Off the shelf accessibility is indeed great, but there is a place for specialisation. If all you want to do is fart around online, email and access media, then you may be able to get by with so-so solutions. But for productivity purposes... this is where Jaws stands out with all its flaws and limitations.
Besides, if MS really wanted to, they could just swoop in and acquire one of the various screen reading developers outright. You haven't heard much of anything after the big announcement with Window Eyes for example. There's an opportunity all gift wrapped and ready to go if they felt like really delving into the incorperation of accessibility to their products, but no indication as such. Indeed, Apple's Voiceover is a good exampel of this. Developed enough to be considered a screen reader, but man, you always hear about how certain things that are pretty basic be it with Safari or their word processing and spread sheet alternatives are limited in what one can do. That and there's been more and more griping about how this and that has been broken in the latest OS build and the lack of development of Voiceover, etc. On the surface, getting a cheap Mac Mini that has a screen reader already built in would be a great deal, but it would still give me pause with all these issues. Im not ready to give MS the benefit of the doubt to go all gang busters to make a more robust solution for Windows either. If you want to talk about the affordability for screen readers, well, that's a different topic and may be the more pressing issue. -----Original Message----- From: Jfw [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Adrian Spratt via Jfw Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2015 9:39 AM To: The Jaws for Windows support list. Subject: RE: Fully Functional Screen Reader Petition You may not want to start a discussion, but posting a link to this petition inevitably does just that. I worry that if MS came up with anything close to Apple's VoiceOver, employers would assume basic accessibility requirements have been met without the added cost of buying and updating JAWS. As good as VoiceOver may be, and despite our periodic frustrations with FS, JAWS is exclusively tailored to the needs of visually impaired computer users. I dread the day MS takes on this job and elbows FS out. -----Original Message----- From: Jfw [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Nermin via Jfw Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2015 11:53 AM To: The Jaws for Windows support list. Subject: Fully Functional Screen Reader Petition Hi all, I consider this a very important petition, however, I do not wish to start a discussion on whether or not this will do away with blindness products, the attempt as such will fail, or any other messages of a similar nature. Someone started a petition calling on Microsoft to incorporate a real screen reader into Windows 10. This should include maintenance and installing capabilities. The link is here: https://windows.uservoice.com/forums/265757-windows-feature-suggestions/sugg estions/6942363-add-a-native-fully-functional-screen-reader-to-wi Share this with friends and family, on Facebook or Twitter. Anywhere you feel might give the necessary votes. Voting is easy, and you do not even need to provide an e-mail address. Regards, Nermin -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.the-jdh.com/pipermail/jfw_lists.the-jdh.com/attachments/201501 20/5438301e/attachment.html> _______________________________________________ Jfw mailing list [email protected] http://lists.the-jdh.com/mailman/listinfo/jfw_lists.the-jdh.com _______________________________________________ Jfw mailing list [email protected] http://lists.the-jdh.com/mailman/listinfo/jfw_lists.the-jdh.com _______________________________________________ Jfw mailing list [email protected] http://lists.the-jdh.com/mailman/listinfo/jfw_lists.the-jdh.com
