Leopard is Apple's best-looking operating system yet, from its breezy Cover Flow file browsing to the starry-looking Time Machine backup. It's no wonder visual artists love Macs.
But how well does Leopard work for blind users?
"[Vision-impaired] people who use Macs are mostly in the category of, "My boss says we have to use Macs," or "I'm a teacher and that's what I'm stuck with,"" said Crista Earl, director of Web operations at the American Foundation for the Blind.
Among 10 million visually impaired people in the United States, at least 1.5 million use computers, according to the American Foundation for the Blind. To serve this population, Windows machines have traditionally offered more baked-in features and compatibility with third-party software and devices than Macs.
Earl, who is blind, only uses computers running Microsoft Windows. She edits documents in braille and relies upon a screen-reader application to "read" text and links aloud in Internet Explorer and other programs.
However, to serve users such as Earl, Apple has made 17 Universal Access enhancements within Leopard.
Leopard is the first operating system that can be installed using a braille display. It also supports the forms of braille used both for reading and editing. There are enhancements to the VoiceOver tool, which reads aloud text on a page in a male or female voice. Users can now move VoiceOver's preferences from one Mac to another, so they don't have to waste time configuring each new machine. In addition, VoiceOver can recognize misspelled words and jump to chunks of a Web page instead of forcing a user to wait while it reads one word at a time.
Earl said these changes are a step in the right direction, and she hopes to check them out on a friend's Mac. Mac OS X also offers some advantages over Windows for people with limited vision, such as the capability to display the screen in black and white.
"I don't mean I'd give up my Windows computer," she said. "I have work to do. It's gonna take a lot from the last time I saw VoiceOver."
Accessibility features from any vendor are usually more frustrating to use than advertised, Earl added. Part of the problem is that instead of integrating essential tools within their operating systems, Microsoft and Apple have left it up to third parties to fill in the gaps with extra, paid software.
For example, the screen readers within Windows and Mac OS X pale next to applications like JAWS or Window-Eyes. Earl wonders why the tech giants don't just buy one of the better tools, then weave it into their operating systems.
"One of the reasons things haven't gotten very far is that the companies making screen readers are constantly fighting the next battle," Earl said.
Blame the ever-evolving nature of Web site designs. Once screen-reader makers figured out how to make Adobe Acrobat accessible, for instance, Adobe Flash rendered Web pages mute to blind users. Now that more Flash sites work with screen readers, the AJAX coding of the Web 2.0 era poses new challenges.
Both the challenges in making accessibility tools and the market for them are poised to expand. More young people are suffering repetitive stress disorders such as carpal tunnel syndrome, while aging Baby Boomers grapple with diminished vision, hearing, and mobility.
People whose hands and arms suffer keyboard fatigue, or worse, can use speech-to-text software that types what they speak. For them, Windows builds in voice-activated dictation and commands. Leopard enables voice-activated commands only. The rich Dragon NaturallySpeaking from Nuance runs only on Windows. For Macs, the equivalent ViaVoice (or iListen, which I haven't tested) are considered less robust.
I find each of these dictation applications awkward to use. Just spend an hour with one for a few laughs as it garbles your speech.
Nevertheless, hardware and software manufacturers appear to be paying more attention to the needs of an affluent, aging population.
"A newcomer to visual impairment tends to expect, rightly, for things to be a whole lot easier than they are," Earl said. "That pressure of lots of disappointed users might make things better for everybody."
Here, kitty kitty kitty! Rain-soaked Apple nerds wait for Leopard.
(Credit: Caroline McCarthy/CNET Networks)NEW YORK--On Friday afternoon at the hour that Apple launched its latest operating system, Mac OS 10.5 Leopard, it was pouring rain in Manhattan. It was also windy and chilly. That didn't stop several hundred people from lining up outside the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue to get their hands on the new software, huddled underneath Gore-Tex jackets and umbrellas.
"It's the cult," commented another reporter who had also been covering the water-saturated event.
The line for Leopard appeared to be divided fairly evenly between rabid Apple fans and shoppers who'd figured they could stop by and pick it up quickly--and indeed, come launch time, the line moved fast as customers were ushered into a gauntlet of Apple Store employees (much like the iPhone launch in June) and directed straight to the cash registers when the doors opened at 6 p.m.
"It's a happening," said first-in-liner Bob Greenlees, a twenty-something student at the nearby Cardozo School of Law, when I asked him why he'd bothered to wait amidst inclement weather for an operating system that could easily have been pre-ordered online and delivered to his front door. "It's one of those things. It's Apple, it's Fifth Avenue, it's a flagship store. And it's an opportunity to be in line for something without waiting for three days."
Greenlees, after posing for a photo with his new purchase, said that he was going to go straight home and install it. He'd been in line since about 2:30 p.m.
The line went to the corner and around the block to the intersection of 58th Street and Madison Avenue.
(Credit: Caroline McCarthy/CNET Networks)"I came for the free t-shirt," said Steven Miranda, a Manhattan College student who was ninth in line. The Apple Store was offering t-shirts to the first 500 people who showed up, and for hardcore Apple fans, those shirts were a coveted prize. I asked Miranda and his friends whether they agreed with Wall Street Journal tech columnist Walt Mossberg's assertion that Leopard was "evolutionary, not revolutionary."
"Compared to Vista, it's revolutionary!" chimed in one Apple fan who was just ahead of Miranda in line. Indeed, the Microsoft-taunting was hardly under the radar. One person in line was wearing a t-shirt that bore the Windows logo along with the caption "Hasta la Vista."
For the two hours prior to the Leopard launch, the normally 24/7 Fifth Avenue store had been closed in preparation--my personal theory is Apple closed the store for a longer span of time than it needed to, to assure that an adequate queue would form in anticipation, but I'm sure Apple's not about to confirm that to me.
In addition to Leopard t-shirts, buyers were also treated to free umbrellas as they were ushered into the store. Nice move, Apple. "Keep the Leopard dry!" an Apple Store employee shouted. "Cats don't like water!"
But that raises a very serious question. Now that Apple has let Leopard out of its cage, following in the tracks of Cheetah, Puma, Jaguar, Panther, and Tiger, the big question is--which cat's next?
My money's on Ocelot.
NEW YORK--At about 1 p.m. EDT in midtown Manhattan, I overheard a group of suit-clad thirtysomething men talking as they waited to cross Madison Avenue.
"You know, leopards are solitary animals," one of them said. The other three or four continued musing on the characteristics of the large exotic felines, and I figured that it was actually part of a conversation about Apple's latest operating system, which launches Friday at 6 p.m. I thought, wow, if fratty midtown office types are talking about Mac OS X 10.5, there must be a huge line of fanboys at the Apple store!
Wrong. There was almost no sign of a major product launch at the 24-hour Apple store on Fifth Avenue, besides a few signs and posters announcing Leopard's advent. The store was still a mob scene, of course--in that touristy shopping district just south of Central Park, it always is. But there was no buzz factor like there had been with the crazy iPhone launch in June.
Apple Store customers try out Leopard at the Fifth Avenue store in NYC.
(Credit: Caroline McCarthy/CNET Networks)Apple retail employees told reporters that the store would be closed from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. for preparations, and that when the doors finally opened, there would be "demos all night long."
For an idea of what the scene might be like, they told the press to look up the Japanese launch of Leopard the previous night, which apparently had eager buyers lined up around the block. Then, clearly uncomfortable about saying too much, they said to contact company public-relations representatives instead and encouraged the press to test out the new operating system--it was already installed on all the demo computers at the store.
A few minutes later, reporters were informed that Apple retail employees had just been told not to speak to the press any more, until Leopard's launch at 6 p.m.
Meow.
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