3 ms·

I really dislike these "X was meant to Y Z. What happened?" stories. Because who "meant it" to? Did they have any influence? Who stated it as a goal? Do you ju

I really dislike these "X was meant to Y Z. What happened?" stories. Because who "meant it" to? Did they have any influence? Who stated it as a goal? Do you just mean that a bunch of pundits said it and now you want to be a pundit saying they were wrong? In the specific case: did Apple ever say they would "revolutionise" accessibility, outright? Or did they just do what they've been doing since the iPhone: slowly, progressively trying to make accessibility a bit better and a bit more normalised? I'm sure everyone who needs greater accessibility thinks Apple could do more. But I'm pretty sure they think everyone else is even further behind. (I think Apple could do a couple of things much better -- one of those things would be endorsing or supplying a GPIO/I2C/SPI/CAN etc. bridge device with some official API support)

parsimo2010 3y ago
Yes, the article is probably better summarized as the iPad could have revolutionized accessibility, but it didn’t. A small market still has janky solutions to get by. Apple, nor any other major company, is likely to sink major resources into helping non-verbal people communicate unless there is a way to use those improvements in a bigger market. But with that said, the article is well written and worth a read for anyone that comes to the comments before clicking the link.
- asplake 3y ago
  (Edited) I’m aware of some interesting things being done with iPads for hospital patients who suddenly find it difficult to communicate – eg in intensive care or post-operatively. Very domain-specific though, not general purpose. Revolutionary perhaps in care terms but not for accessibility more broadly.