Re: The Windows 10 New World Order
@flyby chow
Yeah, Sebby hits it on the head all over again. many of us have spent time, tons of time on windows. If you go back up to my earlier posts you will find that it was roughly 15ish years for me. How long Sebby and Arq have been at it along with others who have been voicing their resentment as I have is honestly none of my business, though I would wager that they have probably been doing it for a fair amount as well. You can scrol through all of my posts on here and find that not too long ago I was on the other side and even got into civil arguments with Sebby and other known users of Apple products, arguments that escalated immensely because we could go on for hours, and every single time it felt like we all just, had to agree to disagree. My excuse? Everything from money to impracticality to supposedly better accessibility and efficiency and choice; the list goes on.
If I'm honest with myself, which I've had more t
ime to do as of late because I haven't been spending as much time on computers, I find myself at the realization that every single one of my arguments was a weak one. I don't have more money now than I did before and, yes, the mac was incredibly expensive; my wallet is crying at me. But check this out; compared to many smartphones on the market, my iOS device is expensive, too. Since I've bought it, I haven't regreted it, just as I knew I wouldn't, because I've previously owned an iPhone and worked with others who own them as well. In roughly 5 years I gained tons of experience with these little babies and discovered to my amazement that just about everything I put it through within reason, logical reason, all of it succeeded. I've never had it go down on me, never had a moment where I had to restart the device because my screen reader was unresponsive, save when I jailbroke, and that, probably owing more to jailbreaki
ng than the iOS device itself.
I find less and less reasons to jailbreak nowadays; perhaps that'll change with time. Outside of jailbreaking, Vo remains entirely responsive, consistent, snappy, readily available and as solid as ever. I've used it on an iPod touch, on an iPad, on an Apple TV, and under none of these circumstances have I really had to retrain my thinking with the operating system or with voiceover. I have no doubt that once I've received my mac, I'll find myself in familiar waters all over again, even if only slightly.
I can't say that about Windows or the screen readers it offers. Whether we're discussing changing versions of the operating system or switching out screen readers, we're constantly having to do all of the above, learning new keystrokes, reading new manuals, picking a few more brains as to how best to use this or that new feature which more than likely just adds to the already convolute
d experience. Yes yes, choice, something I'm very happy with and proud of and a huge believer in, but it all comes at a really high price; that price is your time, and slowly but surely, your money, for that matter.
More than likely, if the experience is anything like what I went through with my faithful iPhone 4s which I ended up replacing for an Android device owing to a change in service providers (My 4s is still working properly save the phone part for obvious reasons by the way,) I wont' have to replace my mac for a really, really long time. Assuming I want a new one though at some point in the not too distant future, people buy them old for reasonable prices all the time, reasonable prices that can go toward ensuring I get my new one a little faster and with a little less strain. More than likely, I don't have to worry about Apple pulling the floor out from under me and changing what OSX is all about as drastically as MS tends to do
with Windows from one version to the next. More than likely, I won't have to learn too many new concepts with every new upgrade, which will keep me doing the things that actually matter to me rather than keeping me from them.
That's all just speculation on my part because of what I don't know. Here's what I do know. I know that I don't have to worry about updating or going and downloading new versions of my screen reader. I know that I don't have to worry about having a separate bit of software to install my operating system, all aimed at providing auditory feedback. I know I don't have to worry about what word processor I'm going to buy or what screen reader I'm going to use, or how both of those will interact with each other. I know I don't have to worry about my email client. I don't really have to, must put an emphasis on the word really here, don't really have to worry abo
ut my web browser if I don't want to. So, as far as accessibility goes, I don't really have to worry about anything!
Were I to approach this matter as many blind people do, IE, with the mindset that we should be able to do things on a MAC and with voiceover the same as we can on Windows with JAWS, WE or NVDA, then I'd worry about all of the above, but this is a starting point. My experience will be defined by the amount of patience I intend to devote to my Mac, which, back in 1999, was the same amount of patience I devoted to the first Windows PC I ever used. Back then Windows PC's were much slower in some regards, JAWS wasn't what it is today, and I certainly wouldn't have called the experience fun. I made myself useful on XP, then once again on Vista, then again on 7. I briefly touched upon 8 and 8.1 before downgrading this device back to 7, all the while wondering if 10 was ready for me, not if I was ready for
it. The fact is that it isn't ready for me at all, and since it isn't, I'm not ready for it, either.
What I am ready for though, is change. I'm sick and tired of not mattering, sick and tired of forking over money to new computers every two to four years, sick and tired of my company of choice making so many changes with every OS release cycle that I have to wait almost a year for screen reader support just to catch up, sick and tired of the fact that we're not getting any better at what we're doing. I'm sick and tired of myths that aren't true being perpetuated by closed minded blind and vision impaired individuals, sick and tired of the constant wars regarding this and that screen reader working properly with this or that application and who's does what better with where it goes and how you get it there, sick and tired of the constant cacophony that always seems to divide our accessibility camps on Windows, teari
ng us apart and keeping us from making any progress because we're so desperate to get ahead of each other and prove that paid or free are better than each other, sick and tired of the feature imitation program each screen reader has become! Windows, I'm sick, and tired, of you!
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