Hi Dominic and others,
We appreciate what HumanWare has to say on this issue. If it
does turn out that it's really up to Apple to complete the
necessary drivers (not HumanWare), then we do apologize for all
these fingering posts.
As for other points made on this thread, I'd like to give some
opinions and things to think about for a while:
* Is QT reliable: Depends on which function a user would use and
the level of reliability a user would expect and defines. Other
than problems with unit slowing down with memory intensive tasks
and with quirks found in Braille Terminal and KeyWord, I
personally find (from my own experiments and from users'
comments) that QT is still reliable. Besides, if you ask about
the reliability of something when there's no "known" or "proven"
hardware fault but based on feature sets, then I think you are
actually questioning the reliability of KeySoft as it interacts
with QT configuration (which is understandable).
* Is QT inferior: Not at all (I believe). Is it different from
BT units? Certaintly not - except for change in keyboard.
Software wise, it should (and does) work as expected.
Personally, given a number of reports and from field testing, I
believe that both keyboards are equal in terms of usage and bugs
list.
* Terminal drivers: Come to think of it, HumanWare's explanation
does make sense (in some ways). The availibility of a braille
display to work with a particular screen reader is often software
specific - in other words, due to varying ways of screen readers
controlling a braille display, it's really up to screen reader
manufacturers to do the "final steps." Initial steps of providing
key map interfaces and keyboard codes would have been given by
HumanWare; with that information, Apple, GW Micro and others
would tie these key bindings to their screen reading functions.
This also requires some work from screen readers to be smart
enough to detect which key mappings are used on a braille device
(Perkins or QWERTY), which could add comlexity to writing these
drivers (although the speed of the actual program doing the
keyboard module detection is fraction of a second; the work done
to produce this "fraction of a second" instruction requires
testing and verification).
Given the history of relationships between companies, I expect GW
Micro to be the next one to come
up with this "fixed drivers." As for Braille TTY, since their own
braille documentation acknowledges KeySoft functions and since we
do have a Braille TTY user who is also a QT user, then it'll make
the development easier by providing a key map from HumanWare (if
HW is willing) so that Orca and other Linux screen readers can be
used by QT users for inputing commands. As for Apple, one
possible route would be to treat QT as a combination Bluetooth
device so that the keyboard could act as a Bluetooth keyboard and
being careful to not assign key combinations to native KeySoft
functions.
Few questions for Dominic and other HW staff:
* Did GW Micro take note of your statement about QT drivers?
* Is there signs of arrival of a small patch or two for fixing
some minor (and some major) issues discovered with 9.1?
For Apple users (Alex and Gery): I think one or both of you
should ask Apple Accessibility team rccgarding HumanWare's
position - about the progress of the QT drivers. Thanks.
Cheers,
Joseph
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dominic Gagliano" <[email protected]
To: <[email protected]
Date sent: Thu, 11 Aug 2011 10:21:17 -0400
Subject: [Braillenote] Apex QT with IOS Devices
HumanWare has provided Apple with an Apex QT some time ago and
they are
the only ones that can create the proper drivers for the Apex QT
to work
with their devices. HumanWare can NOT write these drivers and
does not
have the development tools to complete this interface. We are in
the
same situation with our new Brailliant braille displays, in that
ONLY
Apple can write the drivers for any devices to interface with
their
products. PLEASE stop pointing the finger at HumanWare! Thanks
to those
that have confirmed that the QT Apex is equally as popular and
reliable
as the BT model. It's a matter of preference and unfortunately,
we have
to deal with the timeframe that Apple has control to complete any
drivers for any products.
________________________________
Dominic Gagliano
Vice President Blindness Sales
HumanWare
1000 W Washington Blvd
Suite 404
Chicago, IL 60607
USA
T. 800-722-3393 ext. 258
F. 312-226-6127
www.humanware.com <http://www.humanware.com/
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