Connecting to Higher Level Apple Accessibility Person

Hi. I suggest you call or write to Apple support or Apple accessibility (or whatever they are named these days) and simply ask to speak with whomever your comments and questions should be addressed. A telephone call will take much less time than writing. Ask the person who you are speaking with to forward your call to their supervisor if they don't know who the person is that you need to speak with. Be polite. They are usually very happy to help. Be sure to have your comments and questions organized and ready to share before you make the telephone call.

Good luck!

Bruce

Good luck trying to get anyone at Apple to take you seriously. I swear, it's more of a cult than a company. Apparently you're only allowed to talk to someone if you're deemed worthy to do so. Even if you contact her on LinkedIn, there's no guarantee she would respond to you. The public accessibility address is a joke as far as I'm concerned. All they do is spout canned responses.

Honey catches more flies than vinegar; squeaky wheels catch more flies than honey. smile

hi,
it's not so easy to get to higher person on the accessibility departement. i don't know why they are so strange about it.
let me tell you a story.
we're in israel have a problems with Hebrew in VoiceOver almost 4 years. any update, something is deffecting the user expirence.
i'm trying to get to someone higher then a simple rep. but no luck over 3 years.
they're just forwarding and forwarding the cases but 99% nothing is actually happening.

It's very simple. Do nothing, and they will do whatever they feel like doing, which will probably be less than otherwise because no one is telling them how important it is to do what you are wanting them to do.

On the other hand, you can motivate and organize the blind people you know into regularly contacting them to tell them how important it is to do what you are asking. If you do get the blind regularly contacting Apple, Apple will still do whatever they feel like doing, but it is significantly more likely they will do what you are asking, and it is significantly more likely they will do it sooner.

As I see it, these are our choices. I don't see any other choices. Do you?

In my life I have been fortunate enough to succeed at motivating and organizing the blind and friends of the blind into a successful lobbying force. I know from personal experience it can be done, and I know from experience that it works. What it requires is someone like you to start motivating and organizing the people who care, people like you and those who care about you.

There is a miscommunication between accessibility and main services, such as bugs. Reporting an accessibility bug and having it fix takes forever or sometimes is not address.

I can say the same thing with all other company that we can't really contact them to give them our 2 zens! if they make it so easy then everyone wants to contact them then they don't have time to do anything else but talk to us which that's not what they are there for. why do you think you are more special than the rest of us who want to get a hold of them too? why do you make it feel like you have to be the one! but anyway, hope your perseverance will get you the help you needed.

I doubt a company with as many employees as Apple would be terribly bogged down by consumer input. Quite the contrary. Apple actively seeks consumer input. But you do have a good point: all companies are the same. They respond to supply and demand. They control the supply; we control the demand. All companies pay attention to their consumers. Not easy to pay attention to consumers who aren't saying anything, though.

When I went blind, I hitchhiked alone for two years around the US, Europe and elsewhere. When I came home, I went through college in 3 years and then went to law school. While in law school, and while holding down one to two jobs, I did my political organizing of people who were blind an d who wanted to help. We got 2 bills passed into law, both of which were very badly needed to enable handicapped children.

I learned from experience that if we believe we can't do something, we won't do it, but if we believe we can, we just might succeed.

Climbing the information ladder inside Apple is a good example. Do your research, starting with the head of Apple's accessibility department. Add the search term "Apple directory" in your search. This is only one example of what you can do to find the contact information you are looking for.

There's also the head of Apple Marketing, or the head of software development, or researching who heads the team to program languages for VoiceOver and/or SIRI, etc. Be creative. Believe in your own success. Don't quit. Don't complain. Act.

I think you can send an e-mail to
accessibility@apple.com
and see how they reply!

So I am Canadian, speaking only English. there are so many English voices. French is similar in that respect. I think Apple needs to consider supporting other languages, such as Bulgarian, and open up voices so all languages have good quality voices. There was a man a while back in iOS releases, who advigated for a Hebrew voice, as he was from Israel. He wrote an open letter and posted it on AppleVis. He wrote from the heart, and eventually Apple came on here, read it, and put the vocalizer voice in question, into iOS. So I would write a letter , and write it in such a way, where emotion comes across. Apple might read it, and do what you are asking.