Regarding Android, I use a Samsung S5 for work. You can do a lot more on Android than some people might figure, but for me the experience on iOS still feels a lot more natural, more consistent. Yes, a large piece of this is owed to my now having been with my iPhone 4S for the past three years, but for me, there is a distinct difference between an approach where accessibility is baked in and a company that is still in the process of ramping up accessibility. Cudos to both companies for paying attention to accessibility at all. I’m entirely in support of competition, but I have to level with y’all, when I get home, it’s my iPhone I heavily lean on for mobile needs.

Keep up the great work!

https://www.marcozehe.de/2015/01/06/apple-are-losing-their-edge-also-in-accessibility-quality/

I would appreciate any info that you may be able to provide in these matters.

Thank you for your time regarding this matter.

Sincerely,
Christine

“Guys”, not “Buys”; excuse the typo. 🙂

I hope everybody is well and happy, and here are a few comments from me regarding Ep. 34:
• Widgets in Notification Center are indeed a very cool thing. I have played around with some countdown timers, I think the one that worked best with VoiceOver is called Countdowns. What I like even more is the App Tap to Share which brings the opportunity to post to Facebook and to tweet back into Notification Center as a widget. Nice one! 🙂
• You talked about the new ‘instant hotspot’. I had major difficulties getting this to work; I followed all the steps that are listed in the iMore tutorial, etc. but nothing worked.
Recently, I went to the network preferences on my 2012 MacBook Air and created a new ‘location’. Before I added WiFi, Bluetooth and iPhone USB again, I checked the connectivity in the status bar, and, wahay, my MacBook was using my iPhone 5S as a hotspot. This might be helpful for others who have problems getting this to work.
• Now that the above recommendations have hopefully got me into the good books, I can make a comment that you will probably not like very much.
You ranted about people’s rants in mailing lists. Yes, I agree, complaining in mailing lists without making Apple aware of the issue won’t get the problem fixed any faster. I organize emails by threads, and it is my own decision whether to read them or not. I cannot make this decision when listening to the TripleClickHome podcast which I have grown to like so much. I listen to every new episode in happy anticipation of interesting apple news; but I don’t have the choice whether or not to listen to yet another OffTopic Braille debate.
Let people rant in mailing lists. We all know the placebo effect: people are good for people. And guys, I don’t buy the “We couldn’t even have that debate 10 years ago.”-argument. Of course, it is nice to have access to mainstream products at the same time and the same price as everyone else, but there is a “but”. Apple don’t make a secret out of their engagement in accessibility either. Tim cook praised Apple not so long ago for it in their shareholders meeting. If a company puts this into their advertisement leaflet, customers can expect things to go right and have the right to complain if they don’t. Apple’s accessibility is not a byproduct, it is part of their portfolio.
We all remember VoiceOver’s Page-2 issue in Text Edit and other word processors last year when Mavericks was released. One member of the TripleClickHome team, who happens to be familiar with beta testing, told me last year that it is indeed a bit pathetic that this bug still existed in the release, for it had been reported to apple from a very early stage of the Mavericks beta. The bug was later fixed but is now back in Yosemite. And you tell people not to rant?
• I and a number of others have repeatedly reported a major VoiceOver bug that was introduced in Pages 5.2, i.e. when highlighting text with CMD+shift+DownArrow and crossing a page break, the text on the previous page is no longer highlighted. A gentleman from AppleCare said to me on the phone about 4 weeks ago: “Oh yes, I see, you have reported this to us in March….and May…and July…”. Pages is claimed to be Apple’s professional answer to MS Word. I, as someone who uses Pages for research and professional work, have the right to rant about such dilettantism. Fixing this is very unlikely rocket science. I have reported this through AppleCare on the phone, so the person could actually hear VoiceOver, I have reported it via e-Mail to Accessibility@Apple.com and also through the feedback form on the Apple website. Nothing has been done.
I am all the more surprised that I have not heard about this bug on tripleClickHome. Am I the only user who copy-pastes text in Pages?
I shouldn’t have to be thankful to Apple for making MacOSX and iOs accessible, and I can expect that something that has repeatedly been brought to their attention is fixed in a timely manner.
• I have also brought to Apple’s attention through various channels that bringing support for RTF documents back into Pages would really be a good idea. You guys might not be aware of this, but many publishing companies for academic work request manuscripts for publications in RTF format, because it is so universal. If you work in a Windows environment in your job and look forward every day to going home to your MacBook, quite frankly, the public don’t really notice this. It is the academics who teach in universities, go to conferences, have their MacBook beside them when speaking to audiences of potential future Apple customers. I have spoken in front of audiences of 60, 80, 100 people and have been asked about my MacBook afterwards. “A blind person with a Mac? How does that work? That’s cool! I never knew this!”
I repeat myself: I should not have to be thankful to Apple for VoiceOver as long as I am an advertisement banner for them. And I can expect to be taken seriously.

Let me finish by coming back to the point that we couldn’t have had this debate 10 years ago. Imagine a law was introduced prohibiting the use of cars on a Saturday. Surely, the average American who walks less than 350 yards per day, would rant about this to other average Americans who also walk less than 350 yards per day. Would somebody say: “Come on guys! Be thankful we can use cars the remaining 6 days of the week! We wouldn’t have been able to have this debate 130 years ago, when there were no car!”

Buys, I love your podcast, have been listening since Ep. 2. I really wish you would focus a bit more on Apple, i.e. the topic of the show. I am an Apple customer and, quite frankly, don’t really care much who still uses Perkins braillers. there would be room for this in a Blind Nostalgia podcast. 😉
And I wish that you cut down on making me feel as if you are above other blind people. You are no better blind people than everyone else. People may rant in mailing lists, but you will have to accept the criticism that you give listeners the impression that you abuse your popularity for your own rants.
Guys, please get back to the roots!

I look forward to Episode 35 and, until then, I say
Goodbye and Greetings. Markus

Regards, Markus

Some of us remember VoiceOver’s Page-2 issue in TextEdit, Bean Text Edit, NisusWriter Pro, which occurred with the first Mavericks release.
this bug was fixed in 10.9.1; and everything was good again.
However, I have heard from someone who is familiar with the beta of 10.10 Yosemite that this old bug is back.
I don’t know about very recent developments and whether this has been fixed. This year, I will certainly wait with the update and keep my ear to the ground on Twitter to see whether this issue still exists in the main release. This might be a good idea, too, for those of you who work with all sorts of documents frequently.

The much bigger issue occurs in Pages 5.2.
When I highlight some text, say on page one of a document and shift+arrow my way down on to page 2, the text on page 1 is then no longer highlighted. When copy-pasting text which crosses a page break, only the text on the last page is copied.
Here is an example: I am in the process of writing up my PhD dissertation. I wrote the first chapters in one file for each chapter. when merging the chapters, I have to cut off the bibliography at the end of each chapter and merge it with the sources from other chapters in one document. Can you imagine what my blood pressure was like when Pages and VoiceOver behave like this? Dear Lord!
I can’t count the emails I have written to Accessibility@Apple.com, I phoned AppleCare three times, I gave feedback on the Apple website several times… Nothing has changed yet. Maybe they will wake up when some more people care.

All the best, Markus

I do NOT like:
• …that the last feature I like does not work with voiceOver. I’ve been on to Accessibility@Apple.com about this. Fingers crossed!
• the handwriting feature crashes so reliably that I have taken it out of the rotor for the time being.
• I also do not like that I have a 50-50 chance that WhatsApp and some other apps kick me out when performing certain actions or VoiceOver gestures. We have to be understanding though! After all, the developers have only been able to play around with the iOS8 beta since June. How can we expect them to prepare their apps for the sudden coming of a new iOS release? #GetMySarcasm

On the bigger screen size: Know what? If I didn’t have an iPhone 5S, I probably would get the 6+. I am fully blind, so the bigger screen would serve only ONE purpose for me, but this one purpose is sufficient to make me want one:
I could type with FleksyVO with two hands in landscape mode! Oh yes!

And on the pranks: I went to a blind school after I had lost my sight 15 years ago. When my year there was over, a friend and I prepared a floppy disk at home with a somewhat altered JAWS for Windows dictionary file and copied it onto all the computers in the classroom during a break. Among other things, JAWS said: “OK” on the ‘Cancel’ button and vice versa, which made the exercise of closing documents a bit more exciting for the other students. 😉

Keep up the good work! I’ll chat to you soon.

Markus

Well, two things ! Buddy yes I know you all mostly talk about things that is blind issues. No everyone don’t want such a big phone blind or other wise! But you was the one who said it was hard to wrap your tiny little mind around the fact your wife now wants a iPhone since it is much bigger and she wanted the 6plus. But you know lot of the blind and visualimpaired is getting this 6plus. In fact the 6plus is selling so much better than the 6 that most people is having to wait till November or later of this year to get one . By the way I totally understand seeing people as I was one for most of my 56 years on this earth. I did not start going blind till about 45 years of age. Now the other thing is I did a podcast and posted a link to it on my drop box site. Well now I have this podcast up at the Blind Geek Zone site. So see the link below to it on the podcast to the KNFB reader. Enjoy!

http://www.blind-geek-zone.net/wp-content/uploads/gravity_forms/3-98839556b66feeea5fbbaaad6c392a4c/2014/09/KNFB-Reader-app-for-IOS-devices1.mp3

Well duh! Of course we’re looking at it from a blindness point of view. We’re a blindness-centric podcast. It’s what we do. Still, there have been those in the mainstream who have also said they don’t want or need a phablet, so it isn’t entirely a blindness issue.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/18184539/Shareing/KNFB%20Reader%20app%20for%20IOS%20devices.mp3

First, I just want to say that every time I listen to this podcast, I usually laugh throughout it until I can feel my stomach afterward. I may just add you to my exercise plan!
I agree with your opinions on the NFB’s resolution plan. Good intent, but wrong wording which may lead to incorrect views of our comunity as a whole. Also, when you guys were talking about Apple releasing VO for iOS being innovative and a real game changer, and that at first there were a lot of people who thought it wouldn’t work or who were scared. I remember a couple of my friends having iPhones before I ever thought about getting one. I watched them interact with their phones, but I was terrified of getting one for myself, because I just didn’t think it would work for me. I remember thinking, “How could something with no buttons possibly be truly accessible to me?”, which I thought was valid at the time. I mean, there were really no other accessible options at that time. I just didn’t understand how it actually worked until I had one in my hands, and was able to experience it for myself. Now, the only way I would ever give up my iPhone is if I couldn’t scrounge up the money to buy one, and /or to pay my bill anymore, since not all carriers have iPhones. Another thing I wanted to say was that I don’t know how I feel about this adoption of the unified braille coad… I have used the U.S. version my whole life, and I’ve never gotten confused by contractions. I do remember reading a braille book some years ago, and shockingly, it had a contraction that I didn’t know. I didn’t ever remember being taught that sign for some reason. It was dot five L. I don’t remember how I figured it out, but when I would read the book, I always just said “The l High Chamberlain”, because that’s how I percieved it, since I didn’t know the contraction was for “lord”. On another note of braille, I remember in elementary school, we used Perkins braillers and raille textbooks and worksheets. However, our teacher, who was VI herself, used a “talking computer”. I could never understand it, because it went so fast. Later on I found out it was JAWS. Why she wasn’t also teaching that to us I don’t know. Then, in higher elementary (fifth and sixth grade), we were introduced to the Braille ‘n Speak, then we just used that with braille textbooks and worksheets. We also used something called the braille and print, but not very often. In high school I used the braille note empower, and liked it a lot, except that I couldn’t access the internet with it unless I used an ethernet cable! The last thing is about using things such as the slate and stylus and the abacus. I remember using the abacus in elementary school, and it was usually pretty easy. I didn’t learn the slate and stylus until I went to the commission for the blind. I didn’t like learning it, but I have used the skill, if not rarely, since I’ve learned it. I still have two different kinds of slates, although I don’t know where one is, and a stylus. Anyway, I know I probably forgot something, but this comment is running long anyway, so I’ll end it now, and go eat something. Looking forward to the next episode! Have a blessed day all.
Jessica

Simply getting an iPad Mini isn’t a good solution either, for a couple of reasons. first, as a low vision user, I use the camera in my phone all the time. The camera in all iPad models isn’t as good, and for some reason, Apple has yet to add a camera flash, making many camera apps on the iPads rather pointless. I use my phone as a portable CCTV all the time and absolutely love it. A little larger screen would be very helpful, and when combined with a more open camera for developers, will make the iPhone even more comperable to dedicated handheld CCTV’s.

Also, I use data everywhere on my phone, and don’t intend to pay for an expanded data plan to have data on my iPad. I’m fine with a Wi-Fi only iPad for now.

These are just my thoughts though. I say, “Bring on the bigger phone.”

Otherwise, I love the podcast, and keep up the great work.