Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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"Designed For Accessibility" feature on App Store Today shows off Apple's push for equality (appleinsider.com)
submitted by Broken_Peepers
BenandGracie 4 points 3y ago
If Apple would fix the accessibility bugs on the Mac, I would take them more seriously.
Broken_Peepers [OP] 1 points 3y ago
Wondering the same. For normal use, I have not had any issues on my MacBook.
AndAdapt 1 points 3y ago
Which bugs are annoying you the most?
Duriello 3 points 3y ago
I'm not your parent commenter, but there are at least three bugs that definitely annoy me:
1. Audio ducking sometimes applying to the voice synthesizer instead of the actual background audio;
2. The Samantha voice spells out names with 30 characters or longer like UIDocumentBrowserViewController and ignores everything beyond that 30 character limit;
3. Navigating web pages using the arrow keys like on Windows is impossible most of the time since VoiceOver tends to interact with some elements automatically.
The first and third bugs have been around at least since Mavericks when I started using VoiceOver, and the second was introduced in Catalina.
I've also heard complaints about Braille support, but since I'm not a Braille user I don't care much about that.
1. Audio ducking sometimes applying to the voice synthesizer instead of the actual background audio;
2. The Samantha voice spells out names with 30 characters or longer like UIDocumentBrowserViewController and ignores everything beyond that 30 character limit;
3. Navigating web pages using the arrow keys like on Windows is impossible most of the time since VoiceOver tends to interact with some elements automatically.
The first and third bugs have been around at least since Mavericks when I started using VoiceOver, and the second was introduced in Catalina.
I've also heard complaints about Braille support, but since I'm not a Braille user I don't care much about that.
AndAdapt 2 points 3y ago
Thanks for listing them. I come across very few in my interactions. So always interested in others experiences.
Had no idea about the samantha voice bug, that sounds very annoying. I stick to Alex so have not been exposed to this
Had no idea about the samantha voice bug, that sounds very annoying. I stick to Alex so have not been exposed to this
Laser_Lens_4 1 points 3y ago
Braille support is utter garbage. The translation tables are fine, but eventually the connection to the display just resets. Spaces and new lines got transposed. It's completely useless. I need Braille, and now I'm stuck with a very expensive machine
BenandGracie 1 points 3y ago
Exactly. I still have my Mac, but I got a Windows desktop around Christmas, and the experience is much better.
devinprater 2 points 3y ago
No speech queue, so VO can be interupted easily, especially in the Terminal.
* Braille is a mess.
* Try using Google Docs, Sheets and other web apps. The *only* one I've found to work well is Pinafore for Mastodon, and even there no speech queue means that if Pinafore loads more toots, the one you were just reading gets interupted.
* Vocalizer voices are sluggish and finicy.
And no, I am not a beginner Mac user that's just too dumb to use an Apple computer, these are longstanding bugs that any blind person at Apple should be able to catch. I guess the blind people that work there have the luxury of working from their phones. I *know* there is at least one sharp blind person there, so I don't know why there aren't changes happening. Apple should get rid of the almost useless "image caption" command from the Mac, and deal with basic usage, like giving TTS a freaking queue already.
Seriously, if I didn't find the Mail app so great for handling thousands of emails per day, and if Emacs with Emacspeak worked perfectly on Windows, you bet I'd be using that now rather than a Mac for work.
* Braille is a mess.
* Try using Google Docs, Sheets and other web apps. The *only* one I've found to work well is Pinafore for Mastodon, and even there no speech queue means that if Pinafore loads more toots, the one you were just reading gets interupted.
* Vocalizer voices are sluggish and finicy.
And no, I am not a beginner Mac user that's just too dumb to use an Apple computer, these are longstanding bugs that any blind person at Apple should be able to catch. I guess the blind people that work there have the luxury of working from their phones. I *know* there is at least one sharp blind person there, so I don't know why there aren't changes happening. Apple should get rid of the almost useless "image caption" command from the Mac, and deal with basic usage, like giving TTS a freaking queue already.
Seriously, if I didn't find the Mail app so great for handling thousands of emails per day, and if Emacs with Emacspeak worked perfectly on Windows, you bet I'd be using that now rather than a Mac for work.
AndAdapt 2 points 3y ago
Thanks for the list. Some great point.
Feel your pain on the web apps. Is windows and NVDA better at this?
I bought a chrome book a while ago to play with google docs through Vox, was not usable. Could not edit documents accurately as the echo could not be switched. Filed a bug report took 15 months to fix.
But if NVDA works and well, will give it a shot
Feel your pain on the web apps. Is windows and NVDA better at this?
I bought a chrome book a while ago to play with google docs through Vox, was not usable. Could not edit documents accurately as the echo could not be switched. Filed a bug report took 15 months to fix.
But if NVDA works and well, will give it a shot
devinprater 1 points 3y ago
Yeah, I feel like I can't edit precisely with a Chromebook either. Google Docs is... I mean, the best it'll ever be with NVDA, or JAWS. It's not great to begin with. But I have to use that, my workplace uses it. So NVDA is the best I've comeup with.
bradley22 1 points 3y ago
Have you tried thunderbird on windows? I don’t get thousands of emails a day but it works for me.
devinprater 1 points 3y ago
Not recently. I just like having the subject of an email spoken first thing, no "unread," not the sender, so I can quickly triage my email. It also helps that VoiceOver can read threaded email quite well, without having to exit the message, go down the message list to the next one, and open that. The closest I've come is Outlook, but that crashes a bit frequently, and NVDA doesn't read the new message automatically when I press Control + Period, meaning an extra second or so is spent pressing Insert + down arrow. Of course, JAWS reads the message when I press Control + Period, so yeah there's that, lol.
BenandGracie 2 points 3y ago
Mainly the braille support. Braille doesn't always track with speech in mail and Safari. Also, braille doesn't track very well in the Terminal app.
AndAdapt 3 points 3y ago
I struggle to use the terminal quickly with VoiceOVer.
Mainly do all my terminal stuff inside emacs with emacspeak now.
Shame Braille support is not where it needs to be
Mainly do all my terminal stuff inside emacs with emacspeak now.
Shame Braille support is not where it needs to be
BenandGracie 2 points 3y ago
Emacs is cool, but Emacspeak doesn't work with my braille display, and evertime I use Emacs, I feel like I need an extra hand. I am one of those weird people who likes Nano.
Sweet_Budget 1 points 3y ago
You might want to look into using tdsr
Sudsy613 -1 points 3y ago
Accessibility bugs...Or user malfunctions?
CloudyBeep 1 points 3y ago
The AppleVis bug tracker shows several bugs.
Sudsy613 -3 points 3y ago
Okay, and show me one piece of tech, which doesn’t have a single solitary bug, hardware or software wise.
Not just talking from an accessibility perspective, but evolving technology, from the beginning of time is Inherently buggy in one way or another.
Clearly your beeper isn’t the only cloudy thing going on over there. 🙄🖕🏽🤡
Not just talking from an accessibility perspective, but evolving technology, from the beginning of time is Inherently buggy in one way or another.
Clearly your beeper isn’t the only cloudy thing going on over there. 🙄🖕🏽🤡
BenandGracie 5 points 3y ago
I understand everthing has bugs, but Apple hasn't fixed the braille support. I wonder if the sighted community would stand it if their display didn't work properly. Why should I have to put up with broken braille support for years? I wouldn't have as much of a problem if Apple didn't push accessibility so much. Personally, I would love it if they would walk the walk a little more.
They do a pretty good job with the iPhone. It has some issues, but the Mac is almost unusable if you are a braille user.
They do a pretty good job with the iPhone. It has some issues, but the Mac is almost unusable if you are a braille user.
CloudyBeep 0 points 3y ago
Of course technology has bugs. However, it has been proven time and again by Apple that accessibility bugs are given less priority than bugs that affect other users. Should a blind person who experiences bugs that persist for several versions (which may affect their ability to do their job) resign themselves to it, or should they expect that serious bugs should be solved within weeks of their introduction, preferably during the beta cycle?
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