[Blindtlk] Extremely frustrated with a well known company

[Christopher-Mark Gilland]

Hello to all list members.

Today, I experienced an all too familiar situation that I'd really like you 
all's input regarding, as frankly, I'm not sure the best way to deal with 
people like this.

Before I even start explaining, let me open by saying that I totally get 
that it is not an obligation for this company to do as I say, nor even to 
listen to me in the first place. I totally respect and understand that.

The situation is, I bought a Yamaha surround sound system about 2 weeks ago 
from Best Buy. I'm not sure how familiar, if at all, you all are with Yamaha 
A-V products, but one of the nice things about this unit is that there is an 
app which you can install both on I O S as well as on Android which will 
allow you to control certain aspects of the receiver. For example, you can 
control your input sources, you can control the volume, the DSP preset, you 
can tune the A M, and F M tuner, etc.

I downloaded this app both on my IPhone/IPad as well as on my Android 
Samsung Galaxy S5 active phone, which is an Android device, for those who 
don't know. On Android 4.42 KitKat using Talkback, I found that pretty much 
all the buttons were completely unlabeled. OK, once I double tapped on them, 
it was pretty obvious what they did, and I was able to therefore use the app 
fairly easily. There are some parts that simply are so badly mislabeled or 
totally unlabeled that I have no clue what I'm doing, but for the most part, 
it's not bad. So, there definitely are some accessibility issues here which 
need to be reported.

On the side of I O S 8.2 with Voiceover, the app actually works beautifully! 
as far as things being labeled. OK, admittedly the buttons are somewhat 
weirdly labeled. For example: DBN P L Y button. However, I can easily enough 
tell based on p l y, that this would be the play button for when using 
things like a USB flash drive with mp3 files etc. You may see something like 
DBB upvol button. That's kind of sloppily labeled, but! the bottom line is, 
it's pretty obvious that that would be your volume up button. My point is, 
the buttons are labeled at least well enough you definitely can very doably 
get by. Now, however, here's the problem.

Let's say that I want to switch from the HDMI 1 input source to oh... I 
dono, what the heck: the auxiliary input. I can go to the input tab across 
the bottom of the screen with Voiceover, and can double tap it. That works 
fine. Then, all my icons pop up on the screen for all the different 
sources... HDMI 1 through 6, A V 1 through 6, Auxiliary, etc. The issue is, 
Voiceover announces all of them as being dimmed. If you try double tapping 
them, nothing at all happens. Split tapping doesn't work either.

Here's what is even more concernning. I had my mother with Voiceover not 
running try switching inputs, and it doesn't work even with Voiceover turned 
off. Therefore, I'm not totally even convinced that this is an accessibility 
issue as much as a bug in general with the app.

So, here is my reason for writing you all. I called Yamaha and spoke to a 
guyy... no, not a foreigner... LOL! and explained the problem. First off, 
the guy puts me on hold for literally about 30 minutes. Right as I was about 
to hang up, he came back on the line, and says: hmm, well, it works for me 
when I do it at home. I'm like, oh! It works for you with Voiceover at home? 
He then asks me what Voiceover is. So, here I go for the second time trying 
to explain to this chap what Voiceover is/does. The guy puts me on hold, 
again for about 5 minutes, comes back and says we just tried it, and it 
works with Voiceover. I then asked him then to show me what they were doing, 
so that I could see where I was going wrong. The guy kind a sits there at 
this point dittle dallying around not making much use for anything. He 
basically just keeps insisting it works, it works. I assure you, it works. I 
asked him, ok, let me ask you something. What version are you running of I O 
S? He says I don't know, it's the latest version though. I asked him please 
to look on his test phone he had there and tell me. He insisted it's the 
newest release. I told him, sir? I under? stand that. But I? want to know, 
what? version, are you, running. Go? look! Please? Is this really that hard 
for you to do? I told him, I'll betcha, you're not running I O S 8. You're 
probably on 7. He's like, no, I'd be on 8. I have the newest. Finally after 
about the fifth attempt to ask him to look, and threatenning to take this 
case to his supervisor if he didn't cooperate, he finally looked. He got 
really quiet, and was just like: o... you're exactly right. It's I O S 7, 
not 8. I then told him, ok, then you! need to get someone on the floor who 
either owns an IPhone/IPod/IPad with! I O S 8.2 to test this. Either that, 
or grab a lab testphone and try it with I O S 8.2. We can't file this as a 
bug, until you all can replicate the problem with the exact same setup. So, 
he puts me on hold for about 10 minutes, which of corse by now, I'm about 
ready to scream! He then comes back and says, I have a guy standing right 
here beside me. He's trying it and says it works just fine. I then said, ok, 
then, pass your headset over to him. let me talk directly to him. I want to 
have him directly do it, and not only let me hear it work on his end, but 
have him show me step by step what he's doing, as I might be doing something 
wrong. The guy is like, ok, one moment. Puts me on hold, comes back about 2 
minutes later, and says, he actually is taking another call. I'm like, ok, 
excuse me? he's gonna neglect his current customer to go deal with another 
one? What the blue flying heck! That's real professional! Not? He then comes 
back and interupts me mid sentence saying: oh, he says it doesn't work. I'm 
like, huhhohoal, holdit! right there, buddy! You just told me, not even 3 
minutes ago, that he insisted over and over and over it worked. Get this guy 
on the line, right now! I told the rep, I wasn't gonna ask him again. 
Finally, he's like, I'll get him, once he gets off the other line, I 
promise. I said ok, and proceeded to ask him another question about the 
receiver totally unrelated while I was waiting. The guy rudely interupts me, 
and says, I don't mean to be rude, but we only can work with customers for a 
short time period. I gotta go, and he's available, please hold for the 
transfer... Click? No goodbye, no thanks for calling, nothing! Just I gotta 
go, here he is, click! I'm not gonna repeat the word that came out my mouth 
at that point, or David Andrews would kill me, but we'll just say I screamed 
the FBomb out of frustration... and you hopefully know what I mean by that. 
LOL! Finally, the guy picks up. I explained who I was, who I was transferred 
by, and summarized I was the guy asking for him to test the app with 
Voiceover. Firstly, the guy was like, huh? Wut? This is new to me. I don't 
know anything about what you're talking about. I wasn't testing anything. 
What's Voiceover anyway? I was like, you've got! to be kidding me! So I 
explained all over again. The guy is like, I haven't tested this, but let me 
put you on hold, and I will. So on hold I go again! He comes back and says I 
can't get it to work. More so, when I turned on Voiceover, now, nothing 
works! I can't tap on anything on the screen. If I do, it tells me what I 
tapped but nothing activates. I tried to explain to him why that was, and 
that you have to double tap. He just couldn't get this concept. Finally his 
conclusion was, this isn't gonna work with Voiceover, as Voiceover is a 
novelty, and really is honestly Mr. Gilland, a piece of crap! I think Apple 
probably put it there mainly as a joke. NO one really uses it. That's 
literally what he said. Everyone using an IPhone uses it out of the box, no 
Voiceover. Very very few people probably even know about Voiceover, let 
alone use it. When I told him, that isn't the case at all, and if he didn't 
believe me, go look at

http://www.applevis.com

He refused... Oh, we can't do that. That site may have a virus. I asked him 
to try with Voiceover not turned on. He told me to hold the line. After 
about 5 minutes, he came back and said sorry for the holdup. I had to reset 
the phone to factory settings to turn off Voiceover as nothing was working. 
I told him, Sir! I would have helped you turn it off. What part of double 
tap the screen don't you understand! This isn't rocket science. He's like, 
Voiceover is a new concept to all of us. We don't understand it. I'm like, 
that's boldly obvious! Resetting was overkill! Anyway, he reinstalled the 
app, and then tried. He then said, ok, with Voiceover not running, it works. 
The screen looks totally totally different with Voiceover not running. I 
told him that is impossible. Voiceover doesn't redraw the screen model. It 
simply grabs the visual screen model with different A P I hooks and such. 
That obviously went right over his head, and fell on deaf's ears. I asked 
him what device he was using. He said an IPhone 6 Plus. I'm like, ok, I'm on 
a 5S, but that shouldn't matter. I asked him if he was on I O S 8. Again, he 
said, I have a 6 Plus, so yes. It's the latest and greatest. I asked him to 
look. He refused. He kept saying, it's I O S 8, I swear! I never was able to 
get him to look. Finally, I had him turn Voiceover on one last final time. 
This time, I had him put the phone up to his headset so I could hear it 
first hand. He this time, shut up, and let me guide him step by step. He 
didn't want to, but he did. Finally, when I shoed him that you couldn't 
double tap any of the icons, as Voiceover says they are all dimmed, he's 
like, oh! Crap! You're right! God dang! I wanted to strangle the guy! 
Obviously, not literally! I'm figuratively speaking. He's then like, well, 
I'll pass this up to my superior, but now, I must go. It's been nice talking 
to ya! Then he dropped the line.

So, Jesus Christ! Pardon my french there, but what the heck do I do next! 
This is ridiculous! I mean, the guy blaintantly acted like because I was 
blind, I was stupid!

Chris.