A more positive spin on things

I am that they are not going to do so. More likely be the AI similar to what they are doing to android.

When I got my new phone just a couple weeks ago, I was pleasantly surprised to see an app simply named Journal. I had read briefly about this app, and now I'm using it to keep track of everything I eat and drink. It's very easy to use, and does exactly what they claim. So now I technically have 3 journals: one on Dreamwidth; one on http://www.thnx4.org ; and now this one. Some parts of the Thanks for Gratitude journalling site are not that accessible with VoiceOver, but I'm planning to eventually try them out with the recognition features of my new phone. Additionally, Apple rolled out their dedicated sports app not too long ago. This one is of course available for free in the App store, so I went and grabbed myself a copy after reading about it right here on the mighty AppleVis. I'm not much for sports, even after attending lots of family members' sporting events. But this app seems to be the answer to that. I have yet to do much with it due to time constraints, but it is a good app. So thank you Apple for these new apps, and all the other work you do to make your products the way they are.

I'm cool with the voice I'm using, Fred, so I'm not really bothered about getting new voices.

Let's just see what they decide to do with AI, if anything, since it seems like they're falling behind more each year.

It kind of feels like Apple is moving one step forward and then taking three steps back right now.

But hey, they're still way ahead of any other company when it comes to accessibility.

I'll have to look up the Glide and the Celeste glasses. I haven't heard about them before.

I agree - there's never been a better time to be blind!
Is the azure audio description for videos generally available now? Last I checked you had to apply for access
Glide seems really exciting! I think one of the last barriers for blind people in general is precision navigation in a completely unfamiliar environment. When we crack the code for that, it's gonna be a huge leap forward.

best
M

Guys I was seriously about to leave this website altogether, god people here are negative!!! Okay, yes, I experienced this a lot, the safari/app doesn't respond was and still is an nnoying bug, but apple did true improvements for the web on sonoma. We shouldn't have had this in the first place, yes. But at least they did try to correct it. I can access gmail standard view now without any major problem. The thing is I totally understand why apple don't take this website as seriously as they could. It's very hard for long time old readers to separate crappy content from the useless stuff, so when it comes to ingeneers... can't even imagine. The thing is, everyone would argue here that ios is much much better and smoother than mac. This is true! Statistically linux has up to no real world stable gui accessibility because so few blinds people actually use it, orca is developed by one person who is now overwelmed with the wayland dramma. I am personally not a great fan of the open source moral slavery for people to code screen reader for free. Because for linux at least, that's exactly what we have. And macos is still the most accessible linux system for blind and visually impaired users, period! Understand this. 5% of beta tester for voiceover? This is nothing! ...
...
Anyway.
For me, I am also very excited for the ai in ios18 and the integration in the wider apple ecosystem. I have an m2pro macbook 14 inch base model, and I am very excited to see how apple will truely start using ANE in all parts of their OSs. I agree, it will be nice if we see some new voices. My ultimate dream is still for acapela group to give us infovox5 that will run on the new macoss because they don't care at all about their voices now. Understandably, it's not their main business focus at all. Nuance bought by microsoft? Will we see our voiceover default voices in windows one day, for free? We can always hope!
I think wearable are also the future for blind users. If with my smart glasses or something similar in 5-10 years (or less we never know) I am able to walk in a totally new environment, look for the door / counter / person and ask for actual directions, this will be a real game changer for us, as big as the iphone era in my opinion.
@Brad big up for this thread again!

I disagree on the Mac being "the most accessible computer for blind people", but let's not get into that argument... I'm curious to know what AI features Apple will implement for VoiceOver users.

It really all depends on where you look at things from, really. I for one, agree on the mac being more accessible. This is do to my own experience using both mac and windows. Windows just feels way more clunky navigation wise, and for work I got a pc and... There are several things which I need to do which... on windows are a complete flop with NVDA and narrator, and where I have to switch to my personal mac or to ios to do stuff. Again, just my personal experience regarding this. I don't mean to say windows is bad... its not, but for me and given my experiences, mac just works way better. For most things.

@Chamomile
I never said macos is the most accessible for visually impaired people, Macos is the most, linux with gui, system accessible with real mainstreams softwares. The state of orca is more and more unstable especially as there's only one developer actually coding it.... wayland+orca(for now)=bad or 0 accessibility for us.
@Igna Triay
I am genuinely interested and be ready to listen with an open mind what tasks you feel doing more comfortably on your Mac?
Like. The only thing now I have 0 experience with is Android and even then I used voice assistant for a couple of weeks on a samsung tablet back in 2016. I only tried mate with ubuntu/debian with orca. Arch is obviously so nice but console accessibility is a totally different category than GUIs... Never used other than nvda, jaws and narrator on windows but for a quick try of windows eyes in 2013.... Like I think I have a much broader accessibility point of view than some and somehow know what works the best where on most popular os for geeks?
Like really not a critique or anything and me being arrogant, I am really interested in reading people who genuinely prefer mac to windows for doing tasks.

Thanks guys for keeping this thread up, maybe we can get it in the trendings! Without spamming, of course.
Like we just need it given the tone here especially under the mac topic..
Want more positivity?
On windows, with nvda (I haven't fully looked for that with jaws yet), when on a word document there's 0 indication from screen reader about whether the document has header and footer pages or whatever we call them and I am pretty sure it's different than footnotes andstuff like that. On pages these are enabled by default with a clear indication from voiceover and we can hide them if needed.
Before in college I've always found weird that sometimes things like quizzes and exams lack a field to write my name on. Well, turns out that sometimes they are in the header! In word unless I manually looked for them in the menus I had no way to be aware of them. Now I am trying to have this reflex every time I open a sent word document as when I open it with Pages all the three feilds are shown. One thing my mac brought to me despite all its weird bugs!
Writing this on my pc because.

I tried a Mac for a year when I lost my vision in 2020 and ultimately switched to Windows in 2021 because Mac was a beyond frustrating experience - it doesn't work well for what I use my computer for. But I don't mind its way of navigating - for example, I can get an understanding of Reaper's layout through Mac's style of navigation. And the headers and footers bit is annoying majority of the time, but it is nice to have it there just in case. I don't deal with them often enough, so can't remember if they show up in JAWS.

I do like the Mail app in MacOS, I don't mind Apple Books either. I just prefer reading Kindle books on my PC with my Braille display.

As for the iPhone - I love the direct touch typing mode of typing, it's so quick.

Off the top of my head, those are the positives I can think of.

Thanks for this thread. It’s great that debates and discussion can happen, however when all said and done we all have our preferences depending on individual use scenarios. My mac is very old so will be looking to get a new one next year, although I use a windows machine for work so have the advantage of using both but for different reasons. I have a similar setup with the phones to as my phone of choice is iOS, however sometimes I use my work device which is Android so I think I’m lucky really to experience them both. Like some have said on this site previously there is always good and not so good about them all.

I am really excited about Glide, although I’m waiting for the price because all depends on that. Oh and if your like me and missing the Castro podcast app, they have a completely new team now it seems due to the app being picked up by another company but retaining the same name as I understand things. It’s worth emailing them on the support email from within the app as they actually have a iOS dev there now.

I emailed a few weeks ago and had a positive response which although indicated that my queries were added to a cue, they appear to be taking it seriously. Take care all.

I don’t believe that any of these big companies are fundamentally out for our best interest. Their goal is to make money. It’s great that there’s so much accessibility. And It exists because there’s money in it. it’s anlso also terrible that competition doesn’t really exist on the Apple side. There is a real need for a third-party screen reader. Voiceover has its benefits and it has its flaws. And unfortunately, Apple is kind of too spread out to focus on improving any one thing. Microsoft Windows has its flaws. But it’s ultimately more usable in many ways. Writing a worthwhile document still isnt the best on the Apple side. At the very least, there’s some choice between what screen reader we use. It’s really important to be aware and cautious in regards to these big companies. Apple is not the greatest. Microsoft is not the greatest. They’re capitalist entities and they will not hesitate to turn their backs on us if there’s profit in it. They do just as much evil has any good. Maybe even a lot more evil than any good.

On the positive side, I think the artificially intelligent audio description could be great. There’s quite a few movies. I’d love to rewatch. Magnolia is definitely one of them. Dallas buyers club is definitely another. There’s no doubt that this is going to be another technology that improves our lives. Even personal videos that friends and family send us are going to be a lot more accessible. YouTube videos are going to get more accessible. It’s also important to recognize that this kind of technology is going to be used for us to be able to interact with the world on a day-to-day basis. We’re gonna do much better going forward. Artificial intelligence as it’s currently known is gonna make a lot of different things suddenly more accessible. Work is going to be more easily achievable. Blind people are going to become much more hireable. It’s exciting

Okay, I never heard anything about glide till this topic...May be my bad. And once I did, I tried to look it up, but no luck. what's the app all about, and where can I get hold of some info about it?

Enjoy~
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haUMbB_HpKY

Sorry if it's off topic. I posted this in the wrong thread thinking I was there :P although the inspiration to write it came from the other one about sb asking for graphs and alternative for blind people you can find.
The innitial apple vision pro will be the start of the real ar/vr/mixed reality.... era.
Then at generation 4-5 of this device when it actually really becomes interesting for blind users, + the democratisation of multiline-multifunction braille/tactile display, we will have traditional desktops on those headsets or whatever form factor they have, as someone said on youtube once I believe that the smart glasses if it ever comes true will be like the future smartphone while the headset format will replace the desktop computer. So, our working device for work/school will be this headset with a 25-30 lines braille display that can show images too. With the removed laptop or keyboard, the table will be only as full as it would have been with laptop before as his hypothetical device will be 13-16 inch and paper length from top to botum... Now, especially for stem student, the impact of such device will be huge as litterally everyone would be able to draw an image or take picture of it, or just a fansy smartboard connection to that device. A local ai/ocr do the text transcription as needed but this will mainly be for when a teacher quickly sketch an image so the blind student can see it on the go. Previously a magnifier like software will do a smart zoom so the most important details are convey to that student.
As for the real future, 10+ years, with all the medical advancement, and I know that this is somehow tabue for some which I find very stupid personally, but let's say it, there's no way that technology and biomedical / neural implants or whatever can't cure visually impairment, or other similarely impacting impairment, at the end of the century unless there's a 3rd world war since then, which, with everything already ongoing now.........
I know this is very off topic but I think applevis is against the will of everyone somehow a similar resource to r/blind? If you understand what I mean. And as stated earlier with all the moaning of people here some fresh ideas are definitely welcome on this site. Let's dream and imagine together guys! We should remember that although voiceover is far from perfect, that's the case with every technology and we must be greatful with what we have in developed / western countries / those who can afford learning and buying those things, because sighted people started this for us when computers were half way out from scientists in labs and consumers, we would be idiots to take these for granted. Food for the thoughts:
https://knowbility.org/blog/2022/accessibility-apis-part1
https://knowbility.org/blog/2023/accessibility-apis-part-2
https://knowbility.org/blog/2023/accessibility-apis-part-3
Tengent end.
Let me know what you think!
PS: I am sincerely sorry, I typed this on the go and have litterally done 0 correction yet.