Yes, very true Janina. As a developer I've spent quite a bit of time looking at their accessibility support which is very similar to MSAA, except that it goes further. I also *think* it is similar to the Gnome accessibility, but haven't had much experience of the latter . All software written since OS x 10.2 was released will be accessible, and this may well include many shareware apps that can be downloaded from the internet, but will definitely not include any Microsoft products, including Office X, Internet Explorer or MSN Messenger. Office is the only one I'd want to use anyway. Also apps like Norton Antivirus/Systemworks may not initially be accessible. This is all because they existed under OS9, and the developers have just ported them to OS x using Carbon, which doesn't get accessibility by default (only Cocoa apps do). But, with the 508 legislation etc this could change. But I don't want this to negate the great stuff that Apple is doing - I believe that all Apple software, such as the Ilife suite, is written in an accessible way (or will be modified to be cccessible very soon). Saqib -----Original Message----- From: speakup-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:speakup-bounces at braille.uwo.ca] On Behalf Of Janina Sajka Sent: 22 March 2004 00:17 To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. Subject: Re: Spoken interface for Mac OS X Well, Apple is fairly confident that many applications will talk out of the box. As I recall the demo I had, they're saying something along the lines of 90% of the apps written with their new developer tools where accessibility support has been included since the tools where released two years ago. We'll see, of course, when we get a closer look. Also, I suspect that "screen reader" may not be the right term. In fact, Apple isn't using this term, and I think they're correct. There's no "reading of the screen" going on. Rather the objects which make up the application all have accessible properties which are queried to support the spoken interface. So, while there's an on screen interface, the spoken interface is actually a synchronized parallel interface. At least, this is how I understand what I heard during my half hour or so with Apple last Thursday. Sean Murphy writes: > Hi All. > > As the saying goes, don't count your chickens until they all have > hatch. I be very surprised if version 1 of the product works with > many commercial applications other than the OS itself. Think about > the number of years that the windows screen readers have taken to get > to their current point. There is a lot of issues that has to be taken > into concideration when designing a screen reader. How flexiable will > the product be, will it be like Microsoft Narritor or the old Berkly Outspoken. > > Time will see. > > Also, the market share that Apple has is very small and it will be > interesting how much of an impack it will have to the mark for disabilities. > > Sean > > > > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup -- Janina Sajka, Director Technology Research and Development Governmental Relations Group American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) Email: janina at afb.net Phone: (202) 408-8175 _______________________________________________ Speakup mailing list Speakup at braille.uwo.ca http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
