Re: JAWS and its license history
GW Micro did do some talking down of Voiceover, but in a way they were absolutely right, and generally warning the customers. I know this because I can't remember a time where they ever talked down NVDA or other windows screenreaders (if that were true, their own software like GW Connect would've been just window eyes apps, probably.)
For those who don't remember, GW Micro said that Apple hardcoding a screenreader into the os was a grave disservice to the blind community. If you look deeper into that statement, it's not so much the screenreader itself that is a grave disservice (Voiceover itself was great at the time), but the fact it is embedded into the OS as a core service so completely, and gets so up close and personal with an OS that doesn't use any universally accepted accessibility api's. This means that no one would want to develop a gui screenreader for mac because it's next to impossible to try and communicate with their api's. So Voiceover is a definite only option. On IOS, it's not even maybe, it's a hard no. So, that being said, 6 years from that statement, in 2019 AD, Apple has essentially silently pulled the plug on Voiceover as an innovator. They spent just enough time on it to insure no one would develop a third party, and then they basked in the glory. They were at the top of the world, if only for an instant, because then everyone else (Google and MS) started catching up, to the point now where on IOS Voiceover isn't innovating anymore, and on the mac it's so far behind it's almost a joke. And there are no third party screenreader options for either, so the mac is essentially a dying platform. That, is what GW Micro predicted, and exactly what they thought would happen, happened.
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