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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."
As a legally blind person and a person who has used various screen reader programs, I assure you that the Microsoft solution integrated into Windows just blows. It lacks features that any retail screenreader would have. The Microsoft one just blindly reads dialog boxes and stuff with no intelligence, no ability to really convey to the user how data is laid out, etc. The "screen reader" that is in Windows 2000 and up is about on par with what has been in MacOS for a long time. I agree with this article that any decent screen reading software costs hundreds of dollars. In my opinion, the Microsoft solution isn't useful for much more than installing Windows and getting your screenreader installed. Oh, and MacOS X's screen magnification stuff kicks the ass off of the Magnifier integrated in Windows 2000 and up.
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A very good question. I said I was "legally blind", not "physically blind." Legally blind means your vision is worse than 20/200. My vision is far worse than that. I can't even see the big E on the eye chart, and only have been able to once or twice throughout my entire life. So, I can see but not very well. My eye doctor has a very unscientific method to determine if my vision has changed since I can't use the eyechart. Counting fingers at X feet.
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I have a blind friend who has been using kSayIt for a while and loves it! He also loves the freedom in being able to choose his distro, desktop environment, window manager, e-mail client, yada yada yada. Chalk up another win for Free/Open Source Software, cuz last I talked to him (earlier this week) Ronnie sez he is never going back to Windows.
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In Panther, that first sets your display to grayscale and then inverts the colors. So, you lose all color and everything is inverted. What I'd really like to see is a feature where it only inverts "white-likeA" and "black-like" colors so I can still have a normally colored display with high contrast text. Or alternatively, add a "High Contrast" mode to Aqua. I know they really don't want to stray from their Holy Aqua Interface, but come on... there are people who *need* something different in order to use it properly.
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Any others who do this as well? Any tips for better software for this purpose than Festival? It's not too bad, but it's not terrific either.
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The best programmer I paired with for labs at the university was blind. He was running Linux with a text to braille gizmo under his laptop. The fact all was text based was a boon for him (he didn't use X, he probably used screen.)
Most students had a hard time following his lead because he knew all the code of the projects he worked on by heart (I think he has a perfect memory), so be jumped left and right in the code (going directly at the right line number) at an amazing speed. We worked on his box simulatenously through kibbitz.
My research is in retinal degenerations, but where I work, we have patients who lose their vision for a number of reasons from trauma to corneal problems to diabetes and other pathologies. One of our most valuable services we have is helping people make the transition from the world of the sighted to living without vision cues. I am currently looking at this code for OS X (have known about it for some time) and I will push hard to make it the de-facto standard for our patients as it simplifies their life (try dealing with all the various security problems and stability problems of Windows without using your eyes) and will be easier on their budgets as it will come free with OS X.
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Apple seems to have picked up an interesting strategy over the past few years, regarding features they think "ought to be" on the Mac. They'll wait a short time to give a third party developer a chance to supply that application, but if they don't, or Apple is unsatisfied with the result, they'll move in and release their own version for free. Sometimes this strategy succeeds (Safari, this screen reader) and sometimes it doesn't (the Sherlock/Watson mess). While this is not all that far from Microsoft's much-hated "bundling" tricks, at least it should be better than the accessibility features of 10.3