Well said David and Scott. We are straying far off topic here,
but, again, the history and its perceptions are being a bit
personalized. There is no simple answer as to Why Apple has done as
it has done, and, as David indicates, one can take the same path with
just about any company and their reactions to the blind and our
needs. Unfortunately, as much as I know some blind folks truly hate
to hear this, but the reality is also that we are small potatoes in
the overall market place. Resources are allocated according to the
needs of a business's target market arena, and however "unfair" or
"wrong" we want to think this is, it is a fact. Beyond that, there
was a lot of mistakes that were made by Apple from a business
perspective in the 1990's, but that is completely far off the mark of
this list to discuss.
Finally, again, I ask what I mentioned before. Why is it when
one makes a logical case for Apple are we automatically accused of
"defending" or "apologizing" for Apple? No one has ever claimed Apple
to be perfect, as is the case with Any company. There are issues in a
lot of areas that need to be addressed, and if you read this list
every day, you will realize that all of us so called "apologists" have
often brought them up. As I asserted, productivity applications and
matters, to my thinking, are far more critical for the blind than the
iTunes store. In the end, whether you choose to believe it or not,
things will be addressed, and they will be addressed according to
whatever "road map" is being followed by Apple. It would do you a lot
of good to go back and follow the history of the company since Steve
Jobs' return and his philosophy. There is a lot that can be gleaned
from how Apple has risen from the proverbial ashes that parallels
accessibility on the Mac. Think about it.
Take Care
John Panarese
On Aug 24, 2008, at 8:58 AM, David Poehlman wrote:
Tim, some of your history is a bit scued. Apple had to stay alive
during
the years when microsoft was the sole entity for the enterprise out
there.
Apple concentrated on providing for specialized markets and kept
themselves
alive. Microsoft would never have provided for accessibility were
they not
forced into it and even then, they left much of it up to third party
developpers. On this point, all we are saying is that when apple
did move
though it might have not been soon enough for some of us, they did
it in an
apple elligant way by providing a path that is hard to resist and
that will
prove to be a winning strategy for all in the long run.
The recent developments in the screen reader arena bear this out in
what
they are doing to attempt to counteract this.
Our main objection to what you do is to make claims like "blind
people will
believe whatever they are told" and "apple users will lie and not
tell the
truth".
Look how long it took the mainstream linux community to bundle a
talking
kernel into their products. Now, you will say and rightly so that
this is
open source, but the fact remains.
You still have not backed up your asertion that what you say is a
simple fix
is a simple fix.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tim Grady" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of Mac OS
X by
theblind" <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, August 24, 2008 8:23 AM
Subject: Re: iTunes Accessibility
Let me just say a few things. I have not like some of you perceive
attacked apple or the Mac, although I do think users of the Mac are
quite silly sometimes about their defense of the Mac, for example, you
seem to think I have some kind of personal grievance against Apple.
You couldn't be more wrong. I just happen not to agree with you about
all of the plaudits you are giving Apple. I like what Apple is doing,
but I have to ask, why did it take them so long to start? Ever since
I started working with the LISA you could see that Apple's equipment
had great potential for accessibility. Instead of putting a lot of
time and effort into making their systems accessible they chose to
only give this a minimal effort and were almost put out of business by
Microsoft. Now, I'm not saying that was the only mistake Apple made.
To my mind they made a lot of bonehead mistakes that caused their
problems. Now, back to the Itunes thing that seems to have gotten
your bowels in an uproar. I simply stated that it wouldn't be hard
for Apple to fix Itunes so that every time Itunes was updated you
didn't have to get sighted help to click on the button to agree to the
Itunes store terms. Calm down and take a stress pill. I won't be
publicly critical of Apple again on this list if it gets you'll so
upset, although the lists description is for the general discussion of
the Mac.
On Aug 24, 2008, at 5:37 AM, Scott Howell wrote:
John, your wasting your time because Tim just doesn't feel anyone is
looking out for his best interest and because we're blind, we're
subject to being snowed. Got news for you Tim , that isn't the case.
Instead of taking such a negative approach, why not take the
opposite and realize that things don't happen as quickly as we like.
Point is your statements might be based on personal experience, I
don't know, but they are way off the mark from my perspective. I
assume your using the Mac? If so, do you find anything about your
experience you do enjoy? I'm just a bit confused by this entire
thread once we got beyond the issue of iTunes. I use iTunes actually
a great deal as a musician. Itunes isn't perfect, but (and we go
full circle) it is over 90 percent accessible. I find the store is
the greatest challenge, but for nearly everything else, I've had
great success with it. YOu want to talk about software that's not
accessible, lets talk about iWorks which is something I'd like to
see Apple get going. Open Office is getting there, but it's not even
there yet. In the end Tim, you need to look at the amount of time
invested and the results of that investment. In the scheme of
things, Apple really is years ahead in terms of making OSX etc.
accessible as compared to how long it took for windows-based screen
readers to achieve the same results. Does this make sense now?
On Aug 23, 2008, at 10:59 PM, John Panarese wrote:
No Tim. You are falling back on a weak defense that is pointless
to debate. You are implying that the blind, overall, are lied to
or can be spoon fed anything from anyone. Both assertions are
baseless and foolish. One can make the same claim for the sighted
as well and be equally wrong. In regard to this topic, since the
advent of VoiceOver, I believe Apple's progress speaks for itself.
Thus, who is being forced or fooled into believing what? It amazes
me that when one personalizes an issue, the grounds to defend that
issue become blurred at best. The original subject was iTunes
accessibility. You don't think it's good enough nor will it
improve. Others believe otherwise. I think that's perfectly clear
after all of this, and, again, comes back to opinions. In this
case, though, the body of evidence indicates the latter, as opposed
to the former.
Take Care
John Panarese
