[nfbcs] FW: compiling iPhone apps to Android apps

[Steve Jacobson]

Joseph,

To some degree I am disappointed in the direction this discussion has gone, but I, for one, am also very interested in understanding the strengths and weaknesses of both phones.  I've owned an iPhone now for 
almost two years, and I'll have to consider what to do when I can next upgrade which will be soon.  The learning curve has been steep enough for me that I don't know that I want to throw it away, but as 
someone who has been into computers, I like the idea of just managing the data on my phone as a drive or being able to access an SD card.  While I see some advantages to more closed systems and don't 
have strong objections to them, iTunes has never felt natural to me.  Before I had an iPhone, I had a Windows Mobile 6 phone with CodeFactory's MobilSpeak.  It allowed me some of the same access that you 
mention in terms of files.  What I've really liked about the iPhone compared to my previous experience is the stability.  It just seems to work.  There are occasional glitches, but nothing substantial.  I've heard a 
few stories of people working with Android tablets indicating that may not have always been true, but would you comment on that?

One reason I said I was a little disappointed in the direction this went is that we really need to understand development better, particularly in terms of accessibility.  Having been involved with accessibility for a 
long time, I see us fighting the same battles over and over again.  Solutions seem to come faster now, but I am concerned about our long-term accessibility.  We pushed for years to get blackberry phones to be 
accessible, and about the time we got somewhere the bottom dropped out of their market.  A lot of work was done with Windows Mobile, and by the time I got rid of my Windows Mobile phone it was not too bad. 
However, Windows Mobil 7 had virtually no accessibility built into it, and I'm not honestly certain where we are right now with Microsoft.    While Apple is viewed pretty favorably now, it took years before anything 
significant was done.  All in all, though, I think I can say with some degree of accuracy that once they built accessibility in, it probably was the most stable approach we saw.  Android came along, but even if 
accessibility is good now, it had to play some degree of catch-up.  It seemed as though it was an after-thought in many ways.  Given all this, I don't have a great degree of confidence that we won't see another 
operating system come along and the bottom drop out of one of the existing ones and find we have to start all over again.  For one thing, we have to figure out how accessibility could be easier to implement, and 
I don't know the answer to that.  We also need to understand the difference between accessibility and usability.  Some say that if something is not usable it is not accessible, but I don't think that is always true.  
Sometimes, our tools could bridge the gap if they would.  

In general, we probab ly have a better chance to gain accessibility where systems are closed.  We also can be completely locked out of closed systems as was more or less the case with Blackberries for a long 
time.  Open systems present more challenges.  As a developer who has stated you prefer more open systems, do you have thoughts on how we get accessibility more into the core of such systems sooner?  
What degree of governing or guidelines would be acceptable to developers without restricting their need to have flexibility?  Thanks for any thoughts.

Best regards,

Steve Jacobson
>-----Original Message-----
>From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Joseph C.
>Lininger via nfbcs
>Sent: Friday, March 27, 2015 3:10 PM
>To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List
>Subject: Re: [nfbcs] FW: compiling iPhone apps to Android apps

>I've been hearing a lot of talk about how great Apple's accessibility 
>is, how that in Android is lacking, etc. However, as of today I'm just 
>not seeing it. I'm not necessarily saying you're wrong, as I don't have 
>an Apple device. That being said, I've watched people using them and I'm 
>not seeing a lot of difference in their capabilities using an iphone and 
>mine using a Galaxy S4. A couple of years ago, I would have said there 
>was a major difference. I won a Galaxy S3 tablet in a raffle, and it 
>just didn't work that well as far as accessibility goes. However, my 
>Galaxy S4 phone has a newer version of Android and is much more capable 
>as far as accessibility goes. I can even install things from Google Play 
>and they usually work. In fact, there has been exactly 1, count it, 1 
>app that I just flat could not use. It was one that came with the 
>device. I would be interested in hearing about what abilities the iphone 
>has accessibility-wise that I don't have with my Galaxy S4.

>What I have seen, and what made me make the original choice of Android 
>over Apple is that the Android offers me some choices that are simply 
>not available with the iphone. I can use an SD card to exchange data 
>between my machines if I want to; I'm not required to pass data over a 
>network or sharing service. I can synchronize my address book, calendar, 
>and task list wiht that in Thunderbird by installing a program on my 
>computer and an app on my phone. I can connect my phone to my computer 
>and have it appear as a drive so I can transfer files if I want to do 
>that. No itunes or other software required to make that work. (Apple 
>might have that ability too; unsure) I can write software and load it on 
>the device over USB without publishing it to Google Play.

>In the interest of complete honesty, I will admit that I am not overly 
>fond of how the dialer works. It's not the easiest thing in the world to 
>get it to cooperate and work the way I'd like, although I'm not sure how 
>much of that is an access issue and how much of it is just that I don't 
>like the way it operates. I think it's a bit of both, actually. From 
>what I saw, the one in the iphone works more the way I would like. I 
>wouldn't make a purchase dicision based on that, but I do acknowledge it.
>Joe

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