Apple to Add Free Screen Reader to Mac OS X

Joe Clark writes "Screen readers for blind Mac users have been nonexistent since 2003 when development was halted on the only one in existence. On Windows they cost up to $1,295. This week, Apple announced the upcoming Spoken Interface for Mac OS X, the long-rumoured Apple screen reader and more, we are told. Apple is looking for beta-testers for this technology preview. Already, a developer muses that IBMs accessible Java software could work with the screen reader. No mention of Braille-display support yet, which many blind and deaf-blind people need and want."

Comments

FUD.

[Anonymous Coward]

While screen readers may cost "up to" thousands of dollars, the submiter conveniently ignores the fact that recent versions of Windows include text to speech services at NO ADDITIONAL COST.

So, congratulations Apple for catching up :)

Re:FUD.

[MoneyT]

Catching up? The mac os has had built in text to speech features since OS 7.5 at least. In 7.5 you could have any document on screen read back to you. Mac OS 8 added the feature to onscreen buttons and dialouge boxes. This is a full screen reader, as in every part of the screen from menues to buttons to dialouge boxes to web pages to applications.

Re:FUD.

[zackeller]

Microsoft's TTS is about what Apple had ten years ago. All it does is churp out window titles and text without much intelligence; something fairly useless to those who can't see it in the first place. Apple's solution actually helps them navigate and perform tasks.

Re:FUD.

[Anonymous Coward]

Macintalk was around before System 7, at least in the late 1980s (1988 perhaps). It's quite a refined text to speech system.

I know TTS isn't the only part of a Spoken Interface, but Apple have the experience in that part at least, going back more than a decade and a half.

Re:FUD.

[drdink]

No, you don't need special versions of all your applications. The screen readers use APIs and trickery in Windows to peel the text out of menus, dialogs, etc. It then reads it. So, as long as applications use the standard Windows methods for putting stuff on the screen, they will be *fairly* compatible with speech software. However, when software starts to get fancy, uses graphics for text, etc, then you start to get problems. You also get problems when data is formatted oddly on the screen, such as in tables. The Windows screenreader is very limited in nature, only really able to read dialog boxes. I don't remember if it can even read menus. The MacOS X stuff can read almost anything under the mouse pointer, and I look forward to see what enhancements come to OS X with this new screen reader. Hope this answers your question to some degree.

Re:FUD.

[modder]

I'm legally blind myself and generally do not need to use any magnifier.

I usually just need to be a lot closer to the screen than most other users.

I use Linux a lot, and enjoy the Ctrl+ feature of Mozilla.

On Windows, I simply up the screen size by changing from 1024 768 to 800 600. (I wished linux could do this.)

I'm curious if you have any experience with gnopernicus which I tried to compile using an older Red Hat distro. I've since upgraded to Fedora but have yet to play with gnopernicus after all of the problems I originally encountered. (Which were likely all my fault for not using appropriate lib versions...)

Re:FUD.

[mentin]

You don't need a special version, you add accessibility features to your application.

If your application is composed of regular dialogs, you don't actually need to do much, since standard controls provide reasonable default implementation of accessibilty API.

In more complex applications, you implement accesibility interfaces that describe your application objects, and the way user may interact with them.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?ur l= /library/en-us/msaa/msaastart_9w2t.asp

Re:FUD.

[drdink]

You sound very similar to me. I also change color schemes to be white on black. Unfortunately, you can't do this on MacOS X (unless you use the Accessability option, which turns your display to greyscale). As a result, I've found myself using the OS X screen magnification features. They are very nice and I've learned to use them seamlessly. I do everything else you mentioned that you do, as well. I did set out to use gnopernicus once, but never really got around to finishing it. I seem to recall it wanting to use Festival for the speech output part, which seemed somewhat ugly to me. I also didn't much care for the GNOME screen magnification stuff I could find and get working.

uh

[SweetAndSourJesus]

Macs have included text-to-speech for quite some time. What they're offering is a completely spoken user interface.

Oh, and at NO ADDITIONAL COST.

Linux has free screenreaders too

[MooKore 2004]

Checkout Gnpernicus. Free screenreader for GNOME and GNOME compatible desktops.

Re:You know what this means, folks...

[drdink]

I am a legally blind FreeBSD (and former Linux) user. What is the problem? Yes, it takes some adaption, but that is no reason not to do it. If all else fails, you SSH to the machine from Windows using a screen reader.

Buzz already

[gordguide]

I was having a drink with a legally blind Teacher's Assistant friend of mine Friday (the day before this hit Slashdot) after work. He's a die-hard Windows user, precisely because of the (yes, this is the right price) $1200 application mentioned briefly in the article, which he uses.

I was inundated with questions; the news was out so fast amongst those who need this functionality that they caught me off guard. I had heard a bit. He knew far more.

Trust me, there is real interest in this. He wanted to know what hardware to buy that would support OSX. He knew the beta was out and knew people running it, and liked the feedback he'd heard so far.

Re:You know what this means, folks...

[1lus10n]

I call bullshit, And if I had mod points I would mod your ass down as a troll.

The average end user distro requires the same level of knowledge as the average windows install. Not to mention the potential difficulty behind trying to find a braille friendly license key.

I know several blind people (legally blind, and completely blind) who use linux/BSD both as a main operating system and as a hobby system.

Think about what your saying before you go off on some "linux is not user friendly" tangent, people who already know windows might have a hard time adapting but most people dont know enough for it to be a problem, (mind you that the average person doesnt even do updates) not to speak of people who know nothing at all.

Re:Why? They're only blind.

[Catnapster]

The grandparent wasn't referring to their intellectual capabilities, he was pointing out that installing and configuring Linux is hard enough when you can see, and that it would be very difficult for someone who couldn't see. The key here is sight. Command-line installation is all text. Do you realize what the issue is there?

Even if Linux did have a screen reader, the task of installing and configuring it would be such a hassle to a blind individual that it would be better for them to buy a Mac. Many people, handicapped or not, are so intimidated by Linux installation that they stick with Windows. This doesn't reflect on their intellect.

In the future, try to hold back your knee-jerk reactions; it would also probably help to spell "intellectual" and "denigrate" correctly.

What is blind?

[thogard]

Most of us that can see well don't consider the real question of what is a blind person? It turns out that is more than people who can't see anything. It also includes people who can't see very well, people with issues involving clear vision except directly where they are looking, people that can't look at one spot for very long and people who's vision is just so poor that they can't a 144 point font a foot away. Many of the people that fit into the groups I've listed used to be able to see clearly. The were never taught brail and many of them are in their 60's or older and attempting to learn brail is very hard for them.

My mother just had her eyeballs sewed back together so once again she can see enough to read a screen (with the right magnifications) but that was a short term fix. In another decade she won't be able to see anything that isn't fuzzy.

Re:You know what this means, folks...

[kundor]

It's already in the kernel...

You can replace your text consoles with speech consoles in make menuconfig.

Re:Unlikely to happen

[unapersson]

"The same reason documentation is lagging in FOSS, its not "cool". Everyone wants to be in on the latest desktop environment / compiler / kernel because it gets the publicity. A screen reader will not give you the cool factor that submitting a patch for the kernel would."

Sorry, but that's absolute rubbish:
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/
http://leb.net/blinux/

I can't believe the uninformed postings in this thread. Just because you're not aware of it doesn't mean it isn't happening. You can use a screenreader within Linux right now, try Gnopernicus within Gnome. A lot of accessibility work is taking place and access to this technology is all free.

Re:Not hardly

[Magnus Reftel]

man niutil

Re:Braille?

[Bitsy Boffin]

You jest, but braille "displays" do exist. Infact you can even get braille notebooks.

I had a quick play with the technology at a demonstration once (I live in Christchurch, where this is developed), quite interesting for a sighted person.

Re:Why? They're only blind.

[ocelotbob]

Uh, My copy of SuSE that's a few years old had screenreader drivers built-in, so blind people could install the OS. No extra work needed. Also, what use is an accessible desktop if the installer isn't blind-friendly?

Once agin, OS X is years behind hat's easly to do in Linux.

Re:Yes, Windows Narrator

[lseltzer]

Better yet, here's a review of Windows XP on the web site of the American Foundation for the Blind.

It puts a proper perspective on Narrator: "Narrator is a basic screen reader that provides speech output for blind computer users. It is not intended to replace more powerful commercially available screen readers. Rather, it is intended to help you when your normal adaptive equipment is not available. "

Do we know that the Mac reader is any more than this?

Re:Keyboard accessibility problems.

[Anonymous Coward]

CMD+First letter of dialog word

Re:Forgive me if I sound cynical

[Anonymous Coward]

"In as much it might lock some people into apple's platform, I do not see how that would hinder competition in this market. If there is a better, lower cost solution people will migrate to it."

Yes, as I understand it Apple are only doing this because the only commercial solution that supported the Mac OS decided NOT to port their app to OSX. To qualify for gov't contracts Apple has to jump through some equal opps hoops sooooo they HAD to build their own screenreader.

Re:White on black

[TylerL82]

In Panther's Universal Access preference pane, there's an "Enhance Contrast" feature.

Re: Keyboard accessibility problems.

[Trillan]

Sure. You can set any keyboard command you want to open the menus, and you just start typing the menu command. I used to use ctrl-m. I agree the dialog buttons are a little inconsistent in some apps, but in most coommand+first letter will do it.

(Sorry for posting anon the first time, but I thought I was responding to a troll... :)

Re:This is useful for non-blind as well

[Anonymous Coward]

In OS X you just use the say command and make it output to a file. Presto.

Alternatively you could buy an Amiga 500 and use the narrator device..

O'Reilly on existing Speech in MacOSX

[Etcetera]

I'm surprised no one's posted a link to this yet... O'Reilly's Mac Dev Center has a nice article on "the often misunderstood world of talking to your Mac" that goes over the existing speech (and speech recognition) interface.

A good overview of past and present, with a little bit of technical information there for AppleScripters too.

Keyboard navigation?

[jfengel]

There's more to operating a computer blind than just having a screen reader. Reading a web page is the easy part; if you have to see an icon and point a mouse at it, you can't even open the browser.

It needs to be operated either solely by keyboard, or have special modifications to support a force-feedback mouse.

The Macintosh has always supported accelerators, but when I last looked I couldn't find any way to access non-accelerated menu items without a mouse. Windows has supported mouseless operation from the beginning (not out of compassion for the blind, but because Windows 1.0 couldn't assume that you even owned a mouse.)

I'm a huge fan of the section 508 guidelines. Even non-disabled users can benefit from a display which is clear enough to be used by blind users. It forces the developer to think out a bit further ahead, but the end-user gains.

Re:Keyboard navigation?

[jfengel]

That sounds slightly more cumbersome than the Windows standard, which is that ALT-letter always takes you to the menu beginning with that letter (and with some disambiguation rules). I use this all the time: I get to Slashdot with ALT-B s (Bookmarks->Slashdot). It's an incredibly concise gesture.

I'm a Java programmer; the standard Java Look and Feel also uses the same approach.

OS X does seem to have dialogue-box navigation enabled by default, which is an excellent start. It can be tricky to get right: you have to make sure that labels are properly associated with fields, or the fields are useless in a screen reader. And a bunch of other small but crucial considerations. I hope that the standard tools that you use to build a dialogue box on OS X support that sort of thing, and that the screen reader ties into it. (Somebody posted a reply to my original text that implies that it does.)

Even then, it's still a pain. I try to use keyboard navigation in web pages, but the usual link order means that I have to go through dozens or hundreds of links in the left and top nav bars before I can follow the link in, say, a Slashdot story. I'm a sighted user, but I always keep the idea of a headless terminal in mind, if for no other reason than that it means I don't have to take my fingers off the home row. (I don't even like using the arrow keys.)

Re:Not hardly

[2nd Post!]

OS X configuration can also be done on the command line. Look in /etc :)

Re:You know what this means, folks...

[2nd Post!]

Yes, but an average OS X install is 10x easier than an average Windows install :)

Of course Windows is getting easier, as is Linux, but the Mac is still easier :)

News to iPod

[JohnsonWax]

There are a number of utils for converting RSS from apps like NetNewsWire to MP3 playlists and stuffing it on your iPod. One such app:

http://www.tow.com/software/read_it_to_me/

Basically, use NNW to manage the news you want (TONS of sources - BBC, CNN, weblogs, etc. but not all include the full article text) and a click or two will take all your unviewed feeds, text-to-speech them to MP3 and sync them to your iPod.

You can later just click through the ones you heard (or everything from the day), and the next day it'll only sync across the new content.

Lots of options on OS X, but not sure about Windows + iPod.

Re:Keyboard accessibility problems.

[Anonymous Coward]

by the way.. you are simply wrong

if you turn on full keyboard access in the system prefs pane you can do what you described in TextEdit.

my keystrokes:

cmd-tab -> TextEdit
cmd-n
[type some garbage]
cmd-w
[tab to the dont save box]
space

tada!