[Electronics-talk] safari on the PC can you?

[Christopher Chaltain]

It's true I'm not on that list, and I didn't see that response. I'd be 
curious to see it though since I'm surprised that's what MS 
Accessibility would say. Obviously, one group in MS cannot tell another 
group what to do and how another group should spend their resources and 
prioritize their issues. Those would have to be business decisions made 
by executives. I would expect an accessibility group in MS to be able to 
educate and inform other teams on accessibility issues and best 
practices on making applications accessible. I would also think they'd 
be able to take such issues to executives to try to get decisions 
related to lack of accessibility changed.

I still would not call this intentional though. It sounds like MS has an 
accessibility group with no teeth, which is probably intentional if 
true, but that's different than intentionally making an application 
inaccessible. I'm sure Apple knows Safari isn't accessible on Windows, 
and they've chosen not to do anything about it for years, which sounds 
to me to be just as intentional as anything MS has done.

IMHO, this is the issue you run into when one company controls the OS, 
the application and the access technology. Making iTunes accessible 
helps Apple sell iPhones, but what's there incentive to make Safari 
accessible on Windows? I guess MS would stand to gain some revenue from 
selling MS Office licenses to blind people using a Apple device, but how 
much money would they stand to gain by doing this versus how much it 
would cost? If a blind person needs to use MS Office, say for the 
government or their job, they could always use Windows which probably 
results in more revenue to MS than does the MS Office licenses they'd 
get from blind users on Apple devices.

Methinks this isn't on topic for this list though.

On 04/14/2013 11:38 PM, Jude DaShiell wrote:
> You don't read the blind-l list where one of the other members wrote the
> head of Microsoft's accessibility division and asked if the
> accessibility division could do some work and get microsoft office
> accessible on the mac.  The response from Microsoft's Accessibility
> Division was that it wasn't allowed to tell other divisions how to write
> code.  That response happened due to over-arching Microsoft corporate
> policy.  That is why I wrote this was intentional on Microsoft's part.
>
> On Sun, 14 Apr 2013, Christopher Chaltain wrote:
>
>> Well, I don't think Microsoft is being hurt much by Safari not being
>> accessible on Windows, so I'm not sure why Apple would retaliate against MS
>> that way. The only people who suffer would be the blind, which is exactly why
>> Safari should be accessible on Windows regardless of what MS applications are
>> or are not accessible on Apple platforms. By your reasoning, iTunes shouldn't
>> be accessible either. For that matter, since Windows Phone isn't accessible,
>> the iPhone should also be inaccessible.
>>
>> Why do you say MS Office is intentionally not accessible on Apple platforms?
>> Are you saying that MS specifically coded MS Office to be inaccessible on
>> Apple platforms and spent engineering dollars to build inaccessibility into MS
>> Office? I would doubt that's the case myself. I think it's much more likely
>> that MS just didn't make accessibility a high priority for the Apple ports of
>> their office suite, just as Apple probably doesn't consider Safari
>> accessibility on Windows to be a priority.
>>
>> On 04/14/2013 11:07 PM, Jude DaShiell wrote:
>>> Yes you can put safari on a pc, and no you can't buy anything from the
>>> itunes store with it once you've done that.  Reason is, safari on
>>> windows is inaccessible.  I think it may be a reciprocity policy on
>>> Apple's part and if so, well deserved.  Microsoft office isn't
>>> accessible for VoiceOver users on the mac because of the way Microsoft
>>> wrote it.  So why should Safari be accessible on Windows?  This may not
>>> have been intentional on Apple's part but it most certainly is
>>> intentional on the part of Microsoft.
>>>
>>> On Fri, 12 Apr 2013, Mike wrote:
>>>
>>>>                   Can you put safari on a pc & if yes can you surf the
>>>> itunes
>>>> store & buy apps?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks
>>>>
>>>> Mike
>>>>
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>>>
>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> jude <jdashiel at shellworld.net>
>>> Microsoft, windows is accessible. why do blind people need screen readers?
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> jude <jdashiel at shellworld.net>
> Microsoft, windows is accessible. why do blind people need screen readers?
>
>
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-- 
Christopher (CJ)
chaltain at Gmail