these buzz are focused around > Android and > IPhone and not symbian centric. > Anyways: > http://www.google.com/mobile/goggles/ > www.google.com/latitude > > Harish Kotian > > > > To unsubscribe send a message to accessindia-requ...@accessindia.org.in > with > the subject unsubscribe. > > To change your subscription to digest mode or make any > other changes, please > visit the list home page at > http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in > > > To unsubscribe send a message to accessindia-requ...@accessindia.org.in > with the subject unsubscribe. > > To change your subscription to digest mode or make any > other changes, please visit the list home page at > http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in > To unsubscribe send a message to accessindia-requ...@accessindia.org.in with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in To unsubscribe send a message to accessindia-requ...@accessindia.org.in with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
