Sean Tikkun wrote:
VO is not a screen reader...
Apple clearly disagree, as they call it a screen reader:
http://www.apple.com/accessibility/voiceover/
It is an audible interface. A screen reader is a third party
application that interprets visual information and converts it to
audible.
What makes you think screen readers must be third-party? Narrator is not
third-party, but Microsoft still describes it as a basic screen reader:
http://www.microsoft.com/enable/training/windowsvista/narrator.aspx
Despite the name "screen reader", for the most part screen readers are
not "interpreting visual information". All modern screen readers for
graphical environments make use of information exposed by widgets to
accessibility frameworks such as the Apple Accessibility API and MSAA.
Not all modern screen readers attempt low-level interception of
information sent to the graphic display. For example, neither Orca nor
NVDA do. From what I understand of the process, screen readers that do
attempt more low-level interception, such as JAWS, are largely capturing
text sent in program calls to the graphics APIs, not attempt to
recognize text from pixels as it were.
VO has options and interface abilities the standard GUI user
doesn't get. It is a whole new creature!
I'd say JAWS does more to customize functionality than VoiceOver does.
- MS could make all of their apps accessible tomorrow. We all know
this is true.
Actually, it's clearly false. It takes a lot of work to make
applications accessible, especially when accessibility has not been
designed into them from the start. Look at how long it takes to add
accessibility features to Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird. It seems a
stretch to call months of development time "tomorrow".
MS is not interested in accessibility, if they were they would make
their OS fully accessible out of the box.
This doesn't follow at all. A company might be interested in
accessibility, without always succeeding in producing accessible
products because they have to balance accessibility with many other
concerns. Note I'm not saying it's right that Microsoft makes
inaccessible software and shouldn't be criticized for their failures;
I'm just saying it doesn't mean they have literally no interest in
accessibility. Same as with with Apple and the iPhone and iLife.
When the cost of a machine that runs a screen reader (additional
memory and Mhz) is compared to a bottom line mac I think the numbers
come in pretty close. (If not please post the numbers so I can be more
accurate) Not to mention that the machine will most likely come with a
possibly unnecessary monitor (Mac Mini anyone?).
Actually, it's pretty easy to buy non-Mac PCs without a monitor.
--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
