Virtual reality headset rumor

I'm eating carrots. Ug, I'm old. The Mac came out before I went blind, but I've never used one. I already talked about the first few models of Apple computers, which schools had by the truckloads, and I did use those before and after. But that was back when you had to walk fifty miles to school, up hill both ways, through five feet of snow in the middle of summer and so on. Just keeping it weird...

I am more concern that Apple fix the bugs in iOS and the Mac. Also issues with their keyboard. My Smart Apple keyboard is not consistent with how I use it with VO. VO has not got an update since it came out. Features are nice but addressing how bugs are reported and dealt is what I want. I just want to make sure that my 1000$ phone works. We need to focus on what future iOS 16 be like and VO would work.

I have to disagree with you. VoiceOver and accessibility should of been built in from the start. whilst I can't comment on the first apple watch and VoiceOver support on it, as I didn't have one back then, I still agree that accessibility and VoiceOver should of been built in from the start. blind people need to provide feedback to apple on the accessibility features of there products. if there's no VoiceOver support on a product, blind people can't provide feedback on it. so yeah, actually, VoiceOver support should always be built on a product from the start.

well said tree, I couldn't agree with you more.

to be honest, I think the Mac is the longest product apples made. if they can do that for the Mac, they can do it for the iPhone. regards to the apple car, we'll have to see what happens about that. it does sound cool, but we'll have to see.

I saw this, it was on 9to5 Mac. you see, that's my point, accessibility needs to be built in from the get go. if the first Mac/iPhone wasn't accessible from the start, this is quite worrying. I strongly recommend we all email apple accessibility regarding this. the more people who do this, its likely they will hear our worries. I know some people on hear don't care or whatever, but accessibility is important to me, and the way I see it, if a sited person can use a product or service, we can too.

that makes sense. the thing is, if its aimed at developers, or its meant for games or things like that, I'm not bothered. but if it can do what an iPhone can, or something like that, or its something that we can use, and it doesn't have accessibility built in, then I'd say yes, lets all email apple accessibility about this. but if its not meant for us, then that's cool and I don't care. the thing I'm worried is, if the product is able to be used by us, and it doesn't have VoiceOver built in, just like the first iPhone, that's a problem. does that make sense? but yeah, lets wait until they announce it first. regards to the studio display, wouldn't that be cool if it was accessible? I can see why it isn't, but it has a speaker built in, and, I think the display runs iOS, so in a way, it would be cool if it did have VoiceOver on it, but yeah. its cool that you can use it to FaceTime people on it.

Could have sworn the world did end in 2012, and we're just kind of floating here. I did have to carry a Perkins Braille Writer to school, I still have one and a wooden Braille eraser, but we also had portable Versabraille I and II computers, and you could link them with RS232 serial communication ports to the Apple computers. Windows didn't exist at that time. We did have MS Dos, though. Apple/Mac was going up against IBM. The first computers I fooled with were Commodore 64s and TRS80s (Trash80s). Before that we had Pong.
But don't worry, Tree, some day you'll probably get old too, and you can gripe about how everything was better back in the day because it was so much more difficult. I mean, you haven't lived until you've had to stuff aluminum foil between the batterie contacts on your Pong game unit because the C cells leaked. Or did they use D cells...? Try that with an iPhone! Now where did I put that slate and stylus, I feel like thinking backwards...

exactly. the iPhone 4S was my first iPhone. I loved it, it was a great device. I understand why the studio display isn't accessible. from my understanding, I think its like a second display for your Mac, or something like that. it would be cool if it had VoiceOver on it, but I think its like a screen, but I'm not quite sure. I think it does run iOS.

I read about that, at least apple fixed that issue quickly. I agree, things should be accessible from the get go. I did read another article regarding apple replacing the iPhone with glasses, I hope they don't do that. if they announce it, we should email apple accessibility if its not accessible, or if accessibility isn't mentioned. I've pasted the link to the article below:

https://apple.news/AJaP0cN1JShm_c02rqgw3mg

I'm hoping the link works for you all.

All companies be it google, apple or microsoft or any other develop their tech first and them they think about accessibility. Future devices will keep be like that. Apple focus on accessibility not because they are nice but because they do work with schools and universities and they need to meet accessibility rules from the government. Sane with the other companies. Google is now having issues with Braille HIP that will not work with android 13 and they may not do anything about it. Companies think of Accessibility as a nice thing and will throw a juicy bone to those disable people and they will be happy.

Someone can say the sane for the iPad, Mac, iPhone and so. Also TV screen is also for the sighted. Logical?

Sweet, when can I upload myself to the cloud full time.

Who needs this fleshy body anyway, not when you can live for, I guess as long as they keep the servers up and running.

On a more serious note, don't believe everything you read.

These headsets are going to start out extremely expensive, about $3000 I read somewhere, so I highly doubt the iPhone will be replaced with one of these.

That won't happen for quite some time.

The average person won't be able to afford one of these, and even if they could, it wouldn't be worth paying $3000 for a headset.

If you upload yourself to iCloud, it might not be accessible and you might need VO to move around it. Also a cane or guide dog.

Hmm, you're probably right.

They did try something like that some time ago on second life.

Besides, I'm more of a cat person, why not a guide cat?

I think a guide cat would be interesting, then again, I can picture it now, you're walking along, cat finds a nice warm sunny spot and lies down for a nap.

Same thing in an iPad. Sound, and so on. The new monitore has iOS 15.

Apple does whatever they want regarding accessibility due to the fact that within our self we argue about it and do not agree what can be accessible or not. Every year Apple and other let us know what nice juicy bone they are throwing us and some wagged their tailand be happy with it. VO need to be updated and bugs address. Also how we report bugs and how apple address them. It took almost a year for apple to fix bugs with Braille display. If they did or not.

This just sounds like history repeating itself.

Before my time so to speak, computers used dos so everything was more or less text-based. Then a little thing called Windows came out. From what I have heard via podcasts and the like, there was a real fear among the blind that this new graphical user interface paradigm would leave them out of the loop and out of work. But then JAWS for Windows and probably a few other screen readers for Windows came out. IIRC, JAWS wasn't the first. Things have improved over time and now computers have a screen reader included right out of the box. Wether those are the "best" for you is a different topic.

Jump ahead to the early 2000's. Mobile phones and touch screens started to become wide spread. Logic would tell you that people would wonder how a blind person could use these when there was no way to distinguish between buttons on a flat screen. Some AT companies came up with solutions for this -- anyone remember the Mystro PDA? It was essentially an app loaded onto a pocket PC that made it talk, along with an overlay that you put over the screen with rubber buttons that touched parts of the screen underneath that made different things happen. I only saw one once briefly, but it kind of reminded me of a TV remote. There was also Mobile Speak Pocket which I haven't used, but going by podcast demos, it let you do different things depending on which quadrent of the screen you touched. All of these solutions were of course an extra cost on top of the device itself.

In 2007 the original iPhone was introduced, with it being touted as being much easier to use and able to do more things thanks to its touch screen-driven interface. It took a couple of years, but by the third generation in mid 2009, VoiceOver was included and the rest, as they say, is history.

Back then, Apple was still releasing new iPods, which had also just become accessible to us natively (yes there was rockbox before that). The iPhone signaled the beginning of the end for the iPod. As it became more and more used, a dedicated mp3 player became less and less relevant. The iPod didn't go away over night though -- I'm actually surprised it lasted as long as it did.

I think the same thing will happen if this virtual reality stuff becomes the new paradigm for interaction. By the time it fully replaces the iPhone, if it ever does, Apple will have likely figured out accessibility.

I also don't think the comparison to a dedicated display works because it's just that--a visual display that is used with a Mac. Some things, simply by their nature can't be made accessible. How would Apple make AirPods accessible to the totally deaf? They're a device for conveying auditory information, so things like Live Listen wouldn't apply.

I think Apple, and hopefully others, will figure out the whole AR/VR thing in time if it becomes a bid deal. We're all gonna be okay.