[gui-talk] when will folks start raising hell regarding WindowsPhone 8?

Sun Dec 2 19:11:01 UTC 2012

I'm glad you brought up the subject of appliances, which, by and large, seem 
to be getting less and less blind friendly every day.  I just bought a new 
Samsung 32 inch flat panel LED TV to replace the Old Sony 20 inch tube set 
that had resided in my guest bedroom for 15 years.  It is totally impossible 
to set up without sighted help because all options are accessed and adjusted 
via onscreen menus, which, of course , have no speech.  To make matters 
worse, the sound volume is so weak that it is very difficult for someone 
like me who is also hearing impaired to understand dialog clearly even with 
my hearing aids in place and the volume turned all the way up to the 
maximum.  And the new TV gives off almost no heat, so it is virtually 
impossible to tell whether it is on with the sound muted or off altogether. 
At least with my older tube set I could tell whether it was on by feeling 
for heat from the vents in the cabinet.   So in addition to new TV's being 
unfriendly to blind consumers, they are now also unfriendly to hearing 
impaired consumers as well.  Unfortunately, I'm afraid this situation is 
only going to get worse as electronic products become ever more complicated.

Gerald

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Freeman" <k7uij at panix.com>
To: "'Discussion of the Graphical User Interface, GUI Talk Mailing List'" 
<gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2012 1:25 PM
Subject: Re: [gui-talk] when will folks start raising hell regarding 
WindowsPhone 8?

> Steve:
>
> You are right. But beyond this, as I've pointed out before, all who
> fulminate about lack of accessibility must, in my view, keep in mind that 
> if
> it were up to the marketplace alone, we, the blind, would *never* get much
> accessibility. Despite the delusions of many, we have very little 
> collective
> power in the marketplace. Where we've gained accessibility (aside from a 
> few
> specialized items marketed specifically for the blind), the only way we've
> gotten accessibility was when there was a legal lever we could invoke to
> force companies to consider accessibility. Yes, this is true even in 
> Apple's
> case. And I'm not knocking Apple's sincerity. But we are a drop in the
> bucket in the larger marketplace and the sooner we recognize this, the
> better.
>
> I remember many years ago when Harold Snyder told me he was talking with a
> Sony executive about accessible mobile phones. The guy told Harold that 
> the
> only way most manufacturers were going to make accessible products (at 
> least
> mainstream ones) was if they had the pants sued off them. And while
> cyberspace is beginning to be recognized as a valid establishment subject 
> to
> Title III of the ADA, such is not generally the case with appliances with 
> a
> few small exceptions. Else why would we need the Home Appliances
> Accessibility Act?
>
> So to my way of thinking, the reason we're not raising hell over Windows
> Mobile 8 is that we have no real way of effectively doing so.
>
> Mike Freeman
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: gui-talk [mailto:gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Steve
> Jacobson
> Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2012 7:39 AM
> To: Discussion of the Graphical User Interface, GUI Talk Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [gui-talk] when will folks start raising hell regarding 
> Windows
> Phone 8?
>
> Antonio,
>
> I tend to agree.  It would be wrong for us to let Microsoft off the hook
> just because we have some good alternatives.  In this business, even big
> companies come and go, and particularly where there is an operating system
> into which accessibility can be built, we need to be sure it happens.
> Especially in the newly emerging tablet market and the integration with
> phones and computers, it would be easy to find ourselves left out of a
> segment of that market, and that could be the segment a given employer 
> uses.
>
>
> The original note on this wondered why we didn't give Microsoft a worse 
> time
> over this.  My earlier point is only that there are some indications that
> accessibility to Windows 8 on mobile devices is a part of their plan. 
> Allen
> is right that they have been pretty quiet in terms of public 
> announcements,
> though and one would hope we would see something discussed reasonably 
> soon.
> However, I think it is worth noting that Windows 8 is a pretty big change
> with a lot of things happening.  It is not just new versions of the
> operating system for the PC and a separate one for mobile devices, it
> actually is a sort of joinging of PC, Tablets, and Mobile devices  under
> operating systems that are now connected, not unlike what Apple has done 
> to
> have some common constructs between MACs, I Pads, I Pods and I phones. 
> This
> means it will take some time for Microsoft to get all their ducks in a row
> on this stuff.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Steve Jacobson
>
> On Fri, 30 Nov 2012 14:43:33 -0500, Antonio M. Guimaraes Jr. wrote:
>
>>Hello all,
>
>>Universal phone access may become important when one needs to make an
> emergency phone call and all the have available is an  inaccessible phone.
>
>>Antonio Guimaraes
>
>
>>On Nov 28, 2012, at 11:44 PM, Mike Arrigo <n0oxy at charter.net> wrote:
>
>>> That's what I think too. If Microsoft is unwilling to make their
>>> smart phone platform accessible, there are some good alternatives. Of
>>> course, they still should make it accessible, but we can definitely
>>> vote with
> where we spend our money when it comes to phones.
>>> On Nov 28, 2012, at 10:09 PM, Jude DaShiell <jdashiel at shellworld.net>
> wrote:
>>>
>>>> With Apple and Android available, why would anyone need Microsoft?On
>>>> Wed,
>>>> 28 Nov 2012, Hoffman, Allen wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Lets be clear:
>>>>> Windows 8 for personal computers is not that big a deal in
>>>>> accessibility terms and can work fine.  Windows 8 RT for some
>>>>> devices can be problematic but is a small subset of windows.
>>>>> Windows 8 Phone
> is the key challenge.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: gui-talk [mailto:gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
>>>>> Gerald Levy
>>>>> Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2012 8:19 AM
>>>>> To: Discussion of the Graphical User Interface, GUI Talk Mailing
>>>>> List
>>>>> Subject: Re: [gui-talk] when will folks start raising hell regarding
> Windows Phone 8?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Actually, this backwards step in terms of accessibility should have
>>>>> been raised a year ago when Windows 8 was still in beta testing.
>>>>> Everyone knew that it was going to be one big mess, but nobody at
> the so-called "advocacy"
>>>>> organizations gave it much thought.  Now that the final product is
>>>>> here and Windows 7 computers are rapidly vanishing from store
>>>>> shelves, it is probably too late to do anything.  MS seems to be an
>>>>> 800
> pound gorilla that nobody can stop.  But based on preliminary sales 
> figures,
> Windows 8 could be a bigger disaster for MS than Vista.  And last week,
> Steve Sinofsky, the MS design executive responsible for launching Vista,
> Windows7 and Windows 8 abruptly left the company.  Some reports claim that
> he resigned before the you know what over Win 8 hits the fan.  Other 
> reports
> assert that he was forced to resign because of personality clashes with MS
> CEO Steve Dallmer.
>>>>> In any case, Win 8 could well turn out to be the Edsel of operating
> systems.
>>>>> All we can do is hope that it is such a colossal commercial flop that
> MS will be forced to back peddle and release a more blind friendly OS with
> Windows 9.
>>>>>
>>>>> Gerald
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>>> From: "Hoffman, Allen" <Allen.Hoffman at HQ.DHS.GOV>
>>>>> To: "Discussion of the Graphical User Interface, GUI Talk Mailing 
>>>>> List"
>
>>>>> <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
>>>>> Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2012 7:56 AM
>>>>> Subject: [gui-talk] when will folks start raising hell regarding
> Windows Phone 8?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> Given the terrible accessibility support in the windows Phone 8
>>>>>> release, not the first time for Microsoft, when will we, as a
>>>>>> community feel its time to raise some real hell over this
>>>>>> continuing lack of corporate responsibility?  Seems we focus a lot
>>>>>> on Kindle, and rightly so, but Microsoft should not be let off the
>>>>>> hook on this stuff.  In addition, when would we as a community
>>>>>> think its time to raise hell over getting authoring tools which
>>>>>> actually ensure accessibility of content produced rather than
>>>>>> impose nearly impossible additional work on authors?  I'm sure
>>>>>> battles must be picked, but am unclear on the strategy for picking
> them of late.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
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>>>>>
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>>>>
>>>> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> -------
>>>> jude <jdashiel at shellworld.net>
>>>> Adobe fiend for failing to Flash
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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