The 2024 AppleVis Community Survey: A Summary of the Results and Looking Ahead

I had used this web page and find the resources helpful and the people who run it very supported and friendly. Saying that, can not believe there are no other people who could be part of the monthly podcast besides us men. Even when Randy needed to leave and other took his place there was no women. I could not believe there are no capable women who have knowledge about iOS or apple products. Yes once in a blue moon a woman put a podcast on this web page but talking about podcast such as the monthly one. Again Like the guise and they are cool and friendly but can not notice this. This is coming up from a Latino man.

More minority representation on the team would be great, but I know that takes time and effort. I for one am all for it though. But I greatly appreciated the opportunity to take this survey. As previously stated, AppleVis has been a huge help to me and I cannot wait to see what's coming.

I must say, when I filled in the Applevis survey, diversity and there being no women on the Applevis team was the last thing on my mind. I say this as a woman. I come here for good quality content, and I don't care who writes it.! It would be cool if a woman or two was on the Applevis team, but if not, no worries. As a woman, I've never felt excluded or unwelcome on this site. I don't mind what gender, race, sexual orientation, or religion somebody is as long as they can produce good content. I hope Applevis doesn't put having a diverse team over quality. It should be about the best person for the job, and not whether somebody is a person of colour, LGBT or female. All these factors are irrelevant.

Tara it is an observation as a man. It is not about what you stated. More power to you if that is what you think. I just find it curious that there was none. I am sure there are many capable and apple and PC knowledge.

Hi Holger,

Thank you for your feedback on this. We want everyone, regardless of gender or any other characteristic, to be and feel welcome on AppleVis; and this includes on our podcast as hosts. While I do not feel it would be appropriate for me to go into specifics, I can say that we share your concerns and have actively tried to address them when recruiting hosts for Apple Crunch (formerly AppleVis Unleashed). Diversity is an ongoing commitment, and we will continue to look for opportunities to lift up the voices and lived experiences of marginalized people in our community.

Hi Community,

This is great hopefully we see these features roll out over the coming year.

I'm more interested in the topic than making a direct comment here but, when there is already a minority, voiceover users, I'm imagining there is a restricted pool of tallent already from which picking diversity becomes more difficult. A more interesting question is, how many female voiceover users are there and how many are interested in contributing on a more professional basis.

I'd like to think the overarching ethos of this site is already inclusivity, we've sat outside that party for long enough, so hopefully the doors are already open, it's just getting the people in, should they want to.

Saying all that, from a consumers perspective, it would be nice to have a varied team presenting as there are going to be use cases that vary between users and with greater variation in contributions, it's more likely us consumers find someone to identify with.

I'm not entirely sure if there is a masculine or feminine way of using apple products, I'd be interested to know.

Again, no comment here, more of a curiosity.

Also, thank you for doing the survey. the forum has certainly felt more civil since its return. All it took was taking our toys!

Keep in mind, the editorial staff is made up of volunteers. I assume there are no women who are willing to volunteer for the editorial staff at this time. I don't believe there is any conscious exclusion of women on the staff. I agree with Tara, quality and expertise are what's important. Gender isn't a factor.

I found out that Applevis had re-opened and I'm so glad! I've learned a lot through the years from podcasts and extras as well as the community. Sorry I missed the survey. I look forward to what's coming on this site and appreciate so much that it's here! Keep up the good work!

I just wanted to add something to the conversation about why it's important to have a diverse team on a site like this. Different people use their tech in different ways, and having a diverse group of people with differing use cases means that bugs are more likely to be caught and that the team will be able to produce content relevant to more people. That's obvious in the case of disability. Fully sighted people, those who use low vision features, VoiceOver users who rely on speech, and those who use a Braille display each interact with their devices in very different ways. And that's only considering the accessibility features for visually impaired people. When we consider the accessibility features aimed at people with other disabilities, the range of use cases becomes even more diverse. Then, things other than disability come into the mix. If you only speak English, you're probably not going to be aware of any bugs in VoiceOver's implementation of other languages. It might seem less obvious how gender is relevant, and although I wouldn't say there are feminine ways of using Apple products, gender does matter sometimes. When Apple first launched the iOS health app, it didn't include period tracking. There were many things you could track that most people probably wouldn't have heard of, but something as basic as period tracking wasn't included. To someone who menstruates, it would probably be a lot more obvious that, in an app for tracking health data, monthly cycles would be something you might want to keep track of. Here's an article from the time the period tracking was first added: https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/apple-s-health-data-app-gets-period-tracking-10307363.html

Ultimately, our technology, and tech journalism, is there to serve the needs of people, and different people have different needs.

Yes, I'd forgotten the whole period tracking thing. I must say, I was quite surprised when it was added in as an update. I don't use the health app myself, but I just assumed that something like that would be there from day one. It really was an afterthought. Maybe we can assume then that no women were on that particular development team. It's true that certain groups of people are likely to consider things or pick up things that another group of people wouldn't. If somebody is a woman, person of colour, has a native language other than English, or LGBTQ, and they use a particular app, and they pick up a bug present in said app or Chinese or Turkish VoiceOver, that's an added bonus provided the quality of the blog and podcast output doesn't diminish. Suffice it to say that, I don't imagine Applevis would have a problem with whoever applies to be on the editorial team. When people start talking about diversity though, and we need a certain number of this or that, it rubs me up the wrong way. As soon as you start going down that road, you start trying to ensure that you get your ten women in the department let's say, but what if some of those women are less qualified and quite honestly worse than male applicants at the job? But you employ them anyway because well, we need more women! The more people less qualified and less capable at a job, the more likely a company is to suffer a drop in productivity and quality of service. In the case of Applevis, the vast majority of users are likely to have English as their first language. So statistically, you won't be able to find many people able to test VoiceOver in another language. Even if you do, what if those people don't have time to devote to being a member of the Applevis team. The more people you have from a particular group, the more likely you are to find people with a specific set of criteria. The fewer people you have in a group, the less likely you are to find people with a specific set of criteria, the criteria being having the time and ability to test VoiceOver in a foreign language for bugs. If Applevis opens up to more languages in the future, you'll be far more likely to find people who have the time and are capable of testing VoiceOver for bugs in other languages, just because you've got more people to choose from. As for LGBTQ, the number of LGBTQ people within any country is tiny, and how many of them use VoiceOver, and would have the time to devote to testing certain apps for the LGBTQ community? Of course apps like Grinder and Trans need to be tested for accessibility etc., and the best people to do that are people from said community. I did see an app for gay dating here a few months back in the app directory. As for women, I imagine the number of women from all backgrounds and countries who use VoiceOver is similar to the number of men. Why wouldn't it be? I don't know about the ratio of men to women on Applevis. I probably wouldn't be a good candidate for the editorial team anyway. I haven't got a mac and don't want one, and I don't use very many apps on my iPhone and iPad, I just stick to the same ones, and I hardly use my Apple Watch. I'm much more of a Windows user.

Howdy,

I've been kicking around the Apple world for more than 35 years. Some of you know me as a writer and podcaster in both the mainstream and blindness worlds. Also, I am one of those far too rare creatures in the tech world, a female animal. So instead of imagining or guessing or supposing what women think, when you are not a woman, read on, please. I'm just going to speak for myself and from my very long experience in tech, while being a woman.

In the majority of tech-centric spaces I've been in, women are a minority. Sometimes that's led to simple ignorance of what a woman might need or want from tech, or a belief on the part of men that there is no need to approach the subject in a way that welcomes women to participate. All of that is extremely tiring, and mighty discouraging, especially if you feel, as I do, that being female does not mean that you should have to fight for space, or prove you're just as good. To whom should you prove it? To men? Why? Couldn't it work the other way around?

Look, I've worked in tech support as well as writing and podcasting. What I know is that many women and men stereotypically come at problems in different ways. Doesn't mean all men or all women, but it does mean that I've cleaned up many messes made by men whose idea of tech support was a condescending lecture. And I've booked female clients because I didn't do these things. Mansplaining is real. It happens every day. I've also worked with many men who do not behave this way, and who can support, or train, or listen to people of all genders. My point is that if no women are in the room and no women are writing about the technology, you have no idea what's different and what's the same between genders. You simply assume, or imagine. You have no idea who you've left out, or why they are not in the spaces where you feel comfortable

Podcasting is also a male-dominated field of endeavor. Plenty of women make shows, but the big tech ones are generally run by men. And when one male podcaster talks about another podcaster, he's most often speaking of another man. "I was listening to XYZ the other day and John said..." "Friend of the show Mike had a good observation...." "I'm out for a couple of weeks, and Bob will be hosting the show for me." Why do these men fall back on people like themselves? Why can't these men hear women? Why don't they seek them out? Why are podcasts so often limited to the opinions of men? Wouldn't we understand more about the way people think about tech if we heard from more different kinds of people? I think so.

Let me say, too, that I know several members of the AppleVis editorial team. They have been nothing but professional and welcoming and open, in my experience. I've felt for a long time that there needed to be women – and people of color, for that matter – on the team. But it has less to do with what the team lacks than what it could add to the community if more diversity were present.

FYI. It was an observation from a Latino. Take it as you wish.