OS X 10.6.5. Bug fixes and improvements.

Yesterday Apple released Mac OS X 10.6.5 update. Now that its installed on two of my Macs I'm happy to report my findings. So far only a couple of things but the list will be updated in days to come.

• Problem with VoiceOver affecting behaviour of the mouse pointer appears to have been rectified.

Before, when using both VO and Zoom together with VO reading text under mouse and Zoom alinement mode set to "Continuously with pointer" the experience of browsing sites and any webkit related stuff was terrible. When encountering some content VO would make the mouse pointer jump, resulting in jerky and difficult to control behaviour of the pointer/zoom window.

Initially submitted by me back in September 2009, when 10.6 came out it took Apple over a year to fix this issue. Falls into category of things that worked right to begin with, then were broken with updates and are now fixed. As does the next bug fix.


• The infamous VoiceOver Safari crash is now also fixed. At least the problem does not occur when browsing apple.com or using the Google Search page. This one came as no surprise since the Webkit nightly built partially addressed the problem.
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• Last but not least VoiceOver now does what it did in version 10.4. When in Mail it automatically reads email messages if the message body is in focus.

To sum it up I'm glad to see all of this stuff fixed. Just wish it wasn't broken to begin with. I mean they got it right the first time. Then broke it and took forever to fix.


Improvements.

• VoiceOver automatically interacting with HTML content. For me its auto-interaction with HTML always worked but intermittently. With no rime nor reason. I'm still observing the same behavior. Others report differently. I guess only confirms that no two installs of OS work quite the same way. Given all of the settings and options its no surprise.

• Also being told that VoiceOver now finds and auto-interacts with form controls on some pages. Just like with above case I cannot personally confirm. Its as spotty as it was for me. My unique Macs I guess.

• What I am noticing instead is that VoiceOver auto-interacts with form fields without having to "VO+Space" to confirm interaction. This I'm noticing quite a bit.

• Overall VoiceOver seems more responsive. Noticed it immediately after installing/restarting and opening Safari. It does seem snappier, cleaner and more reliable. Although not excluding the novelty of having freshly released OS. May have a better idea when that wears off.

That's it for now. Will keep updating the blog.

iOS 4.1. The Bad

• Screen curtain setting not preserved when restarting or reseting the device. battery drain and a privacy concern.

• "Birthday" field not announced in Contacts even when double tapped. Just says "Birthday".

• Word endings are truncated when using 100% speech rate. Applicable to all TTS engines.

• Push notifications still don't announce the message when the device is locked. Problem that hasn't been solved since iOS 4.0.

• When on the ringtones page (Settings/ General/ Sounds/ Ringtones) doing the 3-finger swipe down exits you back to the home screen.

• Issue with proximity sensor still persists. Both iPhone 3Gs and iPHone 4 affected.

Submitted all to accessibility@apple. At least this time I actually got a response.

iOS 4.1. The good.

• VoiceOver keyboard access. Yes. You can now control VO using a bluetooth keyboard. I thought of the idea of controlling VO in iOS by using the keyboard but now that this feature is actually implemented I find it absolutely indispensable.I only wish tabbing would work too.

• Battery life. Its back to normal. Just like it was in iOS 3. No longer I am forced to enable Airplane mode to prevent the battery from draining even if on standby. A problem that Apple denied but fixed anyway.

• In Apps like MDN, Tech Crunch and DVice VO now reads the Header/ Sub-header/Date in proper order. In iOS 4.0 through 4.02 it was reading them in reverse order. Things appear to be back to normal again. Another problem that Apple did not acknowledge but fixed anyway.

• The overall experience is just snappier. No longer I'm experiencing any VO drop outs nor stutter when downloading music or applications. It performs as good (if not better) as it did with iOS 3.

• Initially got a false positive on this one but the problem with Russian TTS engine outputting bursts of loud white noise is also fixed. comrades, rejoice! Only took Apple a year to fix this one.

What can I say? Thank you Apple. I'm a happy camper. I just wish you didn't break stuff that works to begin with.

Apple. Accessibility and technical support.

Listening to one of the shows on T.W.I.T. network the other day I heard a blind Mac user calling in and talking about his experience with Applecare support. I'll paraphrase it but he basically said that every time he calls for support with regards to VoiceOver he has to actually explain what VoiceOver is.

Which is in and of itself ridiculous since we're talking about something that is integrated into OS X. It basically confirms what I've been saying for years and years. With all of its efforts to make their platform accessible Apple still has no dedicated technical support department for accessibility.

As nice and polite as most Applecare reps are your average call to them goes something like this:

• You call Applecare and then wait on hold. Nothing unusual.

• An Applecare rep answers the phone and you then have to spend 5-10 minutes explaining that you're blind and that you use this thing called VoiceOver. Once they understand what you are on about you are transferred to the technician.

• You go through the same hoops explaining what VoiceOver is to the technician. If by some miracle they already know what VoiceOver is then chances of them actually knowing anything about it or being able to help you are slim.

• Your request is nonetheless processed and then forwarded to the engineers for review.

• If the engineers actually have any answers for you you get a call within a week (sometimes a few weeks).

• If we're talking about bug fixes then nobody ever calls you back with anything. You're just left to wonder if the problems you submitted will ever be addressed or not.

• If time goes by and you don't get any calls nor see any bug fixes for months and months you have to call back and repeat all of the above steps all over again. From personal experience everything you throw at Apple eventually gets done. You just have to stay on top of it. Keep emailing accessibility@apple, submitting the feedback forms and calling Applecare. You get the results but its such a tedious process. It really doesn't have to be this way.

Universal Access Zoom. Has Apple given up on it?

Originally introduced in 10.2 Jaguar Zoom was a mixed bag. graphically it was a major improvement from its OS 9 based predecessor CloseView. Zoom offered a really smooth, natural image quality that rivalled that of commercially available solutions. It had its shortcomings too.

After yours truly called Applecare and submitted a lengthy list of feature requests and bugs the following changes were made:

1. Zoom follows the keyboard focus was added.

2. increase/ decrease contrast was added.

3. Automatic switching to 256 colours when reversing contrast was disabled.

4. New zoom window alinement modes and keyboard shortcuts were introduced.

Although it didn't all happen at once I was still very impressed with how quickly Apple responded to all complaints. Either a lot of people complained or Zoom was still in development with resources and funds in abundance. Only Apple knows.

That was over 7 years ago. Since then Apple only added a few marginal improvements (like the ability to zoom using mouse scrolling). As things like display technology and OS X itself continued changing and developing Zoom remained essentially unchanged. Its image smoothing no longer looked as natural and as convincing using large displays and high screen resolutions. Things got worse with the release of Snow Leopard which introduced the following issues:

* Conflicting shortcuts between Zoom and VO.

* erratic behaviour of the mouse pointer and zoom window when VO is enabled.

* Issues with graphics caused by VO affecting the behaviour of mouse pointer and Zoom Window.

Just to name a few. I'll be taking a closer look at problems with Zoom and Snow Leopard in my later posts.

I'd like to point out that I don't expect Apple to make any dramatic changes to Zoom overnight. In fact I don't expect any major improvements. Its a magnification utility. It was never really meant to be anything else. I don't care for the bells and the whistles. Zoom was never a state of the art magnifier. What I do however expect are routine compatibility checks and maintenance updates. At the very least Because as it is now Zoom just appears to be abandoned. As if Apple shifted their focus away from its further development and maintenance.

Safari 5.0.1 - VoiceOver crash

After updating Safari I've been having a lot of problems with VO while browsing the web. One of the issues that really sticks out like a sore thumb (and makes any demos of VO almost embarrassing) is VO crashing and becoming unresponsive while browsing the web.

I first noticed this issue when browsing the www.apple.com (of all places on the web it had to happen on the Apple's website!). I clicked a link for the new Apple TV or an iPod, can't remember. When the page was loading VO announced "Safari busy". Then, it became silent and unresponsive. When I switched the focus to Finder (command+Tab) it suddenly announced "VoiceOver On". Went back to Safari and VO went silent again.

Thought it was some kind of a random thing and restarted VO and Safari. Same problem occurred moments later. Restarted the Mac, Turn on VO and Safari and the problem presented itself again. Went to all of the Macs in my house and sure enough the problem was 100% reproducible on all of them.

I even thought may be the shortcut for VO toggling got reassigned somehow but checking the Shortcuts showed it to be "command + F5".

After further troubleshooting and experimenting I can post the following observations:

1. Problem occurs when Safari is still loading the page. So right after you click a link and wait for it to load that's when it happens.

2. Chances of the problem occurring increase if you attempt to use VO navigation controls (tabbing, keys or TrackPad commander gestures) while the page is still loading.

3. …And this is kind of good news because reloading the page upon which VO had crashed fixes the problem. Most of the time that is. Sometimes it does nothing and at this point you have to force quit Safari.

I posted about this over at the Apple Discussion forums

Also emailed accessibility@apple.com

introduction

I'm a Mac user. Putting this forth as a disclaimer because this blog is going to be focusing on my day to day experience of using OS X and its built-in accessibility features. Among other things I will talk about the problems I encounter. Occasionally there will be references to accessibility solutions on other platforms. So for the record this blog isn't about bashing Apple and their efforts to make OS X accessible to all users. I'm not a Windows fan boy and I have been a Mac user all my life.

Having said that I will not treat any of the more serious OS X accessibility issues with kid gloves. especially when those are persistently ignored by Apple. Here, the gloves are off.