[nfbcs] The Mac Beckens

Mon Jan 18 03:34:21 UTC 2016

Microsoft is probably responding to the requirements of the 21VACC. 
Mobile devices have to have a screen reader. They probably figure it's 
too riskiy to count on either nvda or one of the 3rd party screen 
readers for that. After all, there was a 3rd party screen reader for Mac 
OS. But it went out of business. At that point, schools and colleges had 
to stop bying Macs. Apple couldn't let that continue so they developed 
Voiceover.

On 01/17/2016 07:26 PM, Ronald Smith via nfbcs wrote:
> Well, I thought I just recently read an article that the American 
> Council of the Blind is now working with Microsoft to turn Narrator 
> into a full fledge screen reader?
>
> I guess they now want to compete with Apple with their free VoiceOver.
>
> If so, now we won't have to be bitten by the shark for a thousand 
> dollars for their screen reader in addition to buying a computer...
>
> ronsmith131 at gmail.com
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gregory Kearney via nfbcs" 
> <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
> To: "NFB in Computer Science Mailing List" <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: "Gregory Kearney" <gkearney at gmail.com>
> Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2016 3:12 PM
> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] The Mac Beckens
>
>
>> Everyone;
>>
>> I would like to address this matter from a wider perspective. I will 
>> not engage here in a Mac vs. Windows debate which is a bit like 
>> arguing about whose religion is better than whose. Rather I would 
>> like to look at some history and long term trends.
>>
>> When Microsoft first envisioned Narrator, which was long before 
>> Apple's VoiceOver. It was promoted as a built in full scale screen 
>> reader. Microsoft at that time went to the NFB and presented the idea 
>> to various parties. What they were told was that a built in screen 
>> reader would limit consumer choice as having a screen reader as part 
>> of the OS would, in effect, wipe out the market for third party 
>> screen readers such as JAWS or WindowEyes. This is very likely true 
>> as later events would show.
>>
>> Fundamentally there are two approaches to screen readers. The first 
>> is like JAWS where the screen reader is adapted the programs which 
>> are run. The other approach, followed in the Windows environment by 
>> NVDA is to build a screen reader that follows all the accessibility 
>> standard of the OS and then expect the applications to be modified to 
>> meet those standards. This by the way is the approach that VoiceOver 
>> employs as well.
>>
>> The problem for screen reader companies going forward is that the 
>> computing market is undergoing a major change in the coming decades 
>> as we move away from computers to mobile devices. The two major 
>> vendors of which are Apple with it iOS platform and Google with the 
>> Android platform. In both these cases the screen reader is part of 
>> the OS. No one builds a third party screen reader for tablets and the 
>> ones that at one time existed for mobile phones are no longer offered 
>> as the phones upon which they ran are not offered either.
>>
>> Given this state of affair the decision by Freedom Scientific to not 
>> build a Mac version of JAWS so many years ago (pre MacOS X) now looks 
>> to be a particularly bad given that Apple and then Google would end 
>> up in dominate market positions in the emerging platform.
>>
>> Another issue is one of the market for screen readers. While it is 
>> true that the blind make up but a tiny minority there is a potential 
>> screen reader market far greater in size. Persons with profound 
>> dyslexia are three times as numerous as the blind yet this population 
>> of screen readers consumers remains virtually untapped.
>>
>> It would seem clear that moving forward the market would move further 
>> and further away from the third party screen reader and towards ones 
>> that are part of the OS given that the future of personal computing 
>> lies in personal mobile devices which have come to dominate the 
>> world's, and in particularly the developing world's markets where the 
>> real growth in this century will be found.
>>
>> At some point I would expect that Microsoft will either upgrade 
>> Narrator to be the full scale screen reader they intended or buy out 
>> an existing one, most likely NVDA given the technical design 
>> considerations involved. However by that point the personal computer 
>> market will likely have shifted away for the personal computer to the 
>> personal device which will have their screen readers as a basic part 
>> of the operating systems of those devices and thus will be the end of 
>> the screen reader market as we know it today.
>>
>>
>> Commonwealth Braille & Talking Book Cooperative
>> Greg Kearney, General Manager
>> #320, 185-911 Yates Street
>> Victoria, BC V8V 4Y9
>> CANADA
>> Email: info at cbtbc.org
>> Web: www.cbtbc.org
>>
>> U.S. Address
>> 21908 Almaden Av.
>> Cupertino, CA 95014
>> UNITED STATES
>> Email: gkearney at gmail.com
>> Phone: +1 408-780-6535
>>
>>
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>
>
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