8 ms·

There's a lot to gripe about with Apple, but not when it comes to accessibility. I am quadriplegic and usually that means putting up with some terrible subset

There's a lot to gripe about with Apple, but not when it comes to accessibility. I am quadriplegic and usually that means putting up with some terrible subset of functions for any given application, tablet, phone or whatever but not with Apple. They've made it so that anything able-bodied person can do with an iPhone, I can do with their Switch Control interface which I use connected up to the chin controller on my wheelchair. It's all done via a little Bluetooth bridge called a Tecla shield and it's absolutely marvellous. There really isn't another company in the world, certainly not another phone Manufacturer that has thought of people with motor skill problems in the way that Apple has. When people think of accessibility they think of the blind and that deaf, people with motor function problems are definitely the red-headed stepchildren of the accessibility software world. Apple, pay your fng taxes but thank you very very very much for the accessibility software, my life would be much much poorer intellectually without it.

melling 10y ago
i'm disappointed that we haven't made more progress with voice interfaces. Many people are happy with the keyboard/mouse as their primary input devices but combined with subtle gestures like you might get with Google's Soli and we should get a better user interface for everyone. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QNiZfSsPc0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QNiZfSsPc0
- gurkendoktor 10y ago
  Good trackpads/touchpads with gestures aren't that far away from Soli, once you accept that people are lazy and don't want to fight gravity with their hands.
  - melling 10y ago
    How's that going to work with VR?
tezza 10y ago
Microsoft also deserves applause in the accessibility stakes. My cousin's child is quadriplegic with cerebral palsy and a lot of his eye controlled tech runs on Windows
- raverbashing 10y ago
  I guess thank the ADA. Both Apple and MS don't want to be left outside of places because of it
  - cmdrfred 10y ago
    "The ADA? What on earth could the ADA have to do with a PC making a beep? Well it turns out that at some point in the intervening 25 years, the Win32 Beep() was used for assistive technologies – in particular the sounds made when you enable the assistive technologies like StickyKeys were generated using the Beep() API. There are about 6 different assistive technology (AT) sounds built into windows, their implementation is plumbed fairly deep inside the win32k.sys driver. But why does that matter? Well it turns out that many enterprises (both governments and corporations) have requirements that prevent them from purchasing equipment that lacks accessible technologies and that meant that you couldn’t sell computers that didn’t have beep hardware to those enterprises." Source: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/larryosterman/2010/01/04/whats-up-with-the-beep-driver-in-windows-7/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/larryosterman/2010/01/04/wh... (search for ADA)
    - raverbashing 10y ago
      I read that text too and that's what I was thinking when I made that comment
- escapologybb 10y ago
  I'm going to have to disagree with this quite a lot, your cousin's child is using I control tech running on Windows, not built into Windows. That I control tech exists for every platform, but there is only OS X that you can take out of the box as a quadriplegic and with minimal help from a Designated Pair of Hands™ be up and running and independently messing around on HN. Believe me, if I could buy a cheap laptop running Windows or Linux preferably and get the same user experience I get from OS X I would do it in a heartbeat. But in the past decade of trying, nothing comes close to OS X at the moment and even then OS X has only been this accessible for the past two or three additions. All Microsoft did in this instance you're talking about is make sure that the drivers worked, and I trackers are essentially just mice as far as the computer is concerned, all of the clever stuff is done inside the eye tracker itself. Just my two pence worth. But you know, It's 2 pence that I've earned through a decade of being a quadriplegic geek getting very annoyed at not being able to use my computer like everybody else. I long for the day that I could use voice dictation software on Linux, any Linux distribution would be fine, then I could switch to some nice open source software and I would be a very happy pussycat. But none exists as far as I'm aware. Edited to add: for clarity and excuse the odd grammatical mistake, Dragon doesn't make spelling mistakes but it does put the wrong word in the wrong place sometimes.
StavrosK 10y ago
A friend of mine is blind and I've heard him echo this sentiment. I tried TalkBack for Android a few months ago just to see how he uses his phone and it was a buggy piece of crap.
nononosisisi 10y ago
I'm pretty sure they are paying their taxes. To pay the minimum allowed by law is their fiduciary duty.
- plesner 10y ago
  It's a common misapprehension but it's just not correct. There is no such thing as a fiduciary duty to minimize taxes. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiduciary#Fiduciary_duties_under_Delaware_corporate_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiduciary#Fiduciary_duties_und....
  - loeg 10y ago
    Best interest of the company usually includes producing the most income for shareholders, which involves minimizing expenses. Taxes are an expense. It may not be written down in stone but it follows logically from other principles.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - plesner 10y ago
      If what you're saying is true then it's easy to provide evidence: just find a case where a company has been successfully sued for not minimizing their taxes sufficiently. I've never heard of such a case and I can't imagine how it could exist and not be mentioned every time a company receives criticism for evading taxes.
      - Spivak 10y ago
        What you're saying is ridiculous. No company would be sued for overpaying their taxes but their accountants would certainly be fired. Assuming you're from the US, every year you have the choice to take the standard deduction or itemize. Do you ever feel guilty for choosing the option that lessens your tax burden? Why would you hold a company to a higher standard? If you think that companies should pay more taxes, then push your government to close the loopholes they're using and/or raise taxes. If you're counting on people to 'do the right thing' when they're directly incentivized not to you're going get nothing but disappointment.
hackuser 10y ago
> Apple, pay your fng taxes Tim Cook says Apple is the U.S.'s largest taxpayer. http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/business/wp/2016/08/13/2016/08/13/tim-cook-the-interview-running-apple-is-sort-of-a-lonely-job/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/business/wp/2016/08/13/2016...
- joshschreuder 10y ago
  Does that mean they should only have to pay enough to be considered the largest? Or perhaps they should pay what the legislation dictates, regardless of how much that is.
  - MichaelBurge 10y ago
    They probably are paying what the legislation dictates, and no more. If they aren't, it's the IRS' job to enforce that and apply the appropriate penalties, not commenters on HN.
    - coldtea 10y ago
      >If they aren't, it's the IRS' job to enforce that and apply the appropriate penalties, not commenters on HN. If the IRS doesn't do its job because e.g legislators leave loopholes, or are in bed with big corps, then it's up to "commenters on HN" to call both on them. That's what being a citizen is about.
- AlphaSite 10y ago
  No one outside of the US cares, they should pay taxes in each country in which they deign to do business.
  - MBCook 10y ago
    They did. Then the EU retroactively decided it wasn't enough. Even Ireland (the county the money is supposedly owed to) says it's ridiculous.
kinleyd 10y ago
What an awesome thread. I am blown away, inspired.
donw 10y ago
When I was working as a contractor for the federal government, I got to learn how to do accessibility testing on both desktop and mobile devices. To echo your sentiment, Apple devices were far-and-away the easiest to use from an accessibility standpoint, both as a tester, and as a developer.
raldi 10y ago
Recently I was using a Mac without a mouse, and tried to figure out how to turn on "Mouse Keys", which lets the keyboard emulate the mouse. The problem is, the only way to do that is to tick a checkbox in System Preferences, and I couldn't figure it out way to check it with only a keyboard. Tab, arrow keys, nothing would move the cursor to the box so I could check it. Anyone else want to give it a try?
- josso 10y ago
  In System Preferences » Keyboard » Shortcuts you need to have enabled Full Keyboard Access. The shortcut to toggle it is (fn-)Control-F7. After that you can tab through all controls and navigate to the Mouse Keys checkbox and check that.
  - raldi 10y ago
    Thanks -- this works! Too bad it's totally non-discoverable.
- function_seven 10y ago
  Just did it. Cmd+Space to bring up Spotlight. Type "Syste" and hit [enter]. The search box in the top-right corner should be active. [Tab] to it if it's not. Type in "Mouse" and arrow down to "Make mouse and trackpad easier to use". Hit [enter]. Hit [Tab] twice to move focus to "Enable Mouse Keys". Spacebar. I have a feeling that I got lucky. There's another setting under "Keyboard" > "Accessibility", at the bottom, called "Full Keyboard Access". Mine is set to "All controls". I have a feeling yours is set to "Text boxes and lists only", which may be the default. So I am kinda proving your point here :)
  - raldi 10y ago
    Indeed -- if it's set to the default (Text boxes and lists only), there seems to be no discoverable way to change the setting, and thus no discoverable way to turn on Mouse Keys. (The non-discoverable way is to press Ctrl-Fn-F7; it's non-discoverable because the only place these instructions are shown is the Keyboard -> Shortcuts tab, but you can't get to that tab without a mouse.)

melling 10y ago

i'm disappointed that we haven't made more progress with voice interfaces. Many people are happy with the keyboard/mouse as their primary input devices but combined with subtle gestures like you might get with Google's Soli and we should get a better user interface for everyone. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QNiZfSsPc0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QNiZfSsPc0

gurkendoktor 10y ago
Good trackpads/touchpads with gestures aren't that far away from Soli, once you accept that people are lazy and don't want to fight gravity with their hands.
- melling 10y ago
  How's that going to work with VR?

tezza 10y ago

Microsoft also deserves applause in the accessibility stakes. My cousin's child is quadriplegic with cerebral palsy and a lot of his eye controlled tech runs on Windows

raverbashing 10y ago
I guess thank the ADA. Both Apple and MS don't want to be left outside of places because of it
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  "The ADA? What on earth could the ADA have to do with a PC making a beep? Well it turns out that at some point in the intervening 25 years, the Win32 Beep() was used for assistive technologies – in particular the sounds made when you enable the assistive technologies like StickyKeys were generated using the Beep() API. There are about 6 different assistive technology (AT) sounds built into windows, their implementation is plumbed fairly deep inside the win32k.sys driver. But why does that matter? Well it turns out that many enterprises (both governments and corporations) have requirements that prevent them from purchasing equipment that lacks accessible technologies and that meant that you couldn’t sell computers that didn’t have beep hardware to those enterprises." Source: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/larryosterman/2010/01/04/whats-up-with-the-beep-driver-in-windows-7/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/larryosterman/2010/01/04/wh... (search for ADA)
  - raverbashing 10y ago
    I read that text too and that's what I was thinking when I made that comment
escapologybb 10y ago
I'm going to have to disagree with this quite a lot, your cousin's child is using I control tech running on Windows, not built into Windows. That I control tech exists for every platform, but there is only OS X that you can take out of the box as a quadriplegic and with minimal help from a Designated Pair of Hands™ be up and running and independently messing around on HN. Believe me, if I could buy a cheap laptop running Windows or Linux preferably and get the same user experience I get from OS X I would do it in a heartbeat. But in the past decade of trying, nothing comes close to OS X at the moment and even then OS X has only been this accessible for the past two or three additions. All Microsoft did in this instance you're talking about is make sure that the drivers worked, and I trackers are essentially just mice as far as the computer is concerned, all of the clever stuff is done inside the eye tracker itself. Just my two pence worth. But you know, It's 2 pence that I've earned through a decade of being a quadriplegic geek getting very annoyed at not being able to use my computer like everybody else. I long for the day that I could use voice dictation software on Linux, any Linux distribution would be fine, then I could switch to some nice open source software and I would be a very happy pussycat. But none exists as far as I'm aware. Edited to add: for clarity and excuse the odd grammatical mistake, Dragon doesn't make spelling mistakes but it does put the wrong word in the wrong place sometimes.

StavrosK 10y ago

A friend of mine is blind and I've heard him echo this sentiment. I tried TalkBack for Android a few months ago just to see how he uses his phone and it was a buggy piece of crap.

nononosisisi 10y ago

I'm pretty sure they are paying their taxes. To pay the minimum allowed by law is their fiduciary duty.

plesner 10y ago
It's a common misapprehension but it's just not correct. There is no such thing as a fiduciary duty to minimize taxes. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiduciary#Fiduciary_duties_under_Delaware_corporate_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiduciary#Fiduciary_duties_und....
- loeg 10y ago
  Best interest of the company usually includes producing the most income for shareholders, which involves minimizing expenses. Taxes are an expense. It may not be written down in stone but it follows logically from other principles.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - plesner 10y ago
    If what you're saying is true then it's easy to provide evidence: just find a case where a company has been successfully sued for not minimizing their taxes sufficiently. I've never heard of such a case and I can't imagine how it could exist and not be mentioned every time a company receives criticism for evading taxes.
    - Spivak 10y ago
      What you're saying is ridiculous. No company would be sued for overpaying their taxes but their accountants would certainly be fired. Assuming you're from the US, every year you have the choice to take the standard deduction or itemize. Do you ever feel guilty for choosing the option that lessens your tax burden? Why would you hold a company to a higher standard? If you think that companies should pay more taxes, then push your government to close the loopholes they're using and/or raise taxes. If you're counting on people to 'do the right thing' when they're directly incentivized not to you're going get nothing but disappointment.

hackuser 10y ago

> Apple, pay your fng taxes Tim Cook says Apple is the U.S.'s largest taxpayer. http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/business/wp/2016/08/13/2016/08/13/tim-cook-the-interview-running-apple-is-sort-of-a-lonely-job/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/business/wp/2016/08/13/2016...

joshschreuder 10y ago
Does that mean they should only have to pay enough to be considered the largest? Or perhaps they should pay what the legislation dictates, regardless of how much that is.
- MichaelBurge 10y ago
  They probably are paying what the legislation dictates, and no more. If they aren't, it's the IRS' job to enforce that and apply the appropriate penalties, not commenters on HN.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >If they aren't, it's the IRS' job to enforce that and apply the appropriate penalties, not commenters on HN. If the IRS doesn't do its job because e.g legislators leave loopholes, or are in bed with big corps, then it's up to "commenters on HN" to call both on them. That's what being a citizen is about.
AlphaSite 10y ago
No one outside of the US cares, they should pay taxes in each country in which they deign to do business.
- MBCook 10y ago
  They did. Then the EU retroactively decided it wasn't enough. Even Ireland (the county the money is supposedly owed to) says it's ridiculous.

kinleyd 10y ago

What an awesome thread. I am blown away, inspired.

donw 10y ago

When I was working as a contractor for the federal government, I got to learn how to do accessibility testing on both desktop and mobile devices. To echo your sentiment, Apple devices were far-and-away the easiest to use from an accessibility standpoint, both as a tester, and as a developer.

raldi 10y ago

Recently I was using a Mac without a mouse, and tried to figure out how to turn on "Mouse Keys", which lets the keyboard emulate the mouse. The problem is, the only way to do that is to tick a checkbox in System Preferences, and I couldn't figure it out way to check it with only a keyboard. Tab, arrow keys, nothing would move the cursor to the box so I could check it. Anyone else want to give it a try?

josso 10y ago
In System Preferences » Keyboard » Shortcuts you need to have enabled Full Keyboard Access. The shortcut to toggle it is (fn-)Control-F7. After that you can tab through all controls and navigate to the Mouse Keys checkbox and check that.
- raldi 10y ago
  Thanks -- this works! Too bad it's totally non-discoverable.
function_seven 10y ago
Just did it. Cmd+Space to bring up Spotlight. Type "Syste" and hit [enter]. The search box in the top-right corner should be active. [Tab] to it if it's not. Type in "Mouse" and arrow down to "Make mouse and trackpad easier to use". Hit [enter]. Hit [Tab] twice to move focus to "Enable Mouse Keys". Spacebar. I have a feeling that I got lucky. There's another setting under "Keyboard" > "Accessibility", at the bottom, called "Full Keyboard Access". Mine is set to "All controls". I have a feeling yours is set to "Text boxes and lists only", which may be the default. So I am kinda proving your point here :)
- raldi 10y ago
  Indeed -- if it's set to the default (Text boxes and lists only), there seems to be no discoverable way to change the setting, and thus no discoverable way to turn on Mouse Keys. (The non-discoverable way is to press Ctrl-Fn-F7; it's non-discoverable because the only place these instructions are shown is the Keyboard -> Shortcuts tab, but you can't get to that tab without a mouse.)