My first encounter with Voiceover was back in the Snow Leopard days, and boy was I impressed with the level of commitment by Apple to its screen reader. It was back then I was enthusiastic about learning as much as I could about this very different way of accessing a computer. It was quite a struggle having come from the Windows environment, but I persevered and most of what I know about interacting with my Mac goes back to those days. Sadly, I feel it has been down hill as far as building upon what made Voiceover a great solution to help a blind person do what needs to be done to get the most and the best out of their Mac.
In the past few years I only drop in occasionally to see if things are getting better with what used to be a great product only to find that things are no better, and sometimes even worse. We are now some nine months into the release of El Capitan, and still there are bugs that should have been sorted before the software was even out the door. I am not one of those people who expect everything to always work perfectly from day one. Nor do I expect that sometimes one has to think outside the box when working with energised silicone chips, but when doing basic tasks such as deleting a web site from favourites, the task should be simple and take seconds to perform. Oh boy, not on this Mac. And then there's Safari. When it works it's good, but when it doesn't it would drive a Zen master towards the Prozac shelf. On some sites its fine, on others it's rickety, while on others it quite simply refuses to work. An example of the latter is the Soap Kitchen, a company based in the United Kingdom. It was so bad I was on the verge of pressing the off switch to get out of the mess. The big problem with the Mac is, if Voiceover is playing up then you're basically stuffed. On a Windows machine, what one screen reader doesn't do another might. I know there are very dedicated and able users of Voiceover on this list who may take offence to an interloper such as myself for daring to criticise Apple for its efforts. However, I feel if El Capitan is the best a multibillion company can do for its disabled customers, then give me Windows any day where I have to pay for a more reliable screen reader. Free is not always best, and Voiceover is testimony to that. In the near future, it is rumoured, that Microsoft will provide a screen reader worthy of that label. I am not holding my breath for that to become a reality. However, let's assume that Microsoft finally gets a moral conscience and does what it should have done years ago and enables people who are blind to access their product out of the box. If it is as bug-ridden as Voiceover is, then I will still be happy to pay for a better experience. Despite my best efforts with the Mac, my productivity suffers badly using Voiceover. However, all is not lost. After all we will soon be getting a new and supposedly better operating system from the Gods at Apple. Perhaps I will give it a go after a nine month period in the hope that Apple has once more taken its commitment to accessibility back on to a more serious footing. As with Microsoft, however, I shall not be holding my breath. I have been reliably informed that asphyxia is not a pleasant way to pop one's clogs. On a final note, I know and accept that screen readers such as JAWS and Window-Eyes are not perfect. But I find both way more reliable than Voiceover. Using either with Internet Explorer, the vast majority of sites are very manageable. What I want to do with my computer, be it Windows or Mac, is to just get the job done in as short a time as possible. The last thing I want to spend my time on is trying to figure out how to get around a bug that someone with a degree in computer science has created in the first place. I can't help but wonder how much better accessibility would be today had the genius that was Steve Jobs still been around to guide a company that seems to have lost its way. Martin -- The following information is important for all members of the Mac Visionaries list. If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or if you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the owners or moderators directly rather than posting on the list itself. Your Mac Visionaries list moderator is Mark Taylor and your owner is Cara Quinn - you can reach Cara at caraqu...@caraquinn.com The archives for this list can be searched at: http://www.mail-archive.com/macvisionaries@googlegroups.com/ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
