Contacting freedom scientific to request Jaws, come to macOS & iOS

I really don't see any chance at all that this will happen. Apple wouldn't allow it I'm pretty sure and the amount of work required would be insane to put it mildly.

I mean, if its a third party screen reader, this could theoretically happen. Apple has no control as far as third party apps. However jaws on the mac... It would be just as expensive on windows,and with the same terms, only if your in the US or Canada you can pay a 90$ yearly subscription, but if you don't live there? Yeah no thanks. Jaws is way, way too pricy for most people, and this wouldn't work, not many would be able to afford it, leading to jaws losing a lot of money do to people cracking it.

B has a better chance of taking over the world. I will not mention her name because people here complained about it.

I don't think this will happen. Because Apple will not allow such things.

a

Sheesh man.

Yours doesn’t have a capable OCR. I had to use Jaws all of last year but now I’m so glad I switched to NVDA

Give him a higher chance on iOS or Mattheew because of the fact it’s open source for nvda

Just because Not agree with you doesn’t mean you should get annoyed

What do they know about developing macOS or iOS applications? All of their resources over the years have gone into developing applications first for MS-DOS, then for Windows CE, and now for Windows desktop operating systems. Even if they had the desire to release a screen reader for macOS or iOS, a significant amount of work on their part would be required, as others have already pointed out, to make it a reality. Sure, they could take shortcuts and cut corners by using cross-platform development frameworks, but this would only result in a worse experience overall for the end user once the product is released.

Furthermore, iOS apps are sandboxed, and for very good reasons. A screen reader like JAWS running on this platform, therefore, would not work the same as VoiceOver because it would not have access outside its sandbox and Apple would not be likely to grant such access. This would be much less of an issue on macOS, of course.

Finally, the pricing for any screen reader FS did release on macOS or iOS would be astronomically high (or the licensing prohibitive), at least for the first few years of general availability, so as to recoup the enormous cost they would have spent in research and development for these platforms.

Ultimately, while it's a lofty idea to have JAWS for macOS or iOS, that's all it will ever be from a logical, financial, business, and technological standpoint.

I'm pretty sure this is true. And it's true, a lot of JAWS licenses are purchased by Voc Rehab agencies; however, Macs are generally discouraged by same said agencies from all I've heard because Windows is much more used in the corperate world, and Voc Rehab is rightly all about getting blind people employed. I'm not saying this is a bad idea and that it couldn't/wouldn't be done, but it would probably be a bit of an up-hill battle. I don't use a Mac because I've just used Windows for so, so long, and found Mac extremely frustrating and confusing when I tried it out, but good luck to all of you who want JAWS.

Thanks,
Shersey

Maybe don't give up on the forum too soon. I'll admit, I'm skeptical of Jaws coming to iOS, mostly because Jaws has never ventured into the Mobile world; in fact I can/t think of any screenreaders that cross the desktop/mobile divide. As for Jaws on MacOs, I imagine it is indeed possible; third party apps can be installed on Mac far easier than on iOS. The issue here is pricing. Outside of the USA and Canada, Jaws costs as much as a low-end Mac. Someone buying a new Mac would either have to invest in the price equivalent of yet another Mac or resign themselves to using a demo. If Jaws would be willing to adjust their prices to accommodate the pocket of international blind users, it might be feasible, but not before.

Here's the real issue. Jaws would require a lot of access to the OS, access that Apple would most likely say no too. I'm a user of both platforms, so it's not that I say no just to say no, I've seen how things work, even from a developer stand point. FS has barely gotten jaws running on arm on Windows, adding a whole new OS in the mix doesn't seem likely at all. As for who at FS would say its' only a matter of support, who was it, and if it's so pressing, why hasn't FS said anything publicly?

I don't know enough about system APIs and the like to speak to the technical capability, but if it is possible, then it would be great and I'm more than happy to let Freedom Scientific know. Having a choice of screen readers could only be a good thing. If the good people who develop NVDA wanted to develop for Mac too, even better.
There was a time when people said Apple will never allow third party tech to speech engines, and yet here we are, they di. There was a time people said Apple will never bring Eloquence to their devices, and yet here we are.
I would note though that one arm of Freedom Scientific, called AI Squared at the time,. did bring ZoomText to Mac before, but it didn't last too long. I'm not sure if that was due to technical difficulties or the size of the market.
I wouldn't though be too quick to say the market is too small, there is a chicken and egg situation with that. I use Windows at work because Mac and VoiceOver simply aren't good enough, especially with Microsoft applications. But if there was a solution on Mac, then suddenly the Mac would become an option for my work.
Dave

Not saying no to having it, I just know it's really complicated to make work. In all the time the mac has been about with voiceover I've never heard of any whispers of gettign a third party screen reader, in fact in the past mos tcompanies just wrote it off.

In my oppinion jaws has more bugs than voiceover. FS is too quick to blame the users equipment rather than trying to resolve the bugs.

I was hoping since Eric Damery retired things would get better but it hasn't. On the other hand I wouldn't rule out jaws coming to mac nor ios.

Perhaps but not. If so, FS does a better job of addressing bugs and they have help support and you get ASAP response from them. Apple not so much. How long it took the bug for Braille be address? I kept reading how those good people had to cope with VO not working with their Braille display. Sad. Sad. If people want an answerabout JAWS on the Mac, ask their support and you will get a respond. More likely they will say, Thanks for your input but we are using our time and resources to making Windows experience the best we can. We have no future plans to develop a speech program for Apple.

While I think VO needs a lot more attention than it's currently getting on macOS, it is most certainly not a toy. Most of the issues related to word, outlook, etc. are completely and entirely Microsoft's fault and they have done nothing to fix them. That's not to say that VO has no issues, it definitely does and I'm not trying to mitigate other's experiences. With that being said, the chances of Jaws coming to macOS are incredibly slim, and essentially zero on iOS. While I'm sure it would be nice, to my knowledge there is no third-party API for developers to make a screen reader on macOS, so Freedom has no chance of even getting started without Apple's help. Also from a purely economical standpoint, I have absolutely zero interest in paying $900 or subscribing to a screen reader when the current solution has been free since late 2005.

Free? I payed close to $800 for my 13 pro. Nothing is free. Not even water.

If you want to leave, that's up to you but JAWS will not be coming to the mac at all.

The closest you're going to get is eliquence. JAWS is built for windows and voiceover is built for mac, they are very diffirent OS's. According to what I've read, apple will some time next year I think, allow side loading, downloading apps from other stores, without throwing a hissssy fit. If, and that's a big if, apple allows that on their macs too I highly doubt FS, or whatever they're calling themselves these days would be interested.

Not only would they have to build JAWS for a platform they've never worked with before, but they'd have to get drivers, dll's, all that and apple isn't just going to give that stuff away.

Also, I highly doubt blind mac users would use the product, it's not only pricy but you have to pay for updates, if you want them.

Oh and for those of us living outside of the US, we can't use that 90 a month thing.

Zachary is talking about Voiceover being free on mac and IOS.

for those that want this contact ryan jones.
rjones@vispero.com
Ryan Jones is the new product manager who took over when Eric retired.
If it means anything I don't have a mac but will be requesting it.

This isn't a post it won't happen it can't happen. The fact of the matter is at least two fole. First, there was a ZoomText for Mac in 2018 2019, the end result was very simple, there was not a sufficient amount of sales to justify such a product. Because most people pay such a premium price for Macs, end users were not interested in paying for additional software to have magnification.
A second consideration is staff for programming, the current programmers who make Jaws for Windows, are likely not experts in the Apple programming language. This would mean needing to hire new programmers to create such a software package, and again we get back to is there actual sales demand for a third party screen reader. Since most buy a Mac because a screen reader is included at no additional cost, it is very unlikely that there would be real demand for Jaws for Mac.
Finally as far as the iPhone goes, there is not an open platform as there is in Android for third party screen readers. All the way back when there was a such thing as Mobile speak, and Talkx Freedom had no interest in getting in to the mobile game, because when you consider development and support of a product that has very low margins, there is no actual prophet to be had.
If you disagree with these reasons, unfortunately you're disregarding the business side of why companies like Freedom are in business.

This is quite frankly silly, these are two diffirent operating systems that work with diffirent software, dlls, keyboard shortcuts, keyboard maps, they're just very diffirent.

If i Listened to everyone who Said Eloquence will never happen it won't happen why are you wasting your time I never would've sent feedback in several times a year. I ignored those people and kept on sending feedback. What do we have now? Oh that's right Eloquence the thing that would never come to iOS. the point is if you don't try you won't know. so I will ignore the naysayers

I'm not just poopooing the original posters idea, I've been in the field for 20 years and am super familiar with what gets ordered, as well as what costs go in to developing an releasing products.

That screen reader is open source and three, and in my opinion is better than yours! Maybe somebody could code it at least on macOS, maybe not iOS. I would rather have it made for macOS anyway because VoiceOver on macOS is just truly terrible and terrifying, but VoiceOver on iOS 8 issues that I encounter on iOS I can actually deal with but on the map is a completely different story.. But I don’t think this whole coding windows programs onto Mac debate is gonna be over. Just you wait until next year, people are gonna be wanting people to code windows XP into an application on macOS. Oh those good old times and days. I remember in my childhood playing the windows XP desktop. It was so simple. You only needed 512 MB of ram to run the operating system. I remember floppy disk 71? imagine you have all the things like VGA and Ethan and HDMI. If not, you still have but those other two are belly existence.

Why would it, it is a windows product, for windows. These things can't just be ported over and that's it. A small example is with NVDA there's a windows start menu, that doesn't exist on mac, on mac there's an entirely new way of using the systehm, ok I'll grant you that NVDA's object nav kind of works like voiceover but NVaccess would have to get so many permissions from appple.

Porting a speech synthersizer over to the mac is tonnes easier than porting an entire screen reader over.

I'm not being negative, I'm just tellling the truth.

I mean if somebody is really devoted and knows the Mac operating system inside and out surely it could be done, even if it takes years! I’m not holding out hope, considering how fast AI is improving. Who knows probably next 5 to 10, maybe at the latest 20 or 30 years will have more screen reader choices on macOS

It might happen it could happen. Surely surely somebody will boys have a crack at it.

For what we pay it should be free. VO has not got any major update forever. Just nice features that people go nuts for it and later never use them. VO needs to have serious work.

That's why I'm not a mac user.

Love my iPhone and iPad but will continue to use my Windows PC and jaws. Been using iPhone since 4 and later went to 4s, 5, 6, 7, xs, 11 pro max, 12 pro and 13 pro got last Nov. iPad 9.

That's a lot of phones. I think i've had 3 phones over, I dunno, 8 to 10 years...

Bring back Bella the cat.

Nothing like reading comments from a cat's point of view, plus, it was cute.

If people don't like it, they can skip past the post.

On a more serious note, the only way I see this happening is if AI does the work, and with a lot of ethics currently in the way, it won't happen until all of that is resolved.

patrician response alert: Ash, dear fellow, your supposition that JAWS is paid for by a legion of accessibility specialists queueing up to part with taxpayers' money so as to keep Bingo on his splendid salary plus guaranteed overtime is false. Bingo had to pay for JAWS out of the privy purse, so to speak, plus the Brailliant and similar purchases including the much regretted ElBraille (of which, I will only say that even Homer can nod). now then, it's a shame you've gone, Ash, because I do think you're onto somehting here. if it's a lot of work to make JAWS for IOS, who cares? We're speaking of a job, not a hobby! These Freedomscientific chaps do this for a living and probably get JAWS as part of their benefits package for employees anyway. A lot of work means job security, so here's a health to a lot of work! As for the cost, there'll always be fat cats like Bingo out there who'll be able to afford it. Get the advertising right (proper localisation is a sine qua non) and we toffs will be a reliable customer base. Don't worry if Bella the cat doesn't want JAWS for IOS, Bingo the customer is the attainable glittering prize. So in short, JAWS for IOS? Why not? If Freedomscientific wish to take this on as the next big project and it works for us, here's a health to that! Hurrah! I hope it doesn't turn out to be the next Pacmate Omni, that's all. I doubt many FS drinks evenings (funded by what it costs to buy JAWS outside North America) spend over much time on raising a glass to that particular monstrosity.

As a Windows developer, I can say that something like this would take an extreme amount of time.
First off, the JAWS codebase is massive. Those with Windows computers, go to the path of JAWS and see how many extensions it relies on, all the Windows-based libraries, specifically the files that have the DLL extension at the end.
All of JAWS is basically in some form of C. I can't remember if it is C, or C++, but it heavily relies on Windows.
Now, imagine trying to switch this codebase that has been existent for over a decade, and attempting to transfer it to a different OS that uses libraries that are completely alien to JAWS, are required to be formatted in a different language, the braille display drivers they'd have to screw around with, the plugins that are probably only meant for Windows, the resources that Windows probably has that macOS and iOS doesn't. It's like trying to put a cassette into a CD player. It just won't work.
The next thing you may be thinking, well they can just recode it. Imagine recoding a Windows-based screen reader that has been coded for years upon years upon years. Then, imagine having to catch it up to speed with the Windows edition, and also work their way around Apple's restrictions, which is highly unlikely, and then having to fight for control over alternative screen readers, because I can bet Apple would never allow screen readers other than VoiceOver to run on iOS.
These are one of those things where as much as it would be amazing, it's just not practical. Freedom Scientific already has their hands full. You can only hold so much before it all overflows.
So to conclude, it's a nice thought, a nice wish. But it's not practical. I'm sorry to say, but you're going to have to blow the flame out on this one.

I'm not a mac user so won't be emailing fredom scientific or whatever they're calling themselves these days but I'd like to know, for those of you who think this is doable, what exactly would JAWS add to the mac that voiceover doesn't already have?

I don't mean bugs being fixed iether, I mean what features would jaws have that would make a new mac user go, ooo, I'll spend whatever price these people put down for this screen reader, In other words, why would someone buy this product over a free one.

Don't get discouraged, Ash. It is not a bad thing to want better for your Operating System(s) of choice. Also, who cares if anyone, and I do mean anyone, has a negative response or snide remark against you, or your ideas. Does it really matter to you what random interweb trolls think of you as a person? Or what said trolls think of your ideas? Well, maybe it does, but should it?
Absolutely not.

Finally, do not worry about the potential cost of building JAWS for macOS, or the cost of funding the finished software for the rest of us..

Bingo just volunteered to cover costs.

True story. 😹

Admittedly, I have not touched JAWS since 2020, and that was using the 2018 version of the software. However, if there was one definitive thing; I would say the built-in OCR.

It is impressive.

Last time I Thomas got involve and people got upset. They do not know how to skipt poste and they complain about it. FS will not go to Mac. Even if they do, I would not get a Mac, happy with my Windows. Love my iPhone and iPad but no Mac. She who should not be name agree with me, uses her noce to try to work on my iPad and watch.

I'll agree on that completely, having OCR on the mac would probably be really nice,but I think there's something called VOCR for mac but I'm not sure.

@AshRaign, I do agree with brian, you shouldn't let people get you down on the internet but at the same time if people are saying it won't happen, even if it did, chances are; most people wouldn't buy it and therefore costs would go down and FS would have to drop the product.

I will cover coss for everyone who doesn't need JAWS for IOS, or JAWS for Mac. If you do need it, I will cover costs but only if you agree to use the Keynote gold synthesiser.

To be clear, I agree with Ash. Freedomscientific aren't saying: we shan't do it because it's a lot of work. they're saying: we shan't do it because nobody seems to want it. If they were to do it, there'd be people who would buy it if only to avoid the focus bug, the Braille bugs, the crashing all the time bug; and Bingo would probably buy it because he could, though let's get Bingo Towers sold first.

Hal installed. Main menu.

I am afraid. 😱

If jaws created made it to the Mac, will not get it. Also have to do with wanting to have a Mac if is accessible. It maybe so but may be a major pain to use it. I ask B if I could get it she turn around and show me her tail.

Makeing jaws for the mack would be to dan hard

As I said before though, who from FS is saying this? If it were something there were serious about, why haven't they made news articles about it or posted to social media? Not attacking but asking a serious question.

I believe in one of their podcast someone did a comment about it. Mostly no. Why someone just send an email to them and find out and let us know. Since I am not interested it will not be me but those who want ask FS directly.

I really can't see this happening and honestly don't see the point.

But for those of you on mac, if you want to email this guy, go for it.

I don’t agree with this either

1. Jaws is not meant for the individual, for the most part. If your not in the US or Canada, you have to pay a really high price for jaws, over 1200$ or more, depending on the license, and that's not even counting the 200$ yearly payed for upgrades. Thing is, most in here, don't realise the above... because institutions, weather it be government, school, etc; covers the high cost of jaws. For most people, however... this is not the case. If we want jaws, we either have to pay out of pocket the full over 1200$ price-tag,or get it crac'ked, which... I'm sure if a pole was done, the people who used cracked jaws would far surpass people who use it legally.
2. Alternatives and the, why. As an alternative, hypothetically speaking, if jaws was brought to mac... What would justify it as a better alternative than voiceover? What sets, or would, set it apart, that would justify, or convince people buying it, instead of just keep using the free option? I mean, want an example? Look at NVDA on windows. A lot of people switched to NVDA full time instead of jaws, simply because its free, and jaws doesn't offer any incentive, new features, or innovation, which would convince people to keep using jaws and paying for it when... Hey look free alternative that does the same, if not better? Of course they'll go for it.
3. The amount of work. The amount of work to make this happen would take, at the very least; years, and that's not counting that chances are, jaws would have to be designed from scratch, as mac is completely different than windows as far as not using the same dlls, systems, etc. Not to mention the obvious; there would be no way in hell freedom scientific would recuperate their cost because... A lot of individuals would resourt to cracks given jaws prices, and the only ones who would be able to afford it, for the most part, would be institutions, and people in which jaws costs $90 a year, which... Let's face it, it is what? Less than 1% of people.
I'm not being negative, nore are others. Its simply the fact that this isn't viable, both from a financial, or a sustainable point for freedom scientific. I mean, if you want an example... look at zoom from freedom scientific that ended up flopping on mac. Mind you, there are way more low vision people than totally blind or screen reader users, and it still backfired. It would be the exact same thing if jaws came to mac, as the market is smaller than the one for the zooming tool from freedom scientific when it came to the mac was.

Competition is usually good, as is choice.

Yes, considering the complaints people have about Voiceover, it would be nice if there were other alternatives. When screen readers were first coming to computers, this might have been an easier task, but still not a guaranteed win for any company or developer. Look at the number of budding screen readers that got winowed out of the pack in the early days of Windows. Few survived.

Developing a screen reader from scratch after the technology has been around for a while is even a tougher task. Such products develop their features over time and a newly developed screen reader would have a tough time competing with even a buggy, mature screen reader.

Of course it isn't impossible that a new player like Freedom Scientific would try to expand their reach by developing a screen reder for Macs, but it certainly wouldn't be easy and would take a lot of up front resources with no guarantees of success in the market. In addition, we're not only talking about something like a JAWS screen reader itself, but if you look at how JAWS operates, much of its power and advantage comes with the extensive set of scripts written to make speicific aplications work productivtely with JAWS. Many of those scripts come from Freedom Scientific itself, but many also come from other developers who offer additional third-party custom scripts for specific aplications. That is a extra amount of infrastructure that would have to be in place to make JAWS on the Mac like JAWS for Windows.

Yes, it would be a nice thought, but I would consider it highly unlikely that Freedom Scientific would put in the effort required to make this work with little guarantee of successful adoption and use by Mac users. Wouldn't it be nice though to have scripts specifically written for certain problematic aplications on the Mac as they are for Windows? Wouldn't it be nice to have more frequent updates to a Mac screen reader to cope with issues in certain aplications as such updates are frequently available with JAWS?

At least Voiceover seems to work sufficiently well for some people using relatively standard aplications on the Mac. If one has special needs or requirements or needs to write custom scripts in order to make programs not only accessible but efficient and productive to use, they always have the option to move to Windows and use a sophisticated screen reader like JAWS.

Not to mention that developing all of the new infrastructure for not only the Mac but iOS is another problem and major effort entirely!

My guess, don't look for JAWS being ported to Mac or iOS any time in the near future. Would be good if I am wrong, but, in the meantime, I'm very happy using Windows and JAWS!

--Pete