[nfbcs] FW: compiling iPhone apps to Android apps

[Steve Jacobson]

Joe and all,

Here are a couple of philosophical questions for you.  I've been in this field for a long time, forty years or so, 
mostly working for a large corporation.  As a blind person, I've also worked a lot outside of work trying to deal 
some with accessibility issues.  Like any programmer, I have at times been frustrated when I had to follow a 
particular coding standard that seemed to more or less get in the way, so I do understand that side of this 
discussion.

Two of you have expressed the sentiment that you don't want to develop for Apple because they are a closed system.  
I can understand that to a degree because a good deal of Apple's tendency to be closed seems to be designed to let 
them have a piece of every software sale.  Therefore, nothing I say here is meant to imply that Apples closed 
system is the way to go, rather I am interested in a more general discussion.

Very often, problems we have with accessibility arise because software is developed to have its own look to give it 
an edge in the marketplace.  Sometimes choices are made to achieve greater efficiency, but sometimes choices are 
designed to just provide a different look to set software apart.  

I remember sitting with a couple of developers from a major company a few years ago at one of our NFBCS meetings.  
At one point in the discussion, one of the developers said that he never realized that decisions he made as a 
developer might cost people jobs.  This guy was willing to learn and that was to his credit, but somehow he had 
gotten a long way in his field thinking of software development more as a game rather than something that could 
impact lives.  

An architect can no longer design a building just for looks, and to some degree they never could, although there 
were cases in the past where appearance anc cost did outweigh safety.  So one specific question I have is how do we 
really get software developers to think about accessibility, but more generally, how do consumers really benefit by 
development that really has few standards to follow?  Again, I am not trying to say that People should develop for 
Apple instead of Android, because that isn't really my point, but how do we balance the artistic licens of 
developers with the fact that we are paying for a product to do a job in most cases now, not just to entertain us?  
At what point do we say that something like Android is so pervasive that there is a responsibility to maintain some 
level of quality?

Now here is yet another aspect that needs to be discussed which sort of represents the other side of the coine.  
Let's say we agree that there should be some general requirement, particularly for accessibility.  How to we insure 
that the tools we use to access software evolve rather than expecting developers to conform to accessibility 
standards that may be limited by slow screen reader development?  Can we really expect that the ability of our 
screen readers to convey information will slow down general software development?  I don't think that is realistic 
either.  However, I don't think screen reader developers have the income and the time to think about how 
accessibility might be made easier for developers.  Screen readers are too busy just trying to keep up.  

Best regards,

Steve Jacobson

On Wed, 25 Mar 2015 22:43:21 -0600, Joseph C. Lininger via nfbcs wrote:

>I'm not sure I agree with you about the high-end phone statement. I 
>think Samsung has some Android products that can (and do) compete at 
>that level. As for Windows phones, Microsoft is currently in the process 
>of shooting themselves in the foot where the mobile market is concerned. 
>Or perhaps I should say, they already did shoot themselves in the foot. 
>Whether they can recover from the mistakes remains to be seen.

>I fully agree about the closed platform stuff; it's the main reason I 
>don't own an apple product actually. That and their "you don't need to 
>know how this works" mentality. I don't like being treated like a 
>technical ignoramus. Development is a real hastle too; you can't just 
>decide to whip up an app to do something, install it, and go.
>Joe