It’s incredibly offensive to me that these so-called accessibility specialists have the audacity to turn voiceover on when a blind/visually impaired person calls in. I asked them several times why they’re not using voiceover in a meaningful way. Their response was literally that they don’t have to because they’re already trained to use it.
I’ve pointed out to them that it’s not about knowing how to use voiceover. It’s actually about needing to use voiceover. I can’t turn the screen reader off. Without accessibility activated, my iPhone and other devices might as well be rocks.
As far as I can tell, their accessibility specialists are never using voiceover in a real world case scenario. They’re definitely not using it on their own time. I have never come across anyone that is visually impaired or blind. None of them were already using voiceover when I called. Like I said, they had the audacity to turn it on after I called and then they turned it off before ending our call. And you can literally tell that the settings are all at their default. The most I’ve gotten out of them is that they might practice for like five or 10 minutes every day. And all they’re doing is turning it on, just going through a couple of apps, and turning it back off.
I asked one of them how they could justify this. And they said that it’s typically what is required because they need to see to be able to navigate the devices. Again, they said they need to see to navigate through the device even when voiceover is turned on. I then pointed out that if I called freedom scientific technical support, all of their representatives seem to be blind. At the very least everyone that I call Already has jaws turned on and are using it to their specific needs and settings. The accessibility specialist couldn’t respond to that.
I don’t understand how people aren’t furious at this. They’re taking our money. And they are literally using us for marketing purposes. They can’t hire a few representatives that are blind/visually impaired and use voiceover 24 hours a day?
Like I said, freedom scientific employs blind people to troubleshoot issues and to work as engineers. When I was getting my Seeing Eye dog, I saw two trainees who spent literally two weeks blindfolded for like eight hours a day. This allowed them to not only understand how to train their dogs in a better way, they then appreciated the need for these dogs to work well. They literally put themselves in a blind person‘s shoes. Pretty much every organization that provides some service to the blind and visually impaired, encourage the idea of empathy and understanding. Thus far, Apple has decided that they have no interest in doing anything like that.
They spent all this time trying to hire all these different types of people just to say that they are diverse. Where the hell is our representation? Just once, I’d like to call Apple accessibility and come across a blind person who’s already got voiceover turned on and knows exactly what I’m talking about when I point out that there’s some bug that’s making my life much harder.
Comments
Unrealistic Expectations
I think you are making way too much out of all of this. I also feel like you are very unrealistic expecting them to use voiceover all the time while at work. They do need to know the products and they do need to know how the accessibility features work but they do not need to use accessibility all the time while at work. Again, I think you are making way too much out of all of this. This is just my opinion though.
completely agree with Earle
i agree completely agree with Earle this post was unnecessary
Agreed with the first two comments
Who cares if they are blind or sighted? Do the Bugs get reported? Yes. Do the bugs get fixed? Yes, although some may think they need to be fixed faster. But the amount of bugs that have been addressed from 17.0 to 17.4 is a lot. But oh no, They shouldn't be the ones answering my call, because they aren't blind. What if they said if you're not blind, you can't work in the accessibility department? Doesn't that sound shallow? As long as the bugs get reported and fixed, I don't care who reports it, blind or sighted.
As usual, missing the point
I’m kind of curious to know what are these “accessibility specialists“ supposed to do with their time? If they’re not practicing the use of voiceover and if they’re not understanding the importance of accessibility, what are they supposed to do? It’s OK that they’re saying “I have never come across this bug before?” I don’t care if they’re blind or sided either. I do care that they don’t seem to have a clue. And like I said, cited people blindfolded themselves for two weeks straight to become better dog trainers. They literally blindfolded themselves to more easily understand why a blind person would depend on the use of a service animal. Freedom scientific representatives are all using jaws all the time. And VDA representatives are always using NVDA all the time. I really would like an explanation why Apple needs to be different than that.
agreed
so what if Apple accessibility specialest aren't using VoiceOver! a trillian dollar company does not need to higher users of every accessibility feature to activly build good accessibility! I'd much rather outreach in the blind community. I get that by reporting bugs as a beta tester. sure, there is no direct dialog with the accessibility engebneers, but bugs I report are getting fixt. If we, as the blind are concerned with VoiceOver bugs, the only way to truly let Apple know is to beta test. it drives me crazy people come on here and complain and wine. I got a statisic from Apple, only five percent of VoiceOver users beta test. if we are ever going to get a quolity product out of Apple, how can they produce VoiceOver, without hering from users through beta testing? to everyone on here, beta test, and as long as you have backups, you've gogt nothing to worry about. The only way Apple can fix the bugs is by people reporting them. and the best way is through beta testing. this post comes across as nothing but a pathectic atempt for inclusion! the author of this has to stop and think, why did I feel the overwelming need to write it? beta test! if not, this will fall on deaf ears!
Not sure it really matters
First of all, no one has taken our money. We as Apple customers made a choice to give Apple our money by purchasing their products and services, but by no means did they “take” any money from you or me. Secondly, what’s important is that someone can duplicate your issue, not the amount of time they use an accessibility feature. As long as they can accomplish what’s necessary, that’s all that really matters. There is no guarantee that someone using an accessibility feature all the time can duplicate an issue any easier. I might use my accessibility tools in a different way than someone else which could result in a different experience by both parties. Also, how does anyone outside of Apple really know the amount of training Apple requires of their accessibility specialists? I personally don't have enough information on that to form an opinion. It's also important to keep in mind that the accessibility specialists aren't necessarily the ones who fix the bugs. A full team of blind accessibility specialists using VoiceOver wouldn't necessarily mean that bugs would be reported or fixed any more frequently once they are passed along to Apple's team of engineers.
Recently, I came across an accessibility bug in my bank’s app which was preventing me from paying a bill. I contacted their accessibility department to report the problem. It took a few times for them to understand my issue and duplicate the bug, but they released an update within a couple of weeks that resolved the issue. I never cared who was sighted or who used VoiceOver. I only cared about the task of reporting the bug, my bank duplicating the bug, and my problem getting resolved. In my view, It’s unrealistic to expect mainstream companies to have a plethora of blind people waiting to take calls from other blind people.
That's not realistic
Honestly, whether or not we want to admit it, a job is still a job, no matter how empathetic you are to the situation. The fact of the matter is, these individuals are not blind, and they are not going to use a screen reader to get the job done Full-time if they are able to see. Maybe in a perfect world, something like this would be a possibility, but right now, if the bugs are getting fixed, and they are being reported, that's the only thing I care about. I'm not trying to be harsh here, because it's obvious that you're passionate about this topic. However, don't you think this is a rather shallow and an unfair expectation on these individuals? What if they came across a problem that you're having, but they still can't replicate it, even with voiceover? Empathy doesn't pay the bills, or put food on the table, unfortunately. I agree that it's frustrating though when you seem to have an issue that the other person doesn't get, because they're not blind. In that regard, I feel your pain. Even if Apple hired individuals who were blind, they still wouldn't have enough of those specialized persons to go around. It might just be your luck that on the one day you call, none of those persons are available to help you out. Do we need more representation? Yes. Do we need more blind individuals in the workforce, especially pertaining to products or aspects of a product that we are using? Yes, we do, but expecting these persons to know every single detail about the product, and even using their Free time to practice using this product in order to help us out, no, that's going too far. I'm not telling you how to feel, but in the grand scheme of things, this is the least to be offended about. And, not to get off topic here, or anything, but being blind is hard, especially if you don't have access to the technology and resources that you need. Something that offends me is when people throw out callous and nasty comments, telling me how they could be a better blind person than I ever was, or relentlessly picking me apart as if I'm the worst person to exist on this earth, and justify this by telling me that they are making me more independent, when, in reality, they are bullies. It must be nice for others to be able to toss out these unhelpful comments, because they know that they are not going to go blind the second that these awful words leave there mouths. That's what I'm offended about. I hate the way that some individuals of our community are treated like absolute trash, just for existing, and there is no karma to those individuals. While screen readers have somewhat evened the Plainfield, it's still not always a preferable method if you have a choice. I mean, I wouldn't have chosen to be blind. I use a screen reader because I have to, not because I want to. I can't expect the employees to drop everything because of me, especially if it's easier to navigate without a screen reader. Listen, I hate that fact as well, to be honest. I hate the fact that I have to struggle with something that others take for granted, and that they can be callous about it, but I also know that the world doesn't revolve around me. Yes, it's kind of a slap in the face, judging from some of the responses, but that's life, I guess. If they don't have to use a screen reader, then they're not going to go through the hassle of doing so, outside of the designated times and circumstances where they don't have to.
stupid post
First, unless Apple actually took your money without choice, you gave it to them, so they never took anything.
How do you expect people who don't use voiceover all the time or don't need it to suddenly use it 24/7. Do you think people who make canes use canes 24/7 even if they don't need to?
This is a mad one sadly, and I feel sorry for the people at Apple. From what I read, it sounds like you like to give them a hard time most days, and its completely unreasonable and unrealistic points.
if it’s not a problem, turn voiceover off
I want people to turn voiceover off completely and then use your phones and your MacBooks and your watches and whatever other devices you’re using. Go ahead. Just turn everything off. It’s not a problem for you right? You totally have a choice on how you use your device. You don’t depend on voiceover do you? You’re just like they are. They don’t depend on it. So why should you depend on it?
Half of you don’t know how to use your devices anyway. So it’s not a big loss to just turn something You barely know how to use off. That way you can be just like the people you’re defending.
I’m going to say it one last time because I’m almost positive that it’s not syncing in. These accessibility specialists are being paid to use accessibility features. They are not typical Apple customer service. They are literally being called accessibility specialist. If I’m calling them for help, they are supposed to know more than me about the use of accessibility features. They aren’t supposed to be using these devices with Samantha at a speech rate of 45%. They aren’t supposed to be surprised that safari still has Safari not responding bug on MacBooks. They aren’t supposed to be surprised that the headings are completely gone from the to date tab of the News application. They aren’t supposed to be surprised that focus gets lost. They aren’t supposed to be surprised that you cannot select text in Podcasts application. They aren’t supposed to be surprised that there is a voice reading sentences aloud twice in iOS 17.4. They aren’t supposed to be surprised that spellcheck doesn’t work in the mail application for voiceover users. They aren’t supposed to be surprised that direct touch typing doesn’t work properly when making a phone call. They aren’t supposed to be surprised that in the TV application, changing seasons for TV show results in both the current season and previous season selected being read. They aren’t supposed to be surprised that the startup sound no longer works when restarting a phone. They aren’t supposed to be surprised that touch sensitivity is semi broken. They arent supposed to be surprised when spacing twice, voiceover no longer announces. Like it’s supposed to. They aren’t supposed to be surprised that when in settings and going into email signatures, voiceover freezes up when trying to type out a personalized signature. They aren’t supposed to be surprised when Using a different voiceover speaking voice, that speech output goes haywire at times. They aren’t supposed to be surprised that when changing the rotor to lines after swiping around a few times, voiceover completely stops talking. They aren’t supposed to be surprised that when using text selection voiceover completely stops responding depending on how long you’ve selected text. They aren’t supposed to be surprised about bugs that have lasted literally years. These are supposed to be accessibility specialists and add some level, they are supposed to know about these issues. They are not supposed to be completely oblivious to the problems that people are going through.
They are getting paid to literally utilize accessibility all day long. That is their job. They’re not there to hang out.
I’m pretty much with Ash here.
I don’t think this is about whether apple took your money or you gave it, thats reductionist and unhelpful. What’s going on here is that smart phones are central infra structure to being alive and if they aren’t usable by blind people then blind people are excluded from uhm well pretty much everything. If Apple employees aren’t using VO enough to understand what the problems are and they aren’t reading the bug reports diligently and seriously enough to fix stuff when its broken which they clearly aren’t because anyone who thinks VO is going well right now and apple are on top of the problems is so far up apples ass that I don’t want to be anywhere near where I might be unfortunate enough to smell their breath. Apple aren’t fixing the bugs. It’s not going well, Mac, iOS, iPad OS, TV OS and on and on. If you aren’t running into serious problems then you’re not using the devices for serious work. If thats the case and you’re getting all you need from your device then I’m genuinely pleased for you but whenever people try and get an equal experience to a sighted person the results are not good. Not good at all. I very much appreciate that Apple do put work into VO but its just not enough. We deserve better as paying customers and we aren’t getting it. Ash’s point is valid. If I rang apple and they said oh hang on, let me just boot up my mac, we all use windows machines here I’d think they were high. I’d wonder what the hell was going on there and you would too. If they aren’t using VO regularly then they won’t understand why it sucks in so so many ways and is letting their customers down and making life incredibly difficult when it just doesn’t have to be if they put the right amount of resources into addressing long standing as well as understandable new bugs. The fact that I can’t edit text on an apple product is frankly laughable. It’s just not a good experience. There are many many more examples I can give but not being able to edit text is so insanely basic that it makes my point more than adequately. How anyone can say with a straight face that apple address bugs is absolutely beyond my comprehension. They don’t. They just don’t and thats the reality. We are close to end of cycle for a iOS version and I’ve still got bugs from over a decade ago. Last cycle I had to update to iOS 17 to fix bugs that hadn’t been fixed the whole of the 16 cycle. Bugs BTW that made my phone almost unusable. VO crashing multiple times a minute but what option do I have other than to try and work with the steaming pile of you know what that I paid full price for. It’s a joke and I don’t find it very funny. I had to come back to this box well I kept getting put back in this box every single time I tired to double tap the send button. 4 or 5 times in a row. It’s not a massive bug but I didn’t have to go far from typing this to find one and thats the point.
@andy lane.
Then switch to android.
Every company has bugs,, that's just how companies work.
If you care enough about this, try to get employed at apple, no one is stopping you.
@ash rein.
I'm sorry but the truth of it is, they're not blind so don't need to do this.
We can't turn off Voiceover and live our lives and you know this, they can and do.
I do think a bit more training might be useful but no, i'd not force them to use a screen reader from 9 to 5, they have things they want to do that don't involve a screen reader,, if apple forced their accessibility people to do that, they'd quit on the spot, I know I would and I'm blind.
If it bothers you so much, and I can see how blind people not working their can, go and work their.
You’re making a lot of assumptions like usual
You’re saying that I should go work at a place. And you’re assuming that I’ve never worked at that place. Perhaps I know a little bit more about what’s going on then others because of very specific experiences.
I don’t care if they’re blind. They can be as sided as anyone. Again, people are missing the point. This isn’t about knowing how to use voiceover. It’s about empathy. You cannot empathize without experiencing something firsthand. At the very least, you cannot empathize without trying to experience something firsthand. They need to be more practiced in the use of a software that the rest of us have to use. Again we have to use voiceover. They don’t get a pass because they get to turn it off. If I’m buying a hamburger, I want the person I’m buying the hamburger from to have eaten that hamburger regularly. When I call freedom scientific for technical support, they are very well-versed jaws users. They are also very well-versed magnification users. They are also very well-versed windows users. They are also very well-versed Microsoft Office users. They are also very well-versed, Google Chrome and Microsoft edge and Firefox users. Apple accessibility specialists have an obligation to be more intelligent about voiceover and other accessibility software than anyone that calls in.
Well...
No matter how much technological advances we have in the world, a blind person is never going to be equal to a sided person. Not really, and that's sadly a fact. Yes, I do wish that bugs would be resolved a bit quicker, but, unfortunately, there's not much we can do about that. The only suggestion here is for you to go and start your own smart phone company and to ensure that you're delivering the kind of service that you want. Don't get me wrong, bugs are annoying, especially when they're serious bugs that prevent you from using your device reliably. I don't want to say, oh, just get over it, because you do have a point, to an extent, but what am I going to do? I have submitted reports for many years, and sometimes, nothing was done about the things I reported, even when I provided a screen recording of the issue. We may be better in some areas, but it's still not a substitute for sight. I only have one device, so beta testing isn't going to work for me. I don't know if it's available internationally, either. That's also something to look into, and, I don't always have reliable Internet. I'm sorry. I don't know what the right answer is, or if there is even a right answer. I want my device to work reliably, but, sometimes, that doesn't always happen. So, it's not that I don't realize that there are bugs, or that they don't annoy me, But if I'm not a satisfied customer, then perhaps it's time for me to find a different supplier, if there is another supplier. When it comes down to it, the blind community can be incredibly harsh when it comes to their own, let alone a sighted person who will never get it, unless they are literally in our shoes.
Well I'm sorry but nothing can be done here.
The only way this practise will change is if you go and work their again if you've already done it, and ask the bosses why they don't do this.
Also, FS *is* a blindness company, I'd be shocked if they didn't know how to use the software, i'm sorry but apple isn't and that's that really, be the change you want to see by working their and if it's irritating well, that's life.
Everyone Needs to Calm Down
Everyone seriously needs to calm down. First off, Andy the bugs you're describing are not normal behavior at all. I'm not having any of this, and most people I know aren't either. What device are you using? Have you ever clean installed? I said this on another post and was shut down, but if Apple can't duplicate the issues people are describing how the hell do you expect them to be fixed? Also, just for the record, blind people definitely work at Apple. There are blind accessibility engineers, blind people working on VoiceOver. We are not the only accessibility market, there are so many other disabilities that need to be taken care of just as much as we do.
Frankly, the amount of bitching and moaning on here and in the wider community is getting extremely tiring. If people are really this unhappy, look at android, and tell me Google is doing a better job. Guess what, they aren't. There were serious issues on the desktop version of YouTube that were not fixed for months, and that's just one example.. This is a tech company, they have so many priorities besides accessibility. I'm not saying accessibility isn't important, it very much is and apple should be doing a better job, but a lot of the issues people seem to be running into are not happening to everyone, and cannot easily be replicated.
Again, I want to stress that Apple could and should be doing better, they should be implementing better bug tracking, especially for things like VoiceOver, where the screen reader is very complex, but I think the general reactionary tone of some people here needs to stop. It's not helpful or productive. Go ahead and call me an Apple fanboy if you want, but the truth is I'm not happy with many of the decisions they have made over the past several years, the latest of which being there disregard for the EU Digital Markets Act. The fact is that most tech companies have problems, Microsoft blatantly violates user privacy constantly, Google with their ads business, I could go on and on. Nothing will change if we keep ranting on a website most people don't know anything about. Everyone needs to take a deep breath, calm down, and figure out a way to systematically report issues that can be duplicated by a majority of users. If we can do that, progress will be made. The engineers working on the stuff want things to be fixed, they're not doing this because they hate us. Do you seriously think they're sitting there going "oh great, another blind person complaining about some bug with VO that I don't care about." News flash, they're not, because if they were, they would be out of a job. Let's all collectively take a second to calm down, and figure out a way to make things better.
A thought...
Could applevis make a bug fill out form thing?
You'd have a bug with typing for example, you'd fill out what you doo, then press enter on send and it would send to the accessibility team.
Then,, I could come along, think, "hmm, let's give this typing bug a go," I find that it's the same, so I report it to apple using the form, the form signiture would make this clear in the body of the email some how.
And this would keep going, yes this could spam apple, but if people aren't silly, this could work out, at least I think so.
Rephrasing
If I can put words in Ash's mouth, I think he's basically saying that the problem here is a lack of internal testing. More blind employees would increase internal testing, and more testing would translate to a higher quality VoiceOver user interface. This is sound reasoning. After all, Apple's employees are predominantly sighted, and the sighted UI doesn't have any bugs.
not so easy to do
I'm a software engineer, I work 25% on mac os w/ voice over and develop with the mac. Fixing things aren't as easy as people would like to see. Sighted folks have their own issues with technologies we all have bugs, when software gets as complex as VoiceOver, or iOS/Mac OS, it can be very hard to nearly impossible to find resolutions to bugs. If you are so upset with Apple go use android, I have a google pixel 7, and I enjoy this phone as well, but it'll never be my primary phone because iOS/Voiceover is far better in my opinion.
Some thoughts
First things first, where did you get the idea that as an accessibility specialist, it is your job to use VoiceOver all day?
As shocking as this seems, accessibility does not mean blind people, and nobody else is important.
As an accessibility specialist, your job is to know something about VoiceOver, Zoom, magnifier, Switch control, voice control, hearing aids, full keyboard access, motion related features, live speech, personal voice, no doubt many other accessibility features I am forgetting because even I, somebody interested in accessibility, don't know every feature available by heart. And then, on top of that, each feature has so many nuances to it. For instance, even if they did use VoiceOver full day as you suggest, what happens if a person does not know braille and somebody contacts them about a braille display problem? Should they be fired because god forbid, they don't know braille? In a big company, such as Apple, something you don't know will be escalated to a different area.
Let's be clear, I understand perfectly your frustrations about the bugs you are facing, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that part. However, using or not using VoiceOver won't improve that situation in any way. It will on the other hand decrease their productivity, because whether we want to admit that or not, using a device with a screen reader is slower compared to using a device without one.
You are focusing on Freedom Scientific. That's all well and good, but this is a company with blind people being their main and only focus group. If FS did not use Jaws, what else would they do? Play games?
But then, don't forget that with these blindness focused companies, you have to pay 1000 dollars on top of your device so that you have access to your screen reader. For taking my money literally specifically for a screen reader, yes, I would hope that its technical support would be excellent. Apple is not taking your money for the screen reader specifically, the screen reader is a part of the device.
When it comes to accessibility support, I have to say that Apple does a lot more compared to other companies. When I email Apple, they usually know exactly what I am talking about and can give me a clear answer. When I email Google's disability support, usually I have to first explain how exactly a screen reader is supposed to be used, what to do in much more detailed steps, basically as if they have very little training. I haven't had that with Apple, but your experience will without a doubt vary. These are just average impressions, I've had excellent experiences with Google as well, but we're talking about the general impression.
Finally, I have to say that this kind of negativity is a major turnoff from AppleVis for me, but this is only a personal opinion. I barely read this forum even though I am more than interested to help other users, but just this constant depression of everything sucks gets extremely tiresome very quickly, and I honestly don't know how can this go on for years with no change. iOS 13 was unusable, then 14, then 15, then 16, and meanwhile people are living lives with their IDevices and performing their daily tasks. Maybe focus on describing your experience, describing the bugs, informing others what are you facing, not ranting about how this completely sucks, changing the entire policy of a company even though you hardly know what goes on in that company, assuming people don't care about you, genuinely, it's not at all useful to read that kind of comments, and the fact the excellent blog posts of the AppleVis team informing us about the upcoming iOS releases are full of such clutter makes it very likely I am going to miss useful bugs I might want to be aware of, or other useful questions. I sometimes wish this site wasn't so leniant about which comments are here to stay and which ones get a warning. I'm here to be informed about people's experiences, not to read how the entire world should change and how Apple supposedly has no blind engineers, meanwhile there are multiple AppleVis podcasts interviewing one of them.
Oh well, I know that absolutely nothing will change and people are people, but I had to get that out of the way.
I completely agree.
Honestly, it can get depressing. The woe is me,, apple is terrible because of reason x posts.
Complaining is fine but if your entire personality is complaining then perhaps it's time you went outside instead of just being online, you might enjoy it.
@paulMartz
Where on earth did you get the idea that the OS's UI doesn't have bugs? What do you think updates are for? They don't only add new features and more security.
Zachary
The bugs that I mentioning are literally a list of bugs that have been reported by various users on this website ad nauseam literally for the past six months at least. I don’t dismiss people going through these issues because I’m fully aware that everybody uses their devices differently. And even if I don’t go through an issue, I have every belief in the person who says that it exists. And lo and behold I’ve actually been able to reproduce most of the bugs and issues that people have discussed and I’ve supported them and I’ve reported, them. Moreover, the things that you’re talking about are more in line with capitalism being a problem than anything else. And ultimately, as I’ve mentioned, it is about building a sense of empathy. These Apple accessibility specialists aren’t actually specialist. They’re just a marketing ploy that Apple uses to say look we are doing all these great things. And then the average consumer is going to think what a great company apple is. I have faith in them. Let me invest my money and their products. I don’t like being used as a marketing tool. Especially when they aren’t committing to. Doing the simplest things to improve the relationship that they fostered with the “blind community. I don’t really even want to use an iPhone. I definitely don’t have any interest in android. I want a third and fourth and fifth option. But unfortunately, capitalism doesn’t work that way and where in a literal monopoly.
Nikola Jovic
I think they’re supposed to be using these products all day long because it’s literally in their name. They are an accessibility specialist. They literally literally literally are supposed to know about everything in terms of accessibility. That is absolutely their job. And if they’re going to be dealing with somebody that uses braille. then guess what, they have to know how to use braille on some level. it doesn’t matter if they’re blind or sided. They chose to be accessibility specialists. Now they have an obligation to specialize in that specific department.
I will not tell anybody what I do for a living. Let’s just say I wear different hats. And I have a primary career. And when I do anything, I invest myself fully in the thing that I’m doing. So if I’m meeting with someone and they ask me do you know about this, my response is usually yes I have quite a bit of experience with that. And if I don’t have experience with that, then my goal becomes to learn about it and utilize it so that the next time I can say by the way, I learned how to utilize that thing you mentioned. my goal is to maintain a meaningful worthwhile connection with others.
The only people that have been negative thus far are the ones who have literally been bullies. So far, I’ve been told to move to android, that my idea is stupid, that I’m being unreasonable, that I should go get a job and change it myself, that I don’t know what I’m talking about, that I am a problem. The only thing that I’ve said about anything is that we are literally paying thousands of dollars to a ccompany who uses us as marketing. They chose to focus on accessibility. And they have not lived up to that.
as I’ve mentioned, all the problems that I listed are what other users on this website have repeatedly brought up as being bugs.
And freedom scientific doesn’t cost thousand dollars. They cost $100 for a yearly license. And fundamentally, they are constantly working on making improvements. And VDA also is constantly working on making improvements. Even talk back for all its flaws has made huge strides and is constantly improving. Voiceover has generally remained very stagnant. Not much has changed over the past 10 years or so. In some ways, it’s actually gotten worse.
Look, I don’t really have a problem with anyone voicing their thoughts. Disagreement is a welcome thing. And I fundamentally standby what I’m saying. My goal is to foster a greater level of empathy and understanding. Apple, as a company is not focusing on improving the lives of people. They are focusing on making money. They dug themselves a bit of a hole when they said that they have a commitment to accessibility. There’s no going back. They pretty much have to live up to that promise. At least for a while. The second they can, they will either start charging us for accessibility or find a way to pawn off that responsibility to a different company. Either way, we are eventually going to be paying for accessibility.
I like that I have devices that are usable, I value voiceover, but I will never ever love a capitalist company or put any trust in them. This is a transaction. They have a product and devices that I can use. I chose to pay them. And they have an obligation to live up to the situation they put themselves in. I didn’t put them there. And you didn’t put them there.
PaulMartz
Thank you. That is correct. Internally, there’s not many people testing the overall accessibility in the same way that we are. And I believe that’s a problem. They can hire more blind and visually impaired people. There are plenty of blind and visually impaired people who are more than qualified And could provide incredibly prolific feedback. However, iOS, as a whole isn’t without its bugs. It’s not the greatest operating system in the world. frankly, it’s overall age is really showing.
BlindWiz
I don’t have a problem that there are bugs. I recognize that there are always gonna be at least some issues to iron out. My problem is that when I’m calling a “specialist, I want them to at least be familiar with the fact that these bugs exist. I don’t even need them to say these bugs are being worked on. I just want them to say yes I am actually familiar with this issue and I know that could be really frustrating because when I experience it, it can make my day harder.
100 dollars annually
Regarding Freedom Scientific, yeah it's 100 dollars, as long as you are the lucky person living in the US/Canada. For us poor people in unimportant parts of the world, nothing changed. If Apple did something like that, there would rightly be a huge uproar about how people are being discriminated and treated unfairly, but our Saint Freedom Scientific does no wrong.
Anyway, for the rest, I see that this is a discussion in which nobody will change your mind. You will unfortunately never be satisfied with that attitude, because no mainstream company will offer you the level of support you expect anytime soon. An accessibility specialist is definitely not supposed to know everything about VoiceOver. They are supposed to offer you accessibility related support, which is, as I said, a huge range of topics, from VoiceOver, all the way to, in some regards, even Siri. They can report your bugs and findings, but if you want to look at it objectively, even if you went in and messaged/called Apple's general support, unrelated to accessibility, there is a good chance you will find a topic or a question they won't be able to answer. In every company, the technical support channel has a designated script that they have to follow. You telling them to start using VoiceOver, do this or do that won't change anything, because they are not the people making the policy and the rules, they are simply doing what they are told to do, and that kind of decision is completely out of their hands and not something they would be able to control.
well, so, what does “accessibility specialists“ mean then
I think the “accessibility specialists“ should have good understanding how voice over works and other accessibility features 's work.
if we spend an hour there and can not find a way to solve the problem.
what they are doing there?
Good understanding
Hello,
yes, accessibility specialists should absolutely have a good understanding of how VoiceOver works. I'm not at all saying that they should be clueless and have no idea. Simply, this thought of, if you don't use VoiceOver all the time while you're at your job, you're not doing your job well is ludicrous to me.
One more time and then that's it.
These people have to learn about *all* of the accessibility features, they're not just going to learn voiceover.
You're not going to get someone saying to you that they understand what you're going through because they don't, they're not going to be voiceover experts. To use a fraze you did, they have many hats.
As for JAWS, as was pointed out, no, if you live in the US you can pay $100 a year but in the UK for example, that doesn't exist at all.
If I'm a bully for telling you to go work at a place you're complaining about then so be it.
The thing is you seam to think that everyone should live up to your standards and that's just not how the world works.
So you have multiple jobs and you put the time in to learn about whatever your people need, that's great! But these accessibility people aren't going to do that and as I've said before, go and work there if you want to make a change because writing to us here isn't going to do a thing about improving that.
Please keep discussions respectful and constructive
I want to take a moment to address the recent heated discussions on this topic. This has been an interesting and insightful conversation, and I don't want to curtail or get in the way of the discussion. However, I want to prevent the discourse from turning overly critical and straying into personal attacks against fellow members.
As a community, we should strive to maintain a respectful and inclusive environment where everyone feels comfortable expressing their views without fear of being personally attacked or denigrated. We may not always agree with one another, but we should respect each other's right to have differing opinions.
I would like to remind everyone of our community's core values of mutual respect, empathy, and open-mindedness. When engaging in discussions, please keep the following in mind:
Remember, our diversity of experiences, expertise, and perspectives is one of our community's greatest strengths.
Thank you for your cooperation and for helping us maintain a positive and welcoming community.
what I mean is:
well,let me make it clearly:
what I mean is:
“accessibility specialists“ should understand what's the apple products's accessibility features.
and how it works
but, if it is about braille display or or the braille funtion keys works.
we should find the braille display company and all that.
and I think the best way to let the accessibility team know that the bugs of issues.
is send them E-mail and explain it...
calling the accessibility hotline is not a good way.
It's not all about you
I would assume the accessibility specialists focus on accessibility beyond VoiceOver - including low vision accessibility, deaf/hard of hearing and motor etc. It's not all about you or about VoiceOver. It's not fair to make these specialists use VoiceOver all the time when they have other things to do on the job.
Why is beta testing such a big bad thing?
Apple realized they wanted the public's help, so they let people in for free. To my knowledge the beta program is global. Only once when developers were paying, do I remember someone saying, don't use beta two, voice over is broken, it will be fixed. They wouldn't have gotten that information had someone not been willing to beta test. If the five percent is true, I'm not denying that figure by the way, how can we improve a product we are unwilling to stick a neck out for? Before people go on about devices expenses, let me just say that if you back up your device, you can simply go back to a stable release. Now, I am ok with shooting myself in the foot, I choose to beta without backing up. Who's on the hook if i lose something? I am and accept full responsibility for this. There absolutely needs to be more internal testers of any disability type not just low vision or blind. If we don't stop being unhelpful and start trying to be part of the solution, the problem isn't going to be fixed to anyone's satisfaction. I',m no apple expert nor do I invalidate issues which I might not have but someone of you may. even if it's just one person, I hope their issue is resolved soon. If you read the release notes of each beta, you'll find they are so deep in bugs, that accessibility gets a passing mention if at all. We can't make them focus on accessibility if we aren't ourselves. Apple needs to go back to the drawing board on the concept of accessibility because it's now a smoke screen. anyone who doesn't realize that, should be lucky. They used to sell braille displays in their online store. When other betas come out for the home Pod or Vision pro, i hope more people will leap and give what's needed consistent feedback.
Nikola's comments perfectly sumb up my opinions on this topic.
Nikola's comments perfectly sum up my opinions on this topic. Thank you for those.
Chamomile
They know less about the other accessibility features than they do about voiceover. Again, they might be trained in the Use of accessibility features on a basic level. However, they are not really using those features in any meaningful way. 10 minutes of use is not enough to understand why these features are actually even important. It does not provide them with any incentive to actually empathize with users of any accessibility feature.
Nikola Jovic
Unfortunately, they are a bit clueless. So when they say I did not know that this bug or feature exists, That pretty much means they are clueless.
I once called in and the quote accessibility specialist remarked that they weren’t aware that a user could change the speaking voice, And they were laughing about it. Most recently, I called in about headings not being available in the main today tab of the News app. Not only were they completely unaware that there are supposed to be headings in the News application, but the representative was not even aware that a user could actually move the position of different rotor options. These are not even well-trained people. Like I said, they’re using these devices for like 10 or 15 minutes just to get a basic handle on accessibility and then they’re just moving on. We are not supposed to know more than they do when we call in. Defending them does nothing to help our challenges.
Maybe we need VoiceOver specialists
the accumulation of bugs in VoiceOver on the Mac means that, if Apple is actually serious about its blind Mac users, a team of people specialized in VoiceOver in general and the Mac in particular would have to work on this full-time. Now, I don't think that accessibility consultants *must* use VoiceOver all day. I do agree, though, that the person giving advice and taking reports on VoiceOver bugs should have used it enough to, potentially, run into the same bugs as the average consumer. That doesn't necessarily mean using VoiceOver all day, every day. It does, however, mean that VoiceOver should be used often enough that bugs like Safari not responding would occur when a qualified Apple consultant can observe them for him/herself. I do beta test, but I need to get better at submitting feedback. I don't think Apple is using accessibility as a marketing ploy, but I do think that like any entity, be it company, corporation or individual, Apple has to prioritize its time, resources and manpower ANd the accessibility teams don't make the final decision as to what gets priority..
Brad
They are supposed to be experts on voiceover. That’s the whole point. They are being labeled as specialists. They are definitely not.
And yes, I do have high standards. I’m paying $1500 for a new phone every year. The Apple Watch cost about close to a thousand. A MacBook is about $3000. AirPods are $250. And they’re pushing the prices up. They’re not my friends. I pay them for their devices and services. Moreover, the second they decided to use my disability as a marketing tool, they made me an obligation. So yes, they need to have accessibility specialists that live up to the title and there needs to be a greater focus on improving the accessibility bugs that are only increasing.
Michael Jordan regularly told his teammates “I’m not playing down to your level. You are going to learn how to play up to my level.” And he was very hated by pretty much all of his teammates. And the Michael Jordan Chicago Bulls became one of the greatest teams in history.
Tayo Very good points
I definitely value your thoughts. The amount of time they’re supposed to be spending on these accessibility features can be debated. 10 minutes every once in a while is not enough though
oh wow...
Ok @ash reign, I'm more on your side now, they didn't even know the basics?
I still don't think they should have to use voiceover every minute of every day but I do agree now that they should have more knolledge or at least have a section of people who are more knolegeable than the wrest.
I think I might need to apologise because yeah, that's ridiculous, they shouldn't be given the title of expert then when they're not even a novice, you're right, we shouldn't know more than them when it comes to the basics.
A question.
Why are you paying for a phone a year, just keep one for about 5 or so and you should be good to go, plus you'd spend a lot less money that way.
Bugs
Some have claimed there will always be bugs. As someone with 30 years experience in the software industry, I would like to clarify this misconception.
If you develop software with clear goals and a solid functional spec, it is easy to produce a bug free product. On the other hand, If software is treated like a blob of malleable butter that you can barnacle new marketing-driven features onto with each release with no clear long-term roadmap, then the underlying integrity of the software, if there ever was any, will oxodize like iron in the rain. Bugs aren't an inherent consequence of software, but they might be an inherent consequence of corporate and engineering process decisions.
Someone asked me where I got the idea that there are no bugs in the UI designed for sighted people. I submit it as given. There are no cases where a sighted user would tap or select a function visually and somehow activate an entirely different item. If this were the case, it would be identified early on and resolved before release. Yet VoiceOver focus is a constant issue in both MacOS and iOS, in which focus is announced for a particular item, users perform an action on that item, then discover the action was performed on some other item. Sighted users never encounter controls that are invisible; but VoiceOver users constantly encounter controls without labels. Sighted users never move there mouse to the left only to see the mouse pointer move to the right. The sighted WIMP UI is basically unchanged for 40 years with trillions of man-hours of testing. I'll repeat what I said before. The sighted UI doesn't have any bugs.
It was me.
I get where you're coming from but bugs can be small things like animations not working correctly, that's happened on windows and I'm sure it's happened on mac too.
What would be the point of updates if it wasn't to fix bugs and add better/newer features?
Also, there's a beta for a reason, sighted people join it too ya no, and do you know what they do? Report bugs.
Unfortunetly they will take priority because they're the biggest group of users, we're just a tiny group of users trying to be heard.
Surely it makes sense?
Guys what is being said here is that if you are in an accessibility team you should use all aspects of the equipment on a regular basis. As stated in this thread how can these guys fix issues if they never come across them? Ye'h bug reports and beta testers help but actual real world testing by apple would make a lot of difference. Are we really saying that if the accessibility team kept coming across the safari issue or any of the other major bugs that time and time again come up on these posts they would just shake their heads and say oh well. Not good but nothing to do with me? I don't think so. Not saying 24x7 usage maybe but enough time sepnt with VO on or other accessibility settings would show them in the real world just how frustrating some of these issues are. Oh and whatever people say these are not cheap devices and we should expect a certain level of support. Lets face it, even apple's standard reply to bug reports/emails never changes. Probably generated automatically. No personal touch at all.
ok yeah I can now see where ash is coming from.
I think the team should be split into accessibility groups, then those groups should spend at least 3 to 5 hours per day with the software, they'd not be using it 24 7 but they'd be getting a better understanding of what we go through.
more than just voiceover
You already hit the nail on the head, the "accessibility team" so it’s not just voiceover that they have to work on. Yeah, we need bugs to be fixed, yeah we want stability, but they don't just work on 1 feature every single day and say oh that's that and then leave the rest. So to work on the other features, you'd turn voiceover off, therefore you're not going to use it full time. We wouldn't run every accessibility feature on an iphone at the same time, how would that work? How would we find issues? To expect people to use voiceover full time is just not realistic. The only way you could achieve that is if you split them, and put certain people into specific places and areas of accessibility at all times.
right.
That's the conclusion I've come to, split them into smaller teams.
Wasn't Going to Reply Here, But...
I'm honestly getting fed up with the constant negativity on this website. I joined AppleVis to get information about the Apple products which I use. I will say that a very good chunk of the posts on here are informational, and it seems that a lot of the time people on here are respectful of others. But when it comes to constantly blaming Apple for this or that, and whining and complaining all the time, I'm out. Apple is a big company, and accessibility is just one of several things which goes on there. What's more, we screen reader users aren't the only accessibility users. It might be true that the company could do a bit more, but if you ask me they're doing a wonderful job. I just upgraded to an iPhone 14, and it is working very well for me. I was honestly a bit caught off guard by the lack of a home button. But I caught on fairly quickly and it doesn't bother me in the least that there is no home button on my new phone. That's all I care to say, because I've honestly got better things to do today like get ready to go out of town for a fundraiser. Cheers and please make it a mellow day.
I agree apple is doing a awesome job
over all Apple does a wonderful job and they do truly care and try to fix issues. If people want things fixed quicker more people need to beta test. If you aren't willing to do that than don't complain.