Being that I am still so new with the Mac that if I went to
www.thesoapkitchen.co.uk
and it wouldn't work well, I would assume it is me, not Safari. So, I went to
it with this pc, using jaws, and it seemed to work well enough, of course, I
didn't try to order anything. I then went to it on my iPhone, with the same
results. I think that if I had wanted to order anything, I would have had no
problem. So, is Safari in the iPhone often better than Safari on the Mac? If
so, that is discouraging.
Arnold Schmidt
----- Original Message -----
From: Devin Prater
To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com
Sent: Monday, July 04, 2016 8:17 AM
Subject: Re: Disappointed with Voiceover
Well, all three operating systems have problems. Windows and Linux aren’t
much better, just with Windows you get used to poor performance, and with Linux
you have to do everything yourself.
Sent from my Mac.
Devin Prater
d.pra...@me.com
On Jul 4, 2016, at 7:13 AM, Martin Brown <mbrown.bro...@gmail.com> wrote:
My first encounter with Voiceover was back in the Snow Leopard days, and boy
was I impressed with the level of commitment by Apple to its screen reader.
It was back then I was enthusiastic about learning as much as I could about
this very different way of accessing a computer. It was quite a struggle
having come from the Windows environment, but I persevered and most of what
I know about interacting with my Mac goes back to those days. Sadly, I feel
it has been down hill as far as building upon what made Voiceover a great
solution to help a blind person do what needs to be done to get the most and
the best out of their Mac.
In the past few years I only drop in occasionally to see if things are
getting better with what used to be a great product only to find that things
are no better, and sometimes even worse. We are now some nine months into
the release of El Capitan, and still there are bugs that should have been
sorted before the software was even out the door. I am not one of those
people who expect everything to always work perfectly from day one. Nor do I
expect that sometimes one has to think outside the box when working with
energised silicone chips, but when doing basic tasks such as deleting a web
site from favourites, the task should be simple and take seconds to perform.
Oh boy, not on this Mac.
And then there's Safari. When it works it's good, but when it doesn't it
would drive a Zen master towards the Prozac shelf. On some sites its fine,
on others it's rickety, while on others it quite simply refuses to work. An
example of the latter is the Soap Kitchen, a company based in the United
Kingdom. It was so bad I was on the verge of pressing the off switch to get
out of the mess. The big problem with the Mac is, if Voiceover is playing up
then you're basically stuffed. On a Windows machine, what one screen reader
doesn't do another might. I know there are very dedicated and able users of
Voiceover on this list who may take offence to an interloper such as myself
for daring to criticise Apple for its efforts. However, I feel if El Capitan
is the best a multibillion company can do for its disabled customers, then
give me Windows any day where I have to pay for a more reliable screen
reader. Free is not always best, and Voiceover is testimony to that.
In the near future, it is rumoured, that Microsoft will provide a screen
reader worthy of that label. I am not holding my breath for that to become a
reality. However, let's assume that Microsoft finally gets a moral
conscience and does what it should have done years ago and enables people
who are blind to access their product out of the box. If it is as bug-ridden
as Voiceover is, then I will still be happy to pay for a better experience.
Despite my best efforts with the Mac, my productivity suffers badly using
Voiceover.
However, all is not lost. After all we will soon be getting a new and
supposedly better operating system from the Gods at Apple. Perhaps I will
give it a go after a nine month period in the hope that Apple has once more
taken its commitment to accessibility back on to a more serious footing. As
with Microsoft, however, I shall not be holding my breath. I have been
reliably informed that asphyxia is not a pleasant way to pop one's clogs.
On a final note, I know and accept that screen readers such as JAWS and
Window-Eyes are not perfect. But I find both way more reliable than
Voiceover. Using either with Internet Explorer, the vast majority of sites
are very manageable. What I want to do with my computer, be it Windows or
Mac, is to just get the job done in as short a time as possible. The last
thing I want to spend my time on is trying to figure out how to get around a
bug that someone with a degree in computer science has created in the first
place. I can't help but wonder how much better accessibility would be today
had the genius that was Steve Jobs still been around to guide a company that
seems to have lost its way.
Martin
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