Wider Tech Discussions: AppleVis Forums Expand Beyond Apple

It's appreciated.

I hope this works out, because it can be a great addition to what we already have here. As it regards to other topics such as blindness in general, mobility, independence, self advocacy, religion, politics, I don't think that this would be the right place for these topics. There are many social media platforms and profiles that are already dedicated to facilitating such discussions and friendships. Keeping this website technology focused, for the most part, I think is the right idea. Of course, this is only my personal opinion, but, yeah, Smart move.

Thank you for this. I realise it is more work for moderators but I do think it will allow for a fuller and more holistic discussion of technology that supports us as a community, and can quiet the concerns of those apple vis members who get into a panic when we're discussing non-apple products.

Fingers crossed we play nice with the new toys you've given us as, you are quite within your rights to take them away again, especially if we start trying to insert them in to undesirable places.

This modification has drawn me back... For better or worse. :)

I discovered Applevis back in 2022. I really appreciate the level of conversation we can have when we're talking to the right person here about technical stuff on accessibility. I think being able to actually compare different screen readers on different oses will be helpful if the negativity is reduced at the minimum. I just hope that we're going to see more posts on how to actually do x stuff on x system rather than just complaints on what is not working especially on macos.

AppleVis Illuminati, thanks for your hard work. Looking forward to the continued exchange of knowledge.

Is there going to be a slightly easier way to access these topics? Currently they are pretty hidden... Unless I'm missing something. I understand they are not in the main feed, but it would be very useful to have a more direct way in than going to menu/form/specific form etc... Or am I being daft and there is an easier way of doing this?

The most recent posts to the new forums are listed on the site's Home page.

Navigate to the heading at level 2 titled “Latest Non-Apple Posts” and you will find them listed below. There is also a filter present there which can be used to refine the list to only one of the new forum areas.

Hope this helps ☺️

Awesome, thank you David. Much easier. I certainly appreciate all this. It's exciting!

While I respect the desire to support the blind/low-vision community more broadly, one of the big advantages to the AppleVis community, in my opinion, was it's focus on Apple products and services and how we might leverage those to live more independent lives. I mean it's right in the name of the site, there's a reason it's not called BlindVis or similar. My concern is that this doesn't turn into a place where someone doesn't feel comfortable coming forward with an iPhone question because they know they'll get a response to the effect that they wouldn't have this problem if they had gone with Android. Having trouble with Safari? Gosh, just switch to Windows and Edge.

To be fair, I think generalized discussions around all the tools and tech we have available to us is important, but there are already places for those discussions. I certainly hope this expansion goes well, but given the reasons which I feel have made this community such a success, it's just not something I support.

While I understand your concerns, let me clarify that if this were a single listing of postings, your observation would be accurate. However, I’d like to point out that the Apple-related postings are distinct from the Non-Apple postings on the main page. By using the Heading 2 section, you can clearly see the separation between these two segments. iPhone questions will remain exactly as they were and will be placed in the Apple posting area.

Regarding any trolling within the postings, we are committed to minimizing toxicity. This approach won’t differ significantly from the past, where discussions about Android or Windows occasionally occurred. Such discussions have always been part of AppleVis. As long as the dialogue remains respectful and peaceful, we encourage open conversations. If people wish to express their enthusiasm for Windows or Android, those topics will be appropriately categorized and won’t appear in the Apple-related postings on the main page.

I hope this explanation alleviates your concerns.

Agree. Also regarding the comment by Thomas in a perfect world but this is not. I think that concern is valid.

Hi, Firstly, I often think that I wish there was a place like Applevis for other operating systems, and in that aspect, and the willingness to want to be open, I applaud this. However, there is now an equivalent forum for Android, and this could be perceived as stepping on their tows, and also, while Apple is in the name, people who aren't in the know won't think of this as a place for other tech. This will mean that eventually, the name will have to be changed, and then we won't have the place Apple users would find so easily. There are literally loads of places people can talk tech in general already. I am all in favour of being able to talk about other operating systems in terms of how you use them to complete a task relevant to your apple product, like using iTunes on a PC for instance, even Apple Software on Windows, but I also do fear this site eventually turning into another huge, rambling thing that gets harder and harder to navigate. Please keep the nice focus, and don't make this the Facebook of the blind tech world, where there are thousands of unrelated things that you have to find your way through to get to what you want.

Personally I think this is a great move. I always thought AppleVis should start a WindowsVis, AndroidVis etc etc site to facilitate people wanting to share knowledge about other platforms but this is a great workaround that achieves the same goal. I’m sure its going to be a success and vastly increase the depth of knowledge and sharing in the community.

There are a few references to preexisting windows/android resources here. I hope it's not out of line to ask where they are? Often I've been told there are other forums to talk about such things without being directed to said forums. Hopefully the new apple vis will negate a need for me to find them, but it would also be useful to know where to look should I have questions about windows, windows hardware or other assistive technology or technology with accessibility built in, the new zoom H1E, H4E and H6E come to mind.

Sounds like a good pilot project. I say, give it a try. See what happens. Maintaining separateness will help, I expect, and I'm curious to browse the new forum areas to see what's hot in our parallel universes. I would be surprised if Applevis lost focus, though. I suspect most of us value too much what we have to let it be harmed. After all, wink, we're a pretty vocal crowd, don't you think?

I don't know I agree with this. I love this has been a place to discuss Apple products and get help.

1. Being able to exchange knowledge, opinions and ideas on other operating systems and a broader range of topics with folks I have already discussed Apple-related matters and am acquainted with, sounds great.
2. As long as the site's name and domain remains the same, the impression will still be that it is primarily intended to host Apple-related content, hopefully preventing a possible loss of content quality or shift of focus.
3. I would still love to have other websites like windowsvis.com and visiondroid.com with a main website linking them to each other. Users would continue to have one single account and could sign into all the websites with it from the home page of that main site. We already have websites like accessibleandroid.com hosting content on Android. What inspired me to think of that is WhatsApp's Communities feature where one may opt to join each one of the community's subgroups and leave them whenever one desires without having to leave the community altogether. I do know this requires a significant amount of time and resources to have the infrastructure needed for such a complex endeavor.

This is an awesome idea, good job guys
Now if you don’t mind I’m going to get used to the new layout

On mac, VO U brings up the rotor. Use arrow keys until voiceover says headings then press the number 2. This will list all headings of level 2 on the page. There may be a faster way of doing this but this is the solution I found to speed up navigation.

If you're using single-key Quick Nav on macOS (or a Windows screenreader) simply pressing the number 2 should take you to the next heading at that level, so if you were, for example, browsing the latest Apple-centric posts and wanted to jump to the non-Apple-centric posts, simply pressing the number 2 should take you right to that heading. At least that's how I'm currently doing it.

I like it, I do like the idea of seperat sites so people can have podcasts on how to do thing x for their own OS but if that doesn't happen this is a good idea and i'll be using it.

Change is coming and that's a good thing.

Applevis does not have the moderator capacity to handle what's going to happen. for one thing, the one line of Who uses Alex? Then the comment line of the same, is not enforced at all. A minor peeve I admit, however if you go by headings, reading the same subject and comment, you've read it all before getting to the comment. I'm therefore suggesting better moderator leadership so as besides one line responses to questions, when topics get either heated, or even the bullying aspect (perceived) as what's been going on, let not the topic be "closed", yet keep an eye on it. I mean if things are closed, how are others who may agree with a now closed topic speak up? Should they create another one thereby necessitating another "closed" sign when things get to much to handle? Besides these suggestions, what's wrong with having other language speaking forums at least being submitted, translated, then when someone speaks such, moderate a person to do these tasks? If this is supposed to grow, I watered it, now see where the seeds are to sprout. I'm not much however despite some spelling errors which are beyond my control in the subject line of comments, I'm volunteering to whip this into some semblance of an Apple or other tech company enthused to see this. I have naysayers and all I'll say is, bring it.

I'll fully admit I do feel Siobhan can be a bit full of herself as i'm sure she feels I don't have thick enough skin, but on this I do agree.

I don't understand the part about who uses alix, i'm assuming it was a post here, but do actually think topics shouldn't be closed, *unless* the people are just throwing insults around or just going around and around in general.

Having said that, the issue is we'd then have threads that are thousands of comments long and that probably wouldn't be a good idea.

I can honestly say I don't know how to handle this and will leave it to others who care more about it than I do.

I'm really liking this non apple discussion part of the site and hope it thrives.

I've just read the who uses alex thread and it's not the same thing on both lines, it's similar but the person does expand a little on why they like the voice.

They do by a sentence or two. I'm just looking for comments and subject as we were asked to do so awhile back stating our problem, not just, my phone won't work. Despite me being full of myself, I do my best to describe what I need and go into detail in the body of the comment. Again, this is my own opinion so it doesn't work with how people want, it's an annoyance and I'll just shut up. Hell men tell me that all the time. Where's the duct tape? :)

I usually write what I would want for a subject line in the comment, then cut and paste it in the subject field after correcting any misspellings. I don't know exactly why you are not able to correct misspellings in the subject line, but for me it is because a single line field in my browser doesn't invoke spell check, where as the multi-line comment fields do.
That being said, I don't have any complaints or gripes or worries about the change/expansion. I'm also looking forward to what people post in the non-Apple hardware blind-tech threads.

I've not spent a lot of time on this website so wasn't aware that was a thing.

I'm sorry you've gone through that stuff with men, perhaps some theropy might help, give you someone to talk to about how to calm down if you need to, or to stand your ground without yelling.

I understand that's off topic and @Siobhan if you want me to delete that paragraph let me know, but this stuff should always be taken siriously.

Brad, you meant well. It's my sick twisted sense of humor. Plus, to anyone who worries, I would have contacted someone off here, not put my life out on here for everyone's business. :)

Yeah, you make a good point.

As the original post clearly states, so long as devisive/contraversial/politically sensitive topics are kept out of this space, and so long as the primary purpose continues to be discussing technology, Apple or otherwise, it can only be good for the community in the long run, and hopefully concerns like stretching the moderator team too thin will have solutions going ahead.

Hi all,

I wanted to take a moment to address some of the concerns that were raised and hopefully provide some more clarity.

• A concern was raised that as a result of our allowing broader tech discussions, iPhone users might not feel comfortable asking for assistance with issues for fear of being told that they wouldn't have that particular issue if they were using Android. This is a valid concern, and our expectation is that people will only post replies to any discussion if the reply would bring value and help the poster answer their question/solve the issue. Telling someone who uses a Mac and has the Safari Not Responding bug to just switch to Windows, for example, would not be helpful. The same applies for telling an iOS user that they wouldn't have a particular issue on Android.
• A concern was raised that there are already plenty of other places to discuss technology on the internet, including an equivalent forum for Android. This is all good. One of our intentions with this expansion of our forum is to provide people a dedicated place to have the conversations that were already taking place on AppleVis. AppleVis is and will always be an Apple-focused website, and our core focus and mission has not changed; we just want to offer people an official place to discuss these other tech topics on our forums if they wish to do so.

Feel fre to correct me if I am wrong, but the Android Web site we have out there isn't "USA Sentric."
So,,, Even though this site is primarily an Apple-Focused web site, most North American users will come over here first, do to its credibility.
PS. I do follow both, even though I'm back to being a Samsung Galaxy user.

Think of AppleVis now like, the Xda-Developers for the Blind I suppose...

That really shouldn't matter.

Point taken. Might as well clarify things now before someone else did.

Thanks for reassurance.

Hey Lottie, you can now talk about AI to your hearts content,, I'm looking forward to it.

Hello,
This is a great idea. I've been looking for a forum to discuss and learn moreabout Windows stuff for ages. But no politics or religion please.

For those who have doubts, what has actually changed? Until yesterday the Rayban glasses, meta glasses etc were still on here. Nothing to do with Apple unless the poster sneakily added something around hope appple introduce something similar etc. So all this has done is formalise these posts and put them in their own section. If you are not interested in anything not apple related just ignore heading level 2 non apple posts. simples!

It's probably mainly because Windows and Android are operating systems designed primarily to fulfill most functions that MacOS and iOS also offer, with screen readers and other accessibility software as well as software that can be used to perform a wide array of tasks. You can say smart glasses and Vision Pro are also similar in some ways, but they are not necessarily meant to replace each other.

The only concern I have is that this is the beginning of the end for the apple focus of this site. It won't happen next week. it might not even happen next year; but I can see some point in the medium-term future where the focus of this site is indeed diluted and it will no longer be the specialised Apple resource it was intended to be. I fear that will impact on the positive relationships the editorial team have built with Apple. I am concerned that Apple employees will no longer look to this site as a knowledge base. I know some folk think that doesn't happen, but I have evidence that it does. I recognise that none of these adverse effects have been intended and I appreciate that the editorial team has already taken steps to guard against them. I'm sceptical, however, about the medium- to long-term prospects. I appreciate that the feedback about this move has been positive, but feedback can be quite fickle.

With that in mind, the question is: does that matter? I think it will come to matter. I'm not sure seeking to be all things to all men is going to prove to be a great strategy. I hope I'm wrong.

It's simple honestly.

Just have a subdomain redirecting to each forum category.
Problem solved!

The team here did say this was a "test-pilot" after all... Working out the kinks ya know?
Also, the Android site mentioned here (which I have mentioned several times before already) uses Telegram & E-mail. Well, at least the "English/International" version of the site.

Hey, this may get the folks from 9to5mac/9to5google to pop on over here.

We have been posting about a growing set of bugs and issues awaiting to be fixed sometime, if at all, and if this continues, since posters will now have the opportunity to discuss operating systems by other competitors, it may indeed mean that more references will be made to them, and more users will actually suggest alternative methods that can be accomplished more easily on Windows or Android. While it is true that we are already free to use devices and operating systems by companies like Google and Microsoft, and engage in discussions and exchange knowledge and opinions about them on other websites, the fact that this can now be done on AppleVis will probably mean that this website might lose its credibility over time. I am worried more about users seeking and suggesting to use other operating systems right away instead of reporting any issues to Apple and posting about them on AppleVis as Apple continues to ignore them, than Apple no longer considering AppleVis as a source of valuable insights on how well it's doing in terms of accessibility. The latter's already been the case for some time now, if you ask me. Well, the former has also been the case, as certain members have been accusing us of ranting on about issues and telling us to switch to Android and dismiss the issue, but they will now have the new dedicated sections to make their posts in, instead of ranting on and on about posts on bugs regardless of whether the poster has already reported the issue to Apple and is actually trying to point out a problem making his/her experience significantly more inconvenient. So now I can at least tell those telling me to switch to Android that they should go switch to those new categories to make their posts instead of complaining about posts on bugs and issues.

While it might be true that this will detract some people from ever coming back, I agree that this expansion of the site is a good thing. The platform on which this site was built is one of the most accessible ones out there, at least if you ask me. As has been stated previously, users who wish to filter out the non-Apple content can do so accessibly. Who knows, perhaps this site expansion will attract more 3rd-party developers over here as well as people from Microsoft and other companies. I for one, have 2 Microsoft apps on my phone. I've rarely used at least one of them due to time constraints, but that's besides the point. I think that if everybody works together just a little bit, this could be a big win for all.

The trick is not to change the name. Always keep it as 'applevis'. If the name gets changed to something like 'techblindvis' 'techvis' or something, people won't take this resource seriously as a mostly Apple resource. Keep it is 'applevis', and it'll be OK. Audiogames.net is still about audio games, even though they have an off topic room.

When I first read about this change I wasn't sure what to think. I'm
still not sure, but I'm keeping an open mind. This site gets better and better all the time. This is just a new feature on the site. If you don't want to read posts that aren't Apple related, just don't go to that area of the site. It's as simple as that. Just use the site the way you always have. Those of us that want to use all of the forums can do that. We all have a choice, and we can use the site any way we want to. There is no reason that AppleVis can't continue to be the primary resource for information
in the blind and visually impaired community.

I think there should be different websites about these topics.

No. That just puts more work on people. I'll say it once and then I'll let it be. If you don't wanna use a particular part of the site, you don't have to. It's as simple as that yall honestly. Ever heard of scrolling?

AppleVis already did it and nothing is going to change it. We just do what we would if they did not. Put our poste and move on. If someone tries to tell us to change to windows or android when discussion a bug, hope the people of AppleVis address it ASAP and put a end to that type of comment.

The folks running Applevis are perfectly competent. I don't doubt they'll do a fine job, as fine as they always do. Smile. I do like that sub domain idea, though. I also like the idea of including links to other, existing websites somewhere in Applevis, you know, something like a resources page for other tech. In fact, that could even be turned into a revenue stream if Applevis chooses to post webssite ddresses and descriptions of makers and their tech products on that separate Applevis website page, not quite ads but not far ads, either.

Yo
So a few people on hear are wining about this, really guys? If you don’t care about the other stuff then don’t read it, you can keep doing what you have bin and people like me who are interested in android for example will hang out there

Hello all
I have read through every single one of these threads.
And I do not see anybody stepping up offering their services as possibly being a moderator.
I am an iOS user and a windows user.
I use both JAWS and NVDA. I think I am fairly proficient with those, I like this list because I truly appreciate the information I get regarding my iPhone. I also appreciate hearing information that people put down about their max and other apple tech having a place on this list to go to to also hear about issues that people may experiencing with their windows technology, even their android technology, even though I do not own one at this time.
I think is awesome
I don’t know what you guys need for a moderator.
However I am more than willing to put my foot forward and offer whatever services I may.
Please feel free to let me know and if I can step up, I certainly will :-)